Apparently, even when parents are paying attention to their children's gaming habits, they're paying attention to the wrong things.
The research showed that parents were more concerned about children spending too many hours playing games, rather than about what type of title they were playing.
Never mind the fact that some video games can be educational and good for you. Gentle Brain Exercises for the Nintendo DS comes to mind. Additionally some studies have shown video gaming can improve hand-eye coordination.
The older generation needs to realize that first of all, video games are no longer just for kids. The kids that were playing them back in the 80's have now grown up and have children of their own, but many of them are still playing video games. This means that there just might be games out there tailored for this more mature audiance.
And to a certain degree, sticking an 18-rating on a game made that title more desirable.
"We called it Magic 18," said Mr Freund. "The 18+ label was seen as promoting the content, promising adult content rather then saying 'my parents will stop me playing this.'"
As has been shown with just about anything you put an age limit on (drinking, smoking, pornography), younger children will find this content more desirable simply for the fact that they're not allowed to have it. This might make them curious as to what about it makes the content not for them. In other cases the children will want to use the product to feel rebelious or more mature. Regardless of whether this idea of thinking is stupid or not doesn't stop it from happening.
You'd think that being young themselves at some point, the older generation would understand this phenomena and figure out a way to stop it, but obviously not. You could say that regulartory boards are designed for this, but they've failed miserably as far as I'm concerned. So rather than take direct action, people for the most part seem more interested in abdicating their parental responsiblity to government legislation.
Of course the people who need to understand this most are the people who don't read slashdot. The tech savvy crowd here is generally well aware of modern video games and the content they can contain, both good and bad.
Ironically, most people knew that games had age ratings, the study by the Swiss research firm Modulum showed.
Doh! So they actually do know that games can contain really bad content.
However, parents were still letting their children play 18-rated games.
Double Doh!
To quote the parent, "Most parents are too divorced from nearly all aspects of their children's lives." According to the article it would seem that more people than expected know about what their kids are playing, but just don't give a shit about it. So when society goes to hell because the children of today, just remember it's your fault for doing a shitty job of raising them and have no one else to blame but yourselves.
This is almost the same has creating a search that highlights a given word in an article or document, similar to the find feature with Firefox.
They're only extending the search to include all numbers and words representing numbers. Essentially instead of searching for just one word, number, or collection of symbols, they're searching for a whole bunch at the same time and emphasizing the results.
Essentially we get a preprogrammed search to pick out anything that might represent numerical data. I'm certain that something similar to this has been done before in exactness or in a very similar manner. I don't know of many programs that currently support the ability to search as broadly as this (i.e. pick out nouns, verbs, numbers, Names, etc. rather than just one number, word, collection of symbols) especially in terms of word processors and the like. Why not just patent the idea to search and emphasise certain types of symbols (i.e. numbers, Names, places, whatever else) rather than just going after this more specialized case of numbers?
Of course this brings us to wonder, should such an idea outlined above even be patentable? I really don't care much at this point, but it would be a useful feature to see in word processors and other things like this in the future. It would probably be better if it weren't just in one word processor though.
If this report is to be believed then Apple is selling roughly half as many songs per day as Sony was selling per month according to the description.
Give it a month or so and they will probably be going through 450,000 songs a day. I'm guessing that the reduced price has more to do with it than the Apple Brand. It looks like Apple is going to sell a lot of iPods to Japanese consumers.
I wonder if these latest developments will be enough to bring Sony around to reaching an agreement with Apple.
This reminds me of the movie Gattica in a way. How long until companies like this just refuse to hire people who are genetically prone to carple tunnle or anything else that might affect their work performance?
It's widely accepted that Microsoft has lost a lot of money with the Xbox and breaking into the console gaming business. How much more of a loss on this venture are they willing to take?
Considering that right off the bat they will be losing money for every Xbox 360 sold (probably not as much with the $399 or $349 priced model) as well as the enormous amount of advertising they're going to be doing over the Christmas holiday, when are they going to start seeing money coming back in?
Because that the PS3 will be just as technologically powerful as the Xbox 360 if not moreso in some regards, the Xbox 360 will have a harder time convincing people that it's the most powerful console out there. Additionally, with the Nintendo Revolution expected to debut at $200 (or less!) Microsoft may find itself in a tricky situation. They migth have more money than all slashdotters put together, but can they really afford to keep soaking up losses like this?
And now something like this comes out: "Microsoft has set up a fund (of sorts) to be utilized for subsidizing game development and promotion for the XBX360. We think the Company will provide financial incentives in the form of development dollars, sales and promotions, and reduced royalty structures. At the end of the day, expensive third-party product development (on key IP) could be subsidized in part by Microsoft's balance sheet."
The whole thing looks like a house of cards to me. It's understandable that Microsoft needs to sell consoles to get companies to develope games for it. In order to sell consoles they need to get companies to develope games worth buying for that console, exclusive if at all possible. However, if you're selling a console for a loss and hoping to make up for that by charging royalty fees to any company that releases a game on your console, it doesn't make sense to reduce that royalty rate as well as throw money for developement, advertising, and promotions. The only reason they're able to do this is because of the massive amounts of cash flow they have from other divisions. The only way this works is if they sell enough consoles where people buy games in a large enough volume so that royalties cover the costs. This only works in the long run, however, if enough people have bought the console where game sales reach that point.
I realize that this probably sounds like a lot of FUD, a troll, or an attempt to start a flame war, but you should understand that I have an Xbox and enjoy a lot of the games that it has made possible. Some of them might have come out for other platforms but I don't know if I'd've ever had the joy of playing Halo, KOTOR, or some other unique Xbox games if it weren't for what Microsoft did. However, I can't agree with their current strategy that will eventually cost them enough money so that they consider discontinuing future generations of the Xbox. They probably have enough money to support it indefinately, but will they?
I don't see what's to stop them from using a strategy similar to Nintendo's. If they sold every console for a profit, they'd be able to reduce the royalty rates which could result in games still being priced at $50. With a strategy like this and their installed base, I think they could do a much better job of carving out a larger market share in the future years. The only other concern I have is that the one million units expected at launch won't be enough to satisfy the demands of all consumers. If they launch in November, will they have enough units to satisfy the demand at Christmas? If this happens many consumers might just say to hell with the Xbox 360 and wait until a PS3 launch which is expected in March.
It seems to me that they've jumped the gun a little and it will probably cause them problems down the road. I hope they're able to keep things running smoothly as they do make a wonderful console and have some great games and an excellent online model to go along with it. They've done some innovative things in the industry and it would be a shame to see them have to drop out due to poor planning. Here's hoping for the best.
We've already got a good handle on what we'll get with the $299 model, but what extras should we expect in a $350 or $399 model?
The best I can guess is that a $350 model would have a larger HD, extra controler, and possibly some type of memory card for transporting saved games. I see this as rather pointless since you could buy an extra controler for around $30 tops or get a cheap 3rd party controller for less. I don't know the initial size of the Xbox 360 HD but I've heard 20 GB as an expected starting point. But why not just spend $100 on a nice 200 GB HD and put it in yourself. I'm sure that people will figure out how to hack or mod the box to get it to accept one that large.
The $399 model would almost need to have a game bundled in with it along with the other stuff. The only problem I see is that not everyone will want the game that comes with it. People will just buy the $299 version and pick whatever game they want for themselves.
"Of the 1 million units Microsoft is expected to have available at launch, I expect 80% of them will probably be the more expensive SKU, because that's what early adopters are going to want."
I don't know if I can agree with that. Unless Microsoft doesn't give users a choice, I'd bet most would go with the $299 model. At least that's what I'd be going with. I can't justify the extra cost for a slightly larger HD when I'll eventually want to throw in a really big one and mod it to run Linux. Then again I'm probably not the target customer for the Xbox 360 so maybe it's just me. Either way I don't see how consumers knowingly shelling out an extra $100 ($50 possibly) for a few extras that aren't necessary.
I realize you're being sarcastic, or at least I hope you are, but there are people out there who will seriously react in this manner.
Let me point out that if you stay up for 50 hours straight, it's going to result in health problems regardless of what you're doing. In order to stay up for so long you'd need some sort of stimulants to keep your body going. If he'd been drinking coffee or other cafinated beverages and eating sugary foods to give his body energy then it's not too hard to see that this was more likely the cause of his death than playing video games.
He could have stayed up for 50 hours watching TV, playing checkers, using his computer to browse the internet, play the piano, or just about anything else. Granted that a video game will be a little more intense, increasing adrenalin levels and resulting in the brain releasing other chemicals that might not mix well with caffine or produce undue strain on the heart and other organs.
The point I'd like to get across is that playing video games probably doens't have much to do with this. It's almost like saying that video games caused your death if your house burned down with you in it. It might be a contributing factor to some degree, but it wasn't the cause of death. Until someone takes a GameBoy or PSP to the skull at 300 miles per hour, I doubt we can say there have been many deaths caused by video games. So let's hope the crazies reason along the same line and don't start proclaiming video games as evil killing machines.
"I think middle school is the first time to think about it," she said. "Definitely by high school, I think a laptop makes all the sense in the world [because sharing one desktop] with a family is not at all possible. They're using it for all their papers, they're using it for everything else."
I think it would be a better idea to purchase them a regular PC when they're in middle school or high school. First of all, most children are still not all that responsible at that age. Granted that some of you might have been, but I think that the vast majority of children wouldn't be. Allowing something that they can haul to school where it could be stolen, broken, lost, or something else is not a good idea. Other children will want to use it and it will propably cause all kinds of other problems.
Although laptops are becoming more affordable, desktop PCs are dirt cheap. I just got a Dell catalogue in the mail less than a week ago. There were some computers listed for under $400 with monitor included. This computer will be in the safety of the home and will allow you to keep better tabs on what your child is doing with their computer. I don't want to sound like the secret police, but middle school children are still stupid enough to give their address to a child predator.
They can get a laptop when they go to college and might lug it to every class to take notes with and the small space it takes up with be a plus in a tiny dorm room. Until then, I think it would be better to hold off on purchasing them a laptop. Get a cheap PC instead, or better yet give them your old one and buy a new one for yourself.
I absolutely agree. Eventually the weight of legal cases that are self-evident bullshit will break the camel's back. Until that time, however, coorperations won't even be able to cross the street without having someone sue them.
If the big companies in favor of software patents are at all interested in keeping those patents I suggest that they help the system out by getting rid of vague patents that can apply to almost anything, much like the case here.
Judges should also start fining corperations that bring frivilous suits against other companies based on such patents. Offending companies will pay a fine of at least $100,000 as well as paying for the legal fees associated with the case. Money collected will go to education for the poor. Lawyers dumb enough to file said suit will be barred from practicing law in the United States for a period of time no less than 2 years and possibly deported to the sun.
Foreign countries (like China) should blatantly ignore other patents of asshat corperations that practice patent litigation for profit effectively eliminating an oversees business for that company. If they complain, a letter comprised of the 372 ways in which that person/company is a complete asshat/fuckwad/douche/other derogatory name will be sent back to them at their own expense.
In times like these it is society's responsibility to discourage this type of moronic behavior be any means necessary. Maybe once the world has gotten it drilled into the thick skulls of these moronic bufoons that such behavior is frowned upon, we can go back to business as normal. Until such a time, soulless goons like these will continue to take advantage of the system at the expense of everyone else.
Maybe it's a bit stereotypical of me, but here I go anyway. The people who are most likely to give a rat's ass about their appearance and buy Tommy Hilfiger clothes, colone, products, are the same people who aren't tech savvy enough to know that Linux exists or if they do, much more than the fact that it does exist.
Anyone who's hired by a company to manage a system like that shouldn't be hired on the basis of whether they think Tommy Hilfiger products are trendy, cool, or whatever. They should be hired because they know how to get the job done regardless of whether or not you're using Linux, Windows, something else, or any combination.
Regardless it doesn't change the fact that the comment made by Eric seems a little ignorant. Perhaps the comment was made simply to justify the move and the associated expenses to the bigwigs. They probably won't understand the finer points and nuances of it all so saying, "This is more reliable and will make things easier/better for us," is probably more than enough for the people who can't be bothered or outright don't want to know all of that "computer stuff." After all, it is going to take some money to migrate away from Linux, and that cost needs to be justified. Would your boss be happy if you were just throwing money around?
I don't doubt that there are a lot of people at Microsoft who really do make wonderful and innovative products and don't care one wiff if someone wants to use an OSS solution.
However, it's plainly clear that one hand isn't aware of what the other is doing. Here we have someone suggesting that Microsoft is about cooperating and being friendly towards the OSS community, which is probably true. Yet the upper management in Microsoft seems more content on crushing or marginalizing OSS rather than fostering the cooperation that a lot of the people in the company might feel.
I can understand this as the people lower on the totem pole probably get a flat salary and some stock options on occasion if they want them. The top brass makes money whenever the company sells an MS product and potentially loses out when someone tries OSS software. The guys making the same $40 (or whatever) an hour will make that same $40 whether or not John Doe runs Linux, Windows, or OS X. Granted that they would be laid off if no one bought Windows and the company went under, but that seems a little unreasonable at this point in time.
It's pretty clear though that there are some mixed and widely different viewpoints in the company. A lot of hardcore Linux people could easily write this off as more junk from the evil MS, but I actually feel that these are truthful answers that are believable. However, since Mr. Hilf isn't calling all the shots, it really doesn't matter how he feels. Microsoft upper management will generally tend to pursue tactics to get rid of Linux.
The first time I read this, I nearly shat myself because it was so funny.
It's the story of a man who is targeted by Nigerian scammers but gets revenge on them and actually screws them out of some money. The whole thing takes place over several months and includes pictures, audio recordings of phone conversations, email correspondence and other stuff.
It's quite long, but worth a read if you have the time.
Jack Thompson is nothing more than the boy who cried wolf. While his tactics are effective at first, eventually people will get sick of him blowing the whistle on anything that seems innapropriate to him. When they do, he will be left flapping is jaws and wondering why no one is listening to him.
If he wanted to go after GTA and get it an AO rating for the violence, I'd probably be fine with that. Considering the amount of violence in the game, it's not too hard for anyone who's ever played it to say it may be innapropriate for a majority of younger teenagers. Consider, for example, the movie Titanic in which you could see a breast that wasn't a really poor and clunky animation rendered on 5 year old hardware. This movie was rated PG-13. Consider several R rated movies with sex scenes that are more pornographic than the comical and largely unerotic scene in San Andreas.
This is merely the latest Salem witch trial. Eventually the whole thing will blow over. Eventually, Jack Thompson, like Senator McCarthy will go so far over the top that he will lose credibility. I think that this has already happened to an extent when he went after The Sims 2. When he does go, I can honestly say that I won't miss him one bit. Goodbye, moronic fuckwad.
I think Sony is trying to form some sort of unholy union with Apple. I think this would make a lot more sense if Apple weren't jumping ship and switching to x86 processors in the coming years.
Considering that each cell has a PPC core, it's plausible to a certain extent that OS X could be made to run on a PS3 with some changes to take advantage of the cell's abilities and the lack of AltiVec (I'm not even sure how much OS X uses this to begin with), smaller cache, and other changes made to the PPC chip on the cell.
Sony stands to benefit from this deal because they get a solid OS available to them to run on their PS3. This allows them to say that the PS3 can be used as a computer as well (just make sure to buy our $100 hard drive and the $100 software). They get to sell some accessories, which they seem to love doing considering the amount of stuff (memory cards, multitaps, network adapters, hard drives) that you could use to upgrade your PS2. It's likely they'd also get a small amount of money for each copy software sale Apple makes.
Apple tends to benefit if they handle things a little more carefully. If they start giving PS3 owners the full version of OS X then the whole clone problem that Apple had in the past rears its ugly head once again. On the other hand, offering a stripped down version of the OS for the PS3 that doesn't have all the bells and whistles attached could easily pursuade more consumers to purchase Apple computers. It would be very similar in result to Windows users purchaing an iPod and deciding to try an Apple computer. Considering that the PS2 has sold over 80 million units world wide, it might be tempting for Apple to give more people a small taste of what they have to offer considering the potential amount of users the PS3 can reach.
What I really think this is all about though is that Sony wants to get in a little closer with Apple. Sony has wanted to get into the online music business for quite some time now but has found itself falling flat on its face. Apple's iPod and iTunes have been dozens of times more successful than whatever Sony has had to offer. If OS X or some varient of it is ported onto Sony's console you can bet it will have iTunes on it that will be featuring Sony's songs (and maybe eventually movies) available for download. Not only does it give Sony a way to start selling its music through a venue that many people already know, trust, and use, but it will give Sony a digital media box that can do everything a console, computer, and home entertainment center can do. This would be widely popular in Japan where living conditions are more cramped and people would welcome having one box that can do everything.
Having accomplished what Microsoft has been wanting to do so badly, get into the living room as the media centerpiece, Sony would be able to one up them in a sense. Microsoft has been designing the Xbox 360 to do exactly this. If you don't believe me, consider all the features it has built in that allow it to link to a Windows PC. Apple and Sony could team up and accomplish the same thing in an effort to drive Microsoft out of the console business. Considering the amount of money Microsoft has lost with the Xbox, and it likely to lose early on with the Xbox 360, they can't afford to trail so far behind this generation. If Sony can out-do Microsoft in almost every aspect, they could easily accomplish the feat. I'm quite sure that Apple wouldn't have much of a grudge in hurting Microsoft either.
Eventually this will hurt Microsoft more than most people would think at first. Considering that Sony is likely to use OpenGL (can't recall where I read this) which Microsoft dislikes because it's an open source standard competing with their proprietary one and that more and more games are being made on consoles rather than on the PC, ports of widely successful games would be made with OpenGL as well.
Now that I've gotten everyone who hates Microsoft with a passion hopes up, I will kindly point out that none of this is likely to happen. Considering the egos of the two men whose cooperation would be necessary to pull this off, it seems unlikely it will ever come to pass. Conspiracy theory that sounds good on paper, yes. Accurate prediction of future events, no.
I don't even think Microsoft would try to get Vista running on the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 has the recommended amount of RAM so it wouldn't do to badly in that department, but of course there would be no way for them to upgrade the RAM. The larger, problem, however is that the Xbox 360 uses a triple core PPC processor whereas Windows Vista is designed to run on an x86 processor. In order to get Vista to run on an Xbos 360 they would need to port the code to run on a PPC processor. In addition they would need to rewrite a lot of it to make it multi-threaded because that's what the Xbox 360's processor handles best. It's not really designed to run something intensively on one thread as that limits its performance to 1/6 (each core is capable of two threads each last I heard) of performance. That would create a rather large bottleneck and probably result in a poor user experience.
Assuming they did in fact manage to get a version of their OS to run on the Xbox 360, they'd run into the problem that eventually someone will get Linux running on the console. Considering Microsoft can't afford to sink too much money into the console in building a solid OS that runs fast, whatever they manage to port will likely be just as flawed as their regular operating systems are. Given a choice between Linux or Windows, I think that a lot of people would tend to choose Linux. Not all of them, but more than in the computer market considering there are more tech savvy people purchasing consoles.
In short, Microsoft even trying to get Windows onto their new console is most likely going to be the biggest flop they've had in a long while.
You know how the story goes: "A few rotten apples spoil the bunch."
Wikipedia is one of the most awesome things ever to come out of the depths of the internet. It provides up to date, accurate content from a variety of different sources and view points that is subject to the collective scrutiny of the community that maintains it.
It's something like democracy in that everyone has an active hand in it which inspires people to do their best because the wikipedia is as much theirs as anyone else's.
Of course there are always going to be asshats, internet trolls, and other fuckwads who spoil a good thing be being dicks. As with any society, organization, or project that is open and free in nature, there exists the possibility that someone can easily ruin it for everyone.
When this happens the common reaction is to take away some of that freedom in order to maintain what has been created. This is very similar to the US Patriot Act which is theoretically designed to protect the United States be limiting individual freedoms for the greater good. Whether you agree with the approach or not is moot.
Perhaps the best way to handle something so democratic as wikipedia is to have changed content be reviewed by several people who can reject or approve the changes before they go through. Another system akin to the/. moderation system would to give editors who do a good job at wikipedia more control over what they can change and how much they can change it. This means that the best editors will be able to quickly change content if necessary and provide new entries as necessary while preventing some jerk with too much time on his/her hands from doing a lot of damage.
I honestly believe that video games have had an effect on the violence levels in this country. When a video game console hits a price of around $100 at a game store almost everyone can afford one, even less well to do kids in big cities.
These kids now have an alternate form of entertainment and something to do with their free time other than join a gang or wander the streets causing or looking for trouble.
Another aspect is that some games can serve as a stress release valve for people. If I'm feeling really stressed out to the point that I almost want to choke someone I can pop in my copy of GTA and take it out some virtual people or property. I honestly believe that I've become a less violent person after playing through the GTA games because I had a virtual world where I could release my anger and agression that wouldn't result in any harm to real people.
For every stupid person who comits a crime and blames GTA or some video game, just think of how many crimes that same video game might have prevented.
I think the younger generation will continue to accept slashdot and that the membership will increase as time continues.
After all, this site is dedicated to technology, science, and legal and political matters relating to them. The younger generations that have grown up more exposed to technology will certainly be more interested in news about it than some of the older generations.
On the flip side, however, young people tend to like to do things differently. They like to do something new that defines them. I wouldn't find it hard to believe that within ten years that generation will have created something similar to slashdot, but more akin to their unique culture.
The only way to know for sure is to wait and find out. I'll probably be here for a long while, if not the rest of my life and I'm fairly new to the slashdot crowd if that's any indication.
Camera pans to show children playing with various toys. Billy is sitting on the side by himself playing with his chemistry set. The more popular kids are playing with a football. Suddenly ten hot women come out of no where and surround Billy, cooing over him.
Suddenly something in one of the tubes starts fizzling. Suddenly the President comes into view and hands Billy a big bag of money and says, "By God Billy, you've found a cure for cancer!" Everyone starts cheering.
All the kids playing with non-science related toys get fat, ugly, and contract AIDs on the spot. They all fall over dead and no one seems to care about them. Billy is given a parade in his honor.
Roll credits.
A little extreme perhaps but I think if we made science look "cool" to little kids they'd probably buy it. If I would've seen this when I were little I'd probably have become a chemist.
If the directive is adopted, software used primarily for illegal file sharing, for example, could potentially make its developers criminally liable in one or several EU member countries.
I think this would get a little bit tricky and could cause some serious legal problems. Sure you could go after BitTorrent because people can use it for illegal purposes, but you have to realize that this is no different than most other products.
Cars are a wonderful way of getting from place to place that can be used for such illegal activities as escaping from the scene of a crime, running people over, and smuggling drugs into a country.
Guns and Bows can be used for hunting, whether for sport or food. Of course they are both also used in illegal manners such as killing people, robbing someone, and hijackings.
Explosives provide us with a nice and easy way to demolish old buildings, blast through mountains to provide tunnles, and to clear the land for whatever reason. Unfortunately, they can be used for doing very naughty things like car bombing some unfortunate soul, trying to blow up the WTC, and to forcably get into vaults.
Just about anything that serves a useful purpose to mankind has some way of being used for destructive, immoral, or illegal purposes. If we banned everything that could be used for harm and arrested the people who made those things, there wouldn't be very many people out of jail to use the very few products that were left.
I'd rather see a focused effort at the people who are commiting the crimes.
Is this going to be a launch title for the Xbox 360 or will it wait for the PS3?
What's that you say, not a video game. Surely things of such nature died out years ago.
Honestly though it is kind of strange (in a refreshing way) to see a game article that has nothing to do with consoles, PCs, launch dates, etc. I'd like to see more aticles that focus on gaming outside the norm like this one. I read Penny Arcade fairly often, but somehow have never heard anything about this game.
Nice to see something that isn't an attack on MS/Sony, FUD about Nintendo flopping, or hype about some game months away from release.
But you forget that Nintendo will have had over a year to develop games for their console to ensure a strong launch. Remember that Nintendo is also a software company (i.e. they make games for their own hardware). It doesn't make sense that their development teams wouldn't have had access to some really really alpha hardware.
From some rumors that I've heard they want to have a Mario game, Metroid Prime 3, and a new Super Smash Brothers game ready for system launch. Add in the fact that other companies can port existing games developed for other consoles over to the revolution in the months leading up the its release.
Nintendo has traditionally been weak on release titles and it's one of the things they've learned the hard way and are trying to fix. Assuming the console also launches with the ability to download old NES, SNES, and N64 games and they've already got a huge library of games available for release.
What would really be interesting is if they offered a device that would accept NES, SNES, and N64 carts. I'm assuming if the Revolution can emulate or outright run those games from some downloaded format, it might be able to do something similar with the actual carts. Just think of the device as something similar to accessories for the Cube and SNES that let you play GBA and GB games.
Microsoft will probably only offer a price cut if it becomes practical to do so. They're more than likely already selling each console at a loss, so it seems unlikely they'd go much lower. If 360's aren't flying off the shelf because people waited for the PS3 and/or Revolution, the manufacturing cost won't drop much if at all. Considering they probably wouldn't be able to drop the price even close to $50, I don't think they could come close to the Revolution which will most likely debut for $200 or less.
Whether or not Bungie can deliver a Halo 3 worth playing at the time of the PS3 launch remains to be seen. They could possibly rush something out the door, but I don't think it would be as good as it possibly could. My honest opinion is that a lot of potential Xbox 360 customers are going to be waiting for Halo 3 or another killer app as well news about future HD-DVD capabilities.
Quite the opposite. If it launches almost a year later, then prices of hardware will have dropped, and new technologies will have arrived, so I would assume they would take advantage of this and make it much more powerful to make up for the time loss. Also, no date has been set yet, last I heard, sometime around E3, was spring 2006 (iwata?)
First of all, I think Nintendo is using the extra time to make the cost of existing technology go down. Moore's law suggests that in 18 months transistor count will roughly double resulting in more powerful hardware. On the flip-side, the same technology that we have today will cost less to in the future. I think that Nintendo is looking at something on par with today's technology (or that at the release of the Xbox 360) that will be somewhat cheaper to produce in the future. Nintendo has never really cared about how many raw polygons that their console can push or how many Tflops it's capable of producing. That's why I don't think they're aiming any higher than technologically on par with the power of the Xbox 360.
I won't dispute that the GameCube is capable of pretty games. I think that Metroid Prime looked better than Halo and most other Xbox games from a artistic design. I don't know about how many polies each was pushing, but I really don't care. The fact that the GC and Xbox are superior to the PS2 rings pretty true, but that didn't stop anyone from making GT4. The key concept is how easy it is for designers to reach the full potential of a console. I've heard stories about how messed up and complicated the PS2's emotion engine could be, and how some people aren't happy with the difficulty of developing for the Xbox 360. I've never heard that Nintendo was either wonderful or horrendous to develop for so I can't comment on the ease of making a game on their platforms. No matter what though, it does seem like some developers (like those for Metroid and RE4) did find out how to get the most out of the Cube.
The spring '06 date you're thinking of is the widely expected release date of the PS3. Although some have speculated at later date, March of next year is what Sony has generally been saying. Most sources also point to Nintendo releasing their console 3Q '06, so about 6 months after the PS3 and a year after the Xbox 360. To your credit though, early reports from Nintendo suggested that they were aiming for a release date of that right around the PS3. At E3, however, they changed their tune and decided to release it on their own sweet time. At this point things are really up in the air. The only for sure date (time frame really) is for the 360. Nintendo has been pretty vauge, and I read an article on GameSpot that said the PS3 might not be released until 2007.
Microsoft really needed to spread out into the gaming business. Considering that consoles are becoming more and more popular and PC gaming has seen a bit of a decline (and no I'm not predicting its death!) and that Linux is becoming more gamer friendly, Microsoft won't be able to hold claim to PC gaming king for terribly much longer.
Expanding into the game market gave them to opportunity to do some innovative things for the console market. Built-in HD and networking hadn't been done before and allowed for some really nifty gaming experiences. It also allows them to take away some of the market from their competitors.
If Sony had lived up to a lot of the promises that it had made about the PS2 things could be radically different. Interestingly enough, Sony has said some similar things about the PS3. If the rumors that it will have Linux installed out of the box or freely be able to run it are true, that means a PS3 could easily serve as a computer. It wouldn't be a great one, but if it could handle Word Processing, email, and simple things like that, why would anyone need to buy a new Windows PC?
Sony has problems of its own though. It's spent a lot of time and money to make the PS3 and some of the included technologies. In order to compete in the marketplace it has to sell at a lose or the PS3 would be too expensive for most people to go out and buy.
Sony also has several other areas of business that it likes to incorperate into the PS3. Note how they're going to be using the same type of memory stick in the PS3 as they are with the PSP. I wouldn't be surprised if they included some type of music store or tried to include some aspect of their motion picture company into the mix as well (similar to how the PSP can play UMD movies). Sony seems to exist to sell a product so that it can sell other Sony products.
Whether or not all of this interconectivity will work or just piss off consumers remains to be seen. Sony could just have made a video game console, but they've made so much more. The thing used to be a router, can be a DVR if you buy an HD for it, could possible serve as a computer if it runs Linux, and just might make coffee for you if you ask it nicely. The fact that it plays games almost seems like side note. Some have suggested that this all in one feature is geared towards Japanese consumers who have small living spaces and would benefit most from having one piece of hardware that takes care of everything.
Nintendo is trying despirately to make up for past mistakes. Not using CDs or something similar for the Nintendo 64 really hurt them a lot and turned away a lot of developers. They're starting to get some of those back but many are still angry at Nintendo. They've realized some of their mistakes and have tried to rectify them as the article points out.
At the same time, Nintendo can't follow the same model that the other companies use. Nintendo doesn't have a division making a widely used OS or one that sells movies and music to fall back on. They can't make a $500 console, sell it for $300 and hope to stay in business. Sure they've got a nice cash reserve, but that's for when things really turn South.
Because Nintendo doesn't want to look bad by admitting they can't compete on the tech spec level with their competitors, they've adopted a "Game's are where it's at," creed that they at least follow to some degree. More or less it stems from their inability to produce something on the same power level as the PS3 or Xbox 360. They need something to say to make their console look worthy of purchase so they talk about good games and innovation. They've been saying this so long now that whether or not it was true to start with, they now believe it and follow it, to their graves it necessary.
Nintendo has a pretty good shot and doing well with the Revolution. If it launches 3Q 2006 it could be somewhat less powerful than the Xbox 360, but more than capable of producing high quality graphics and at a cheaper price as well. The ability to play games
There are plenty of good reasons to keep old consoles.
First, when you get a next generation console, it might not be able to play the games from the previous generation (e.g. Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, and possible the Xbox 360).
Additionally, some (like the PS3 is rumored to be) will not accept the memory storage devices from previous generations. Keep that PS2 around for PS2 games you've sunk a lot of time into but haven't finished.
Also, old games can be a lot of fun again after you haven't played them in years. I have a blast playing football (Tecmo Super Bowl) against my friends on SNES. The 2D platformers on the system are awesome as well.
Old games and systems can be worth a lot of money after a long time. I have in my possesion a copy of Chrono Trigger for SNES that I managed to find in a pawn shop for $5. I've seen the game for ten times that on Ebay. I wonder how much a pong machine or other really old hardware would fetch.
You can let your young children play the games. Granted that children are pretty sophisticated nowdays, but at young ages a simple NES controller and game will be easiest for them. I'm guessing a four or five year old can handle Mario better than Marion Sunshine.
There's probably more reasons for hanging on to a console after you're done with it. I traded in my GBA when I got a DS. It made it a little cheaper, but in hindsight I wish I would've kept my GBA. If you really must sell a console, sell it directly to someone else. You could sell that PS2 for $10 more than the game store would give you and your friend could get it cheaper than what the store would charge him. Better deal. Donating it to a hospital is also a good idea. As I recall the guys at Penny Arcade have been doing something similar to this and it's been working well.
Slashdot Mirror
The research showed that parents were more concerned about children spending too many hours playing games, rather than about what type of title they were playing.
Never mind the fact that some video games can be educational and good for you. Gentle Brain Exercises for the Nintendo DS comes to mind. Additionally some studies have shown video gaming can improve hand-eye coordination.
The older generation needs to realize that first of all, video games are no longer just for kids. The kids that were playing them back in the 80's have now grown up and have children of their own, but many of them are still playing video games. This means that there just might be games out there tailored for this more mature audiance.
And to a certain degree, sticking an 18-rating on a game made that title more desirable. "We called it Magic 18," said Mr Freund. "The 18+ label was seen as promoting the content, promising adult content rather then saying 'my parents will stop me playing this.'"
As has been shown with just about anything you put an age limit on (drinking, smoking, pornography), younger children will find this content more desirable simply for the fact that they're not allowed to have it. This might make them curious as to what about it makes the content not for them. In other cases the children will want to use the product to feel rebelious or more mature. Regardless of whether this idea of thinking is stupid or not doesn't stop it from happening.
You'd think that being young themselves at some point, the older generation would understand this phenomena and figure out a way to stop it, but obviously not. You could say that regulartory boards are designed for this, but they've failed miserably as far as I'm concerned. So rather than take direct action, people for the most part seem more interested in abdicating their parental responsiblity to government legislation.
Of course the people who need to understand this most are the people who don't read slashdot. The tech savvy crowd here is generally well aware of modern video games and the content they can contain, both good and bad.
Ironically, most people knew that games had age ratings, the study by the Swiss research firm Modulum showed.
Doh! So they actually do know that games can contain really bad content.
However, parents were still letting their children play 18-rated games.
Double Doh!
To quote the parent, "Most parents are too divorced from nearly all aspects of their children's lives." According to the article it would seem that more people than expected know about what their kids are playing, but just don't give a shit about it. So when society goes to hell because the children of today, just remember it's your fault for doing a shitty job of raising them and have no one else to blame but yourselves.
They're only extending the search to include all numbers and words representing numbers. Essentially instead of searching for just one word, number, or collection of symbols, they're searching for a whole bunch at the same time and emphasizing the results.
Essentially we get a preprogrammed search to pick out anything that might represent numerical data. I'm certain that something similar to this has been done before in exactness or in a very similar manner. I don't know of many programs that currently support the ability to search as broadly as this (i.e. pick out nouns, verbs, numbers, Names, etc. rather than just one number, word, collection of symbols) especially in terms of word processors and the like. Why not just patent the idea to search and emphasise certain types of symbols (i.e. numbers, Names, places, whatever else) rather than just going after this more specialized case of numbers?
Of course this brings us to wonder, should such an idea outlined above even be patentable? I really don't care much at this point, but it would be a useful feature to see in word processors and other things like this in the future. It would probably be better if it weren't just in one word processor though.
Give it a month or so and they will probably be going through 450,000 songs a day. I'm guessing that the reduced price has more to do with it than the Apple Brand. It looks like Apple is going to sell a lot of iPods to Japanese consumers.
I wonder if these latest developments will be enough to bring Sony around to reaching an agreement with Apple.
This reminds me of the movie Gattica in a way. How long until companies like this just refuse to hire people who are genetically prone to carple tunnle or anything else that might affect their work performance?
Considering that right off the bat they will be losing money for every Xbox 360 sold (probably not as much with the $399 or $349 priced model) as well as the enormous amount of advertising they're going to be doing over the Christmas holiday, when are they going to start seeing money coming back in?
Because that the PS3 will be just as technologically powerful as the Xbox 360 if not moreso in some regards, the Xbox 360 will have a harder time convincing people that it's the most powerful console out there. Additionally, with the Nintendo Revolution expected to debut at $200 (or less!) Microsoft may find itself in a tricky situation. They migth have more money than all slashdotters put together, but can they really afford to keep soaking up losses like this?
And now something like this comes out: "Microsoft has set up a fund (of sorts) to be utilized for subsidizing game development and promotion for the XBX360. We think the Company will provide financial incentives in the form of development dollars, sales and promotions, and reduced royalty structures. At the end of the day, expensive third-party product development (on key IP) could be subsidized in part by Microsoft's balance sheet."
The whole thing looks like a house of cards to me. It's understandable that Microsoft needs to sell consoles to get companies to develope games for it. In order to sell consoles they need to get companies to develope games worth buying for that console, exclusive if at all possible. However, if you're selling a console for a loss and hoping to make up for that by charging royalty fees to any company that releases a game on your console, it doesn't make sense to reduce that royalty rate as well as throw money for developement, advertising, and promotions. The only reason they're able to do this is because of the massive amounts of cash flow they have from other divisions. The only way this works is if they sell enough consoles where people buy games in a large enough volume so that royalties cover the costs. This only works in the long run, however, if enough people have bought the console where game sales reach that point.
I realize that this probably sounds like a lot of FUD, a troll, or an attempt to start a flame war, but you should understand that I have an Xbox and enjoy a lot of the games that it has made possible. Some of them might have come out for other platforms but I don't know if I'd've ever had the joy of playing Halo, KOTOR, or some other unique Xbox games if it weren't for what Microsoft did. However, I can't agree with their current strategy that will eventually cost them enough money so that they consider discontinuing future generations of the Xbox. They probably have enough money to support it indefinately, but will they?
I don't see what's to stop them from using a strategy similar to Nintendo's. If they sold every console for a profit, they'd be able to reduce the royalty rates which could result in games still being priced at $50. With a strategy like this and their installed base, I think they could do a much better job of carving out a larger market share in the future years. The only other concern I have is that the one million units expected at launch won't be enough to satisfy the demands of all consumers. If they launch in November, will they have enough units to satisfy the demand at Christmas? If this happens many consumers might just say to hell with the Xbox 360 and wait until a PS3 launch which is expected in March.
It seems to me that they've jumped the gun a little and it will probably cause them problems down the road. I hope they're able to keep things running smoothly as they do make a wonderful console and have some great games and an excellent online model to go along with it. They've done some innovative things in the industry and it would be a shame to see them have to drop out due to poor planning. Here's hoping for the best.
The best I can guess is that a $350 model would have a larger HD, extra controler, and possibly some type of memory card for transporting saved games. I see this as rather pointless since you could buy an extra controler for around $30 tops or get a cheap 3rd party controller for less. I don't know the initial size of the Xbox 360 HD but I've heard 20 GB as an expected starting point. But why not just spend $100 on a nice 200 GB HD and put it in yourself. I'm sure that people will figure out how to hack or mod the box to get it to accept one that large.
The $399 model would almost need to have a game bundled in with it along with the other stuff. The only problem I see is that not everyone will want the game that comes with it. People will just buy the $299 version and pick whatever game they want for themselves.
"Of the 1 million units Microsoft is expected to have available at launch, I expect 80% of them will probably be the more expensive SKU, because that's what early adopters are going to want."
I don't know if I can agree with that. Unless Microsoft doesn't give users a choice, I'd bet most would go with the $299 model. At least that's what I'd be going with. I can't justify the extra cost for a slightly larger HD when I'll eventually want to throw in a really big one and mod it to run Linux. Then again I'm probably not the target customer for the Xbox 360 so maybe it's just me. Either way I don't see how consumers knowingly shelling out an extra $100 ($50 possibly) for a few extras that aren't necessary.
Let me point out that if you stay up for 50 hours straight, it's going to result in health problems regardless of what you're doing. In order to stay up for so long you'd need some sort of stimulants to keep your body going. If he'd been drinking coffee or other cafinated beverages and eating sugary foods to give his body energy then it's not too hard to see that this was more likely the cause of his death than playing video games.
He could have stayed up for 50 hours watching TV, playing checkers, using his computer to browse the internet, play the piano, or just about anything else. Granted that a video game will be a little more intense, increasing adrenalin levels and resulting in the brain releasing other chemicals that might not mix well with caffine or produce undue strain on the heart and other organs.
The point I'd like to get across is that playing video games probably doens't have much to do with this. It's almost like saying that video games caused your death if your house burned down with you in it. It might be a contributing factor to some degree, but it wasn't the cause of death. Until someone takes a GameBoy or PSP to the skull at 300 miles per hour, I doubt we can say there have been many deaths caused by video games. So let's hope the crazies reason along the same line and don't start proclaiming video games as evil killing machines.
I think it would be a better idea to purchase them a regular PC when they're in middle school or high school. First of all, most children are still not all that responsible at that age. Granted that some of you might have been, but I think that the vast majority of children wouldn't be. Allowing something that they can haul to school where it could be stolen, broken, lost, or something else is not a good idea. Other children will want to use it and it will propably cause all kinds of other problems.
Although laptops are becoming more affordable, desktop PCs are dirt cheap. I just got a Dell catalogue in the mail less than a week ago. There were some computers listed for under $400 with monitor included. This computer will be in the safety of the home and will allow you to keep better tabs on what your child is doing with their computer. I don't want to sound like the secret police, but middle school children are still stupid enough to give their address to a child predator.
They can get a laptop when they go to college and might lug it to every class to take notes with and the small space it takes up with be a plus in a tiny dorm room. Until then, I think it would be better to hold off on purchasing them a laptop. Get a cheap PC instead, or better yet give them your old one and buy a new one for yourself.
If the big companies in favor of software patents are at all interested in keeping those patents I suggest that they help the system out by getting rid of vague patents that can apply to almost anything, much like the case here.
Judges should also start fining corperations that bring frivilous suits against other companies based on such patents. Offending companies will pay a fine of at least $100,000 as well as paying for the legal fees associated with the case. Money collected will go to education for the poor. Lawyers dumb enough to file said suit will be barred from practicing law in the United States for a period of time no less than 2 years and possibly deported to the sun.
Foreign countries (like China) should blatantly ignore other patents of asshat corperations that practice patent litigation for profit effectively eliminating an oversees business for that company. If they complain, a letter comprised of the 372 ways in which that person/company is a complete asshat/fuckwad/douche/other derogatory name will be sent back to them at their own expense.
In times like these it is society's responsibility to discourage this type of moronic behavior be any means necessary. Maybe once the world has gotten it drilled into the thick skulls of these moronic bufoons that such behavior is frowned upon, we can go back to business as normal. Until such a time, soulless goons like these will continue to take advantage of the system at the expense of everyone else.
Anyone who's hired by a company to manage a system like that shouldn't be hired on the basis of whether they think Tommy Hilfiger products are trendy, cool, or whatever. They should be hired because they know how to get the job done regardless of whether or not you're using Linux, Windows, something else, or any combination.
Regardless it doesn't change the fact that the comment made by Eric seems a little ignorant. Perhaps the comment was made simply to justify the move and the associated expenses to the bigwigs. They probably won't understand the finer points and nuances of it all so saying, "This is more reliable and will make things easier/better for us," is probably more than enough for the people who can't be bothered or outright don't want to know all of that "computer stuff." After all, it is going to take some money to migrate away from Linux, and that cost needs to be justified. Would your boss be happy if you were just throwing money around?
However, it's plainly clear that one hand isn't aware of what the other is doing. Here we have someone suggesting that Microsoft is about cooperating and being friendly towards the OSS community, which is probably true. Yet the upper management in Microsoft seems more content on crushing or marginalizing OSS rather than fostering the cooperation that a lot of the people in the company might feel.
I can understand this as the people lower on the totem pole probably get a flat salary and some stock options on occasion if they want them. The top brass makes money whenever the company sells an MS product and potentially loses out when someone tries OSS software. The guys making the same $40 (or whatever) an hour will make that same $40 whether or not John Doe runs Linux, Windows, or OS X. Granted that they would be laid off if no one bought Windows and the company went under, but that seems a little unreasonable at this point in time.
It's pretty clear though that there are some mixed and widely different viewpoints in the company. A lot of hardcore Linux people could easily write this off as more junk from the evil MS, but I actually feel that these are truthful answers that are believable. However, since Mr. Hilf isn't calling all the shots, it really doesn't matter how he feels. Microsoft upper management will generally tend to pursue tactics to get rid of Linux.
It's the story of a man who is targeted by Nigerian scammers but gets revenge on them and actually screws them out of some money. The whole thing takes place over several months and includes pictures, audio recordings of phone conversations, email correspondence and other stuff.
It's quite long, but worth a read if you have the time.
If he wanted to go after GTA and get it an AO rating for the violence, I'd probably be fine with that. Considering the amount of violence in the game, it's not too hard for anyone who's ever played it to say it may be innapropriate for a majority of younger teenagers. Consider, for example, the movie Titanic in which you could see a breast that wasn't a really poor and clunky animation rendered on 5 year old hardware. This movie was rated PG-13. Consider several R rated movies with sex scenes that are more pornographic than the comical and largely unerotic scene in San Andreas.
This is merely the latest Salem witch trial. Eventually the whole thing will blow over. Eventually, Jack Thompson, like Senator McCarthy will go so far over the top that he will lose credibility. I think that this has already happened to an extent when he went after The Sims 2. When he does go, I can honestly say that I won't miss him one bit. Goodbye, moronic fuckwad.
Considering that each cell has a PPC core, it's plausible to a certain extent that OS X could be made to run on a PS3 with some changes to take advantage of the cell's abilities and the lack of AltiVec (I'm not even sure how much OS X uses this to begin with), smaller cache, and other changes made to the PPC chip on the cell.
Sony stands to benefit from this deal because they get a solid OS available to them to run on their PS3. This allows them to say that the PS3 can be used as a computer as well (just make sure to buy our $100 hard drive and the $100 software). They get to sell some accessories, which they seem to love doing considering the amount of stuff (memory cards, multitaps, network adapters, hard drives) that you could use to upgrade your PS2. It's likely they'd also get a small amount of money for each copy software sale Apple makes.
Apple tends to benefit if they handle things a little more carefully. If they start giving PS3 owners the full version of OS X then the whole clone problem that Apple had in the past rears its ugly head once again. On the other hand, offering a stripped down version of the OS for the PS3 that doesn't have all the bells and whistles attached could easily pursuade more consumers to purchase Apple computers. It would be very similar in result to Windows users purchaing an iPod and deciding to try an Apple computer. Considering that the PS2 has sold over 80 million units world wide, it might be tempting for Apple to give more people a small taste of what they have to offer considering the potential amount of users the PS3 can reach.
What I really think this is all about though is that Sony wants to get in a little closer with Apple. Sony has wanted to get into the online music business for quite some time now but has found itself falling flat on its face. Apple's iPod and iTunes have been dozens of times more successful than whatever Sony has had to offer. If OS X or some varient of it is ported onto Sony's console you can bet it will have iTunes on it that will be featuring Sony's songs (and maybe eventually movies) available for download. Not only does it give Sony a way to start selling its music through a venue that many people already know, trust, and use, but it will give Sony a digital media box that can do everything a console, computer, and home entertainment center can do. This would be widely popular in Japan where living conditions are more cramped and people would welcome having one box that can do everything.
Having accomplished what Microsoft has been wanting to do so badly, get into the living room as the media centerpiece, Sony would be able to one up them in a sense. Microsoft has been designing the Xbox 360 to do exactly this. If you don't believe me, consider all the features it has built in that allow it to link to a Windows PC. Apple and Sony could team up and accomplish the same thing in an effort to drive Microsoft out of the console business. Considering the amount of money Microsoft has lost with the Xbox, and it likely to lose early on with the Xbox 360, they can't afford to trail so far behind this generation. If Sony can out-do Microsoft in almost every aspect, they could easily accomplish the feat. I'm quite sure that Apple wouldn't have much of a grudge in hurting Microsoft either.
Eventually this will hurt Microsoft more than most people would think at first. Considering that Sony is likely to use OpenGL (can't recall where I read this) which Microsoft dislikes because it's an open source standard competing with their proprietary one and that more and more games are being made on consoles rather than on the PC, ports of widely successful games would be made with OpenGL as well.
Now that I've gotten everyone who hates Microsoft with a passion hopes up, I will kindly point out that none of this is likely to happen. Considering the egos of the two men whose cooperation would be necessary to pull this off, it seems unlikely it will ever come to pass. Conspiracy theory that sounds good on paper, yes. Accurate prediction of future events, no.
Assuming they did in fact manage to get a version of their OS to run on the Xbox 360, they'd run into the problem that eventually someone will get Linux running on the console. Considering Microsoft can't afford to sink too much money into the console in building a solid OS that runs fast, whatever they manage to port will likely be just as flawed as their regular operating systems are. Given a choice between Linux or Windows, I think that a lot of people would tend to choose Linux. Not all of them, but more than in the computer market considering there are more tech savvy people purchasing consoles.
In short, Microsoft even trying to get Windows onto their new console is most likely going to be the biggest flop they've had in a long while.
Wikipedia is one of the most awesome things ever to come out of the depths of the internet. It provides up to date, accurate content from a variety of different sources and view points that is subject to the collective scrutiny of the community that maintains it.
It's something like democracy in that everyone has an active hand in it which inspires people to do their best because the wikipedia is as much theirs as anyone else's.
Of course there are always going to be asshats, internet trolls, and other fuckwads who spoil a good thing be being dicks. As with any society, organization, or project that is open and free in nature, there exists the possibility that someone can easily ruin it for everyone.
When this happens the common reaction is to take away some of that freedom in order to maintain what has been created. This is very similar to the US Patriot Act which is theoretically designed to protect the United States be limiting individual freedoms for the greater good. Whether you agree with the approach or not is moot.
Perhaps the best way to handle something so democratic as wikipedia is to have changed content be reviewed by several people who can reject or approve the changes before they go through. Another system akin to the /. moderation system would to give editors who do a good job at wikipedia more control over what they can change and how much they can change it. This means that the best editors will be able to quickly change content if necessary and provide new entries as necessary while preventing some jerk with too much time on his/her hands from doing a lot of damage.
These kids now have an alternate form of entertainment and something to do with their free time other than join a gang or wander the streets causing or looking for trouble.
Another aspect is that some games can serve as a stress release valve for people. If I'm feeling really stressed out to the point that I almost want to choke someone I can pop in my copy of GTA and take it out some virtual people or property. I honestly believe that I've become a less violent person after playing through the GTA games because I had a virtual world where I could release my anger and agression that wouldn't result in any harm to real people.
For every stupid person who comits a crime and blames GTA or some video game, just think of how many crimes that same video game might have prevented.
After all, this site is dedicated to technology, science, and legal and political matters relating to them. The younger generations that have grown up more exposed to technology will certainly be more interested in news about it than some of the older generations.
On the flip side, however, young people tend to like to do things differently. They like to do something new that defines them. I wouldn't find it hard to believe that within ten years that generation will have created something similar to slashdot, but more akin to their unique culture.
The only way to know for sure is to wait and find out. I'll probably be here for a long while, if not the rest of my life and I'm fairly new to the slashdot crowd if that's any indication.
Suddenly something in one of the tubes starts fizzling. Suddenly the President comes into view and hands Billy a big bag of money and says, "By God Billy, you've found a cure for cancer!" Everyone starts cheering.
All the kids playing with non-science related toys get fat, ugly, and contract AIDs on the spot. They all fall over dead and no one seems to care about them. Billy is given a parade in his honor.
Roll credits.
A little extreme perhaps but I think if we made science look "cool" to little kids they'd probably buy it. If I would've seen this when I were little I'd probably have become a chemist.
If the directive is adopted, software used primarily for illegal file sharing, for example, could potentially make its developers criminally liable in one or several EU member countries.
I think this would get a little bit tricky and could cause some serious legal problems. Sure you could go after BitTorrent because people can use it for illegal purposes, but you have to realize that this is no different than most other products.
Cars are a wonderful way of getting from place to place that can be used for such illegal activities as escaping from the scene of a crime, running people over, and smuggling drugs into a country.
Guns and Bows can be used for hunting, whether for sport or food. Of course they are both also used in illegal manners such as killing people, robbing someone, and hijackings.
Explosives provide us with a nice and easy way to demolish old buildings, blast through mountains to provide tunnles, and to clear the land for whatever reason. Unfortunately, they can be used for doing very naughty things like car bombing some unfortunate soul, trying to blow up the WTC, and to forcably get into vaults.
Just about anything that serves a useful purpose to mankind has some way of being used for destructive, immoral, or illegal purposes. If we banned everything that could be used for harm and arrested the people who made those things, there wouldn't be very many people out of jail to use the very few products that were left.
I'd rather see a focused effort at the people who are commiting the crimes.
What's that you say, not a video game. Surely things of such nature died out years ago.
Honestly though it is kind of strange (in a refreshing way) to see a game article that has nothing to do with consoles, PCs, launch dates, etc. I'd like to see more aticles that focus on gaming outside the norm like this one. I read Penny Arcade fairly often, but somehow have never heard anything about this game.
Nice to see something that isn't an attack on MS/Sony, FUD about Nintendo flopping, or hype about some game months away from release.
From some rumors that I've heard they want to have a Mario game, Metroid Prime 3, and a new Super Smash Brothers game ready for system launch. Add in the fact that other companies can port existing games developed for other consoles over to the revolution in the months leading up the its release.
Nintendo has traditionally been weak on release titles and it's one of the things they've learned the hard way and are trying to fix. Assuming the console also launches with the ability to download old NES, SNES, and N64 games and they've already got a huge library of games available for release.
What would really be interesting is if they offered a device that would accept NES, SNES, and N64 carts. I'm assuming if the Revolution can emulate or outright run those games from some downloaded format, it might be able to do something similar with the actual carts. Just think of the device as something similar to accessories for the Cube and SNES that let you play GBA and GB games.
Microsoft will probably only offer a price cut if it becomes practical to do so. They're more than likely already selling each console at a loss, so it seems unlikely they'd go much lower. If 360's aren't flying off the shelf because people waited for the PS3 and/or Revolution, the manufacturing cost won't drop much if at all. Considering they probably wouldn't be able to drop the price even close to $50, I don't think they could come close to the Revolution which will most likely debut for $200 or less.
Whether or not Bungie can deliver a Halo 3 worth playing at the time of the PS3 launch remains to be seen. They could possibly rush something out the door, but I don't think it would be as good as it possibly could. My honest opinion is that a lot of potential Xbox 360 customers are going to be waiting for Halo 3 or another killer app as well news about future HD-DVD capabilities.
First of all, I think Nintendo is using the extra time to make the cost of existing technology go down. Moore's law suggests that in 18 months transistor count will roughly double resulting in more powerful hardware. On the flip-side, the same technology that we have today will cost less to in the future. I think that Nintendo is looking at something on par with today's technology (or that at the release of the Xbox 360) that will be somewhat cheaper to produce in the future. Nintendo has never really cared about how many raw polygons that their console can push or how many Tflops it's capable of producing. That's why I don't think they're aiming any higher than technologically on par with the power of the Xbox 360.
I won't dispute that the GameCube is capable of pretty games. I think that Metroid Prime looked better than Halo and most other Xbox games from a artistic design. I don't know about how many polies each was pushing, but I really don't care. The fact that the GC and Xbox are superior to the PS2 rings pretty true, but that didn't stop anyone from making GT4. The key concept is how easy it is for designers to reach the full potential of a console. I've heard stories about how messed up and complicated the PS2's emotion engine could be, and how some people aren't happy with the difficulty of developing for the Xbox 360. I've never heard that Nintendo was either wonderful or horrendous to develop for so I can't comment on the ease of making a game on their platforms. No matter what though, it does seem like some developers (like those for Metroid and RE4) did find out how to get the most out of the Cube.
The spring '06 date you're thinking of is the widely expected release date of the PS3. Although some have speculated at later date, March of next year is what Sony has generally been saying. Most sources also point to Nintendo releasing their console 3Q '06, so about 6 months after the PS3 and a year after the Xbox 360. To your credit though, early reports from Nintendo suggested that they were aiming for a release date of that right around the PS3. At E3, however, they changed their tune and decided to release it on their own sweet time. At this point things are really up in the air. The only for sure date (time frame really) is for the 360. Nintendo has been pretty vauge, and I read an article on GameSpot that said the PS3 might not be released until 2007.
Expanding into the game market gave them to opportunity to do some innovative things for the console market. Built-in HD and networking hadn't been done before and allowed for some really nifty gaming experiences. It also allows them to take away some of the market from their competitors.
If Sony had lived up to a lot of the promises that it had made about the PS2 things could be radically different. Interestingly enough, Sony has said some similar things about the PS3. If the rumors that it will have Linux installed out of the box or freely be able to run it are true, that means a PS3 could easily serve as a computer. It wouldn't be a great one, but if it could handle Word Processing, email, and simple things like that, why would anyone need to buy a new Windows PC?
Sony has problems of its own though. It's spent a lot of time and money to make the PS3 and some of the included technologies. In order to compete in the marketplace it has to sell at a lose or the PS3 would be too expensive for most people to go out and buy.
Sony also has several other areas of business that it likes to incorperate into the PS3. Note how they're going to be using the same type of memory stick in the PS3 as they are with the PSP. I wouldn't be surprised if they included some type of music store or tried to include some aspect of their motion picture company into the mix as well (similar to how the PSP can play UMD movies). Sony seems to exist to sell a product so that it can sell other Sony products.
Whether or not all of this interconectivity will work or just piss off consumers remains to be seen. Sony could just have made a video game console, but they've made so much more. The thing used to be a router, can be a DVR if you buy an HD for it, could possible serve as a computer if it runs Linux, and just might make coffee for you if you ask it nicely. The fact that it plays games almost seems like side note. Some have suggested that this all in one feature is geared towards Japanese consumers who have small living spaces and would benefit most from having one piece of hardware that takes care of everything.
Nintendo is trying despirately to make up for past mistakes. Not using CDs or something similar for the Nintendo 64 really hurt them a lot and turned away a lot of developers. They're starting to get some of those back but many are still angry at Nintendo. They've realized some of their mistakes and have tried to rectify them as the article points out.
At the same time, Nintendo can't follow the same model that the other companies use. Nintendo doesn't have a division making a widely used OS or one that sells movies and music to fall back on. They can't make a $500 console, sell it for $300 and hope to stay in business. Sure they've got a nice cash reserve, but that's for when things really turn South.
Because Nintendo doesn't want to look bad by admitting they can't compete on the tech spec level with their competitors, they've adopted a "Game's are where it's at," creed that they at least follow to some degree. More or less it stems from their inability to produce something on the same power level as the PS3 or Xbox 360. They need something to say to make their console look worthy of purchase so they talk about good games and innovation. They've been saying this so long now that whether or not it was true to start with, they now believe it and follow it, to their graves it necessary.
Nintendo has a pretty good shot and doing well with the Revolution. If it launches 3Q 2006 it could be somewhat less powerful than the Xbox 360, but more than capable of producing high quality graphics and at a cheaper price as well. The ability to play games
First, when you get a next generation console, it might not be able to play the games from the previous generation (e.g. Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, and possible the Xbox 360).
Additionally, some (like the PS3 is rumored to be) will not accept the memory storage devices from previous generations. Keep that PS2 around for PS2 games you've sunk a lot of time into but haven't finished.
Also, old games can be a lot of fun again after you haven't played them in years. I have a blast playing football (Tecmo Super Bowl) against my friends on SNES. The 2D platformers on the system are awesome as well.
Old games and systems can be worth a lot of money after a long time. I have in my possesion a copy of Chrono Trigger for SNES that I managed to find in a pawn shop for $5. I've seen the game for ten times that on Ebay. I wonder how much a pong machine or other really old hardware would fetch.
You can let your young children play the games. Granted that children are pretty sophisticated nowdays, but at young ages a simple NES controller and game will be easiest for them. I'm guessing a four or five year old can handle Mario better than Marion Sunshine.
There's probably more reasons for hanging on to a console after you're done with it. I traded in my GBA when I got a DS. It made it a little cheaper, but in hindsight I wish I would've kept my GBA. If you really must sell a console, sell it directly to someone else. You could sell that PS2 for $10 more than the game store would give you and your friend could get it cheaper than what the store would charge him. Better deal. Donating it to a hospital is also a good idea. As I recall the guys at Penny Arcade have been doing something similar to this and it's been working well.