After months and months of hype, mystical numbers thrown around in the air, arguments about hypothetical maximums, some more hype, fancy product launches, more hype, constant bickering by fan boys on message forums, evaluations of the consoles, and (did I mention hype?) everything else, the truth finally comes out.
Congratulations, we've all fallen victem to the same cruel joke every time some company decides to release a new console, product, etc.
And in the end, none of it matters if the games aren't very good anyhow. Now that we've gotten over the dick measuring contest to see who can spit out the most flops, maybe we can all get back to enjoying the games on our current generation systems, and hoping that we'll see even better games in the future.
I don't mean to sound like a troll, flamer, asshat, or other nasty forum lurker, but does the computational power of a console make or break it? I've got a cell phone that probably has more computational power than an SNES, but Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was a damned good game. Let's step away from our obsession with graphics and the raw-power of the machine and worry about other things.
Here's a few I can think of right now:
1) The Xbox 360 will still be using DVDs. Guess what, we have already managed to fill up a full DVD with some games. Because we're going with HD games now, that'll take up more space (or processor time if we compress it to save space) which we don't have.
2) The Xbox 360 is using 2.4GHhz wireless controllers last I heard. Not a bad concept, but what happens when the battery dies mid-game? What about the cost of batters that add up over time? What happens if I have some other 2.4GHz device such as a phone or wireless router in the near location? I'm not the most knowledgable about wireless communications, but could this cause some interference?
3) Backwards compatability might not be included. Every day I hear a different story. Please, someone tell me it's going to be there for sure. Shouldn't Microsoft be more worried about pissing off the installed customer base that they had to fight to get than trying to get a few more flops out of a processor?
Just my opinion, but let's focus more on the games than the hardware.
Where EA overworks all of the programmers, the voice actors complain about not being paid enough, and the months of hype piled on by the marketing department and gaming magazines that have only have seen maybe.2% of the game, and only the best looking.2%
All-in-all, not a bad article. It was a fairly interesting read that expanded nicely on a few things, but really told many game fans a lot of things that we already knew. I'd like to see a more in-depth look at an actual game, rather than a hypothetical example.
Personally, I have a feeling that it will be suspiciously similar to GTA, except that there will be hundreds of players rather than some crappy AI.
I don't mean for this to sound like a bad thing. A lot of people have wished that Grand Theft Auto had been playable online or at least some multiplayer features (and don't talk about the crappy two player feature in GTA:SA, because that wasn't all that great) that would allow friends to play together.
There would be a few issues with such a game, but as long as most people aren't running around with heavy weapons, it would be 'aight. The mission system would largely be gone, but the fact that people could form gangs and have turf wars would be interesting.
Just so long as it doesn't borrow all of the crafting elements from other RPGs, I think it would be alright.
That doesn't really look like any kind of phone that I'd want to be carrying around.
Perhaps this is Apple's answer to people saying cell phones are poised to serve as MP3 players and music downloading devices. Since Apple isn't in the mobile phone business, this might be a way to get their brand name out there even more and to keep some of their market dominance.
It's at least nice to know that programmers are trying to capture some of the phenomena of how the real game seems to work instead of adding some moronic catch-up AI that I've seen in more than a few games.
Blow past a car in a racing game, watch as it magically manages to stay on your tail and pass you back, despite the fact that it's a Ford Focus and you're practically driving an F1 car.
Score some points in a sports game, watch the computer complete every pass, sink every bucket, or score every goal, while your players seem to be inable to walk and chew gum at the same time.
Start pounding on the computer in an RTS, watch as it manages to produce enough units to flood the map, or research tech advantages in the blink of an eye to give it an edge.
While catch-up AI can make the game seem a lot more challenging because it keeps the computer opponent right there with you, it would be a lot nicer to see more programming to simulate things more realistically.
But I already have a computer, why should I buy a console too, when my computer plays games fine?
A computer is certainly capable of playing games fine, but as I pointed out, not all games. While I can run Civilization II just fine on a Pentium III, I dare you to try playing Doom (if it will let you) or any other newer game.
But mostly the reason I don't own a current console is because I mainly play strategy games. If the wide variety of (real-time and not) strategy games starts to become available on a console, with controls (I've never been able to control much beyond platformers with a gamepad) and visuals (my monitor has much higher resolution than my TV) that don't suck, then I'd consider that instead... but for now, probably not. (Though the Revolution is starting to look very tempting... we'll see when it actually comes out.)
I also discussed how computers have an advantage when it comes to RTS and FPS games. This is largely do to the controls and to a smaller extend the ability to play online (usually for cheaper than using a console). However, because next generation consoles are going have have USB ports (the PS2 already has USB ports and support for a keyboard if I recall correctly) this will become a non-issue. Additionally, including HDs with consoles alows developers the options of adding more content and patching games (which tends to happen a lot with RTS games.) which will allow more RTS games to be produced for consoles.
Additionally, the Xbox 360 and PS3 are both supporting HD, so the resolution issue won't really be there either. With every new generation of consoles, the gap between them and computers narrows. Eventually, it might not be incoceivable to have a console, running Linux, to take care of the majority of your needs that require a computer.
All three of the console manufacturers offer some damned good products that can offer just as good of a gaming experience for a significantly lower price. In fact, I'm willing to bet all three next gen consoles could easily be purchased for much less than the best PC gaming rig someone could build.
First of all, AMD is making a profit on that fancy Athlon chip you're going to want to stick in your PC. Sony and Microsoft sell their consoles at a loss, and Nintendo has a pretty low price tag usually. This means greater value to the customer. This article about the Athlon 64 FX-57 posted on Slashdot earlier, and some of the reviews along with it, suggest that while you're playing 30% more for a top of the line CPU, you're only getting single digit increase in performance in some cases.
Console games are also designed for a hardware that will undergo minimal changes at worst. PC performance will increase dramatically over a relatively short period of time. First of all, this means that you don't have to worry about your console being out of date. The games made for it five years from now will still run on it perfectly fine. This is not very true with PCs, which have a somewhat shorter shelf-life. They're still viable, but they won't run the newest Doom or UT very well. Additionally, with a console you know that the software you buy for it will run at acceptible frame rates now, and not in 18 months when the hardware manages to catch up.
Graphically speaking, consoles will never be able to live up to what the latest and greaest PC can manage, but at their release time, consoles are about graphically on par with most computers. PCs also have the advantage of being for flexible in terms of what they can do. I can do a lot more on a PC (rant on/.) than I can do on a console. However, recently a lot of people have been working on getting Linux to run on consoles, so the advantages of a PC aren't as pronounced in this area any longer. However, on the whole, it's easier to do things related to the internet, word processing, etc. on a PC.
PCs and consoles generally do different types of games well. PCs are more favorable for FPS, RTS, and MMORPG games. Consoles are better for party games, multiplayer games (in the case where you don't have multipler computers and a LAN), and other situations like this. However, because the next generation consoles will be including HDs, USB ports, and other things that make them similar to a computer, consoles could be just as capable of having games like Warcraft 3 and EQ.
Essentially, consoles are becoming more and more like computers every generation. Some, like Nintendo, aren't following this approach as closely as Sony and Microsoft, but the overall trend seems to be in this direction. Yet because they are still consoles they have the simple advantage of "you insert the game and it plays." No installing, worrying if the hardware is good enough, or if you have other necessary things to get the game to run. Additionally, I've never seen a console give me a blue screen of death.
While a PC will always be able to deliver jaw dropping graphics, a console produces a more simplified gaming experience and at a much more reasonable price. Eventually, the only real advantage that the PC has, will amount to nothing when developers cannot figure out how to get the graphics to look any better or get them into a higher resolution.
This is my personal opinion, so take it how you will. For the record, no I don't hate PC gaming (I don't play as many PC games as I do console games, but I do still enjoy playing games like Starcraft, Civilization, and others on a PC.) so don't write me off as a hater. I'm just stating my views and hoping to inspire some intelligent discussion.
A lot of people have talked about strange "after-life" experiences when they've been "clinically dead" for short periods of time. A lot of this has been explained away in some form or another, but what will happen when a person is "dead" for 3 hours?
It really brings a lot of questions about spirituality and God into the mix. Kind of reminds me of the movie Flatliners.
Sony seems to have a large problem with denial. They simply choose to beleive that the problem doesn't exist, usually in spite of the fact that all evidence points to the fact that there is problem.
Case 1: UMD discs selling poorly. Denial: We meant to say singular title, and failed to mention we could units sold differently than most people in order to make the numbers deceptive.
Case 2: PSP's have dead pixels in the screen. Denial: This is common with all LCD devices (true to some extent) and is therefore not our fault. Lalalalalalala, we're not listening.
Case 3: PS2 DRE (This has happened to me). Denial: As far as we're concerned there's absolutely nothing wrong with your PS2. However, you can pay $70 and shipping costs to have our technitians hit it with a putty knife.
Rather than actually admit that something might be wrong, Sony has time after time tried to sweep the problem under the rug or use smoke and mirror diversionary tactics. The end result is some terrible customer support.
It would probably be a good idea to stop using Social Security numbers for all of these reasons. This is one of those instances where it might be favorable to have a National identification. Sure, there's still the problem of the government having all of this information on everyone (It's not like online companies, banks, and other companies don't have this information about you already), but it could also prevent things like this from happening.
I hardly notice the ads that google puts on the side of their search results, or the few odd ones placed on a page to generate a little extra revenue. Hell, I don't even mind the occasionaly banner ad at the top of some sites.
However, there are ads that bother the hell out of me and make me want to block them or stop visiting the page that hosts them. These usually include flash banner ads (shoot the monkey, sink a basket, hit the target, etc.) or animated.gifs or anything else that's more bandwidth intensive than my 56k connection at home can handle in a few seconds. Additionally, ads about products that I don't want or ads that look like scams or phishing attempts really bug me.
It's not the ads that are bad, it's the type, placement, and content of those ads that gets to me.
Schmidt said Google does not intend to offer a "person-to-person stored-value payments system" like PayPal's, in which money briefly resides in PayPal's control during the transaction, but he did not give details of how the Google system would differ.
Even though companies are out to make money and occasionally have to step on the toes of another company if they want to turn a profit, it's nice to see that not all computer business is so cut-throught. Maybe Google has realized that a little healthy competition is good, but more than likely they have slightly different aims or are trying to tie it in more with the rest of their services in a way that paypals method doesn't work.
Companies need to realize that crushing the competition and taking control of the market isn't going to be healthy for the consumer. Look at some of Microsoft's (Not to pick on them, but they're an obvious example) products like Internet Explorer. For a while it was the best browser around to many people, but after it gained control , Microsoft stopped upgrading it and fixing it, making it a rather sub-par product today.
To those of you who say that Google or any other company wouldn't fall into the same trap if they gained market dominance is plain ignorance. Go ahead and root for Google, Apple, Sun, AMD, or any other underdog company, but just remeber that they're as capable as being as evil and ruthless as some people feel that Microsoft, Sony, Intel and other industry leaders are today.
"We think Microsoft is trying to strong-arm the industry into the adoption of an incomplete and not accepted standard".
Gee, when's the last time this happened?
Personally, it will only be a matter of time until the spammers figure out a way to get around this. End result: a serious pain for everyone that accomplishes nothing.
Actually there was an article on the main page a few days ago. It was the third spot down and had two comments posted to it. Eventually it was taken down due to a complete lack of interest or anyone caring.
Personally, I found it kind of amusing that there was an article so pointless or boring that not even/. would bother starting a heated debate, flame war, string of Soviet Russia jokes.
membership has grown to over 25 million from 90,000 in 2000.
Either there are a lot of 13 year old girls out there or more people are using it than we think. For all I know, my coworker in the next cubicle could be a secret Neopet closet case.
I've never been to the site before, and now I have even less of a reason to go. Personally, I just don't trust/like a TV channel that calls itself M(usic)TV without playing any actual music. (Yes I'm aware that they have videos at 3 in the morning or some ungodly hour when I'm not awake.) Just my personal opinion though.
Does this seem like a big failure to anyone else?
on
UMD Sales Top 100K
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· Score: 2, Insightful
According to this article the PSP sold 500,000 units in the first 2 days. I'm sure it's gone on to sell millions of units by now.
This means that only around 5% or so of the customer base is actually buying UMD movies (and that's assuming that each person only bought one movie). Doesn't this normally constitute a huge failure? Yet the Sony PR company will probably use this to proclaim the sucess of the PSP and UMD.
The results aren't surprising to me considering the serious limitations of the format: same price as a DVD for lower quality and the inablity to be used on anything else but a PSP. Sure it's a nice feature, but it would seem as though a majority of the people really don't care.
Although it would be a lot harder from a technical standpoint, why not create some extra hardware that would allow the PSP to play DVDs? Given Sony's history of building a console and then adding in the neat features later (PS2 HD, Network Card, Multi-tap) they could've made even more money selling people the extra hardware. To me, UMD movies just never made much sense from any point of view.
Why do companies always feel the need to start work on planning on an expansion before their current product is finished or to a point that can be considered mostly finished?
Although it's a really good game, World of Warcraft isn't what I'd call finished, there are still a lot of glaring problems and annoyances that can ruin the otherwise wonderful gaming experience a person has when playing. For Blizzard to even think about working on an expansion or devouting any staff to it is a waste of time and counterproductive.
Just like at how this has caused problems for Microsoft. They've started working on Longhorn thinking that they were done with Windows XP. However, nearly every month some design flaw or security hole is found which requires dozens of developers or coders to be reassigned to fix the problems in their current generation software. You could have two different teams, one for each project, but you still end up splitting your work force.
Like Longhorn, the next generation software will only be delayed because there are too many problems with the current generation software to devout the entire company towards building the next. The project can't be delayed for ever and eventually needs a target release date. It's likely that it won't be on schedule, features will need to get left out, and in the end a lot of shoddy coding will be done to get the software out the door. Then the problem repeats.
Software companies, Blizzard included, shouldn't be worrying about sequals or next generation software before they've got all the problems fixed. The article really doesn't give much information other than it's been announced (big surprise there), so it's difficult to say whether or not they're giving the project developement time. However, the temptation will most assuredly be there at some point.
Hopefully they'll learn a valuable lesson where so many have gone wrong before, otherwise things just tend to get worse and worse as time goes on and the cycle repeats.
Technically using either of these in a console would've given a huge boost the amount of content that you could put into a game. I think that the largest games right now sit at around 8GB on a DVD. Using either format would effectively quadruple the content in the next generation games.
However, I don't think that the Revolution or the Xbox 360 make use of either of these formats. I'm not sure what the Revolution will be using, but it is rumored to have DVD support now. The Xbox 360 will be using regular DVDs last I heard. The only problem with this is that the next generation games will take up a lot more space, especially since the Xbox 360 and the PS3 have been pushing the high resolution HD formats.
Because you end up with more polies on screen, you need higher resultion texture maps to create larger detail. This results in bigger files, which means more space used on a DVD. Considering that a few games today have pushed the capacity of the DVD (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas comes to mind) to the limits, we're looking at drastically nicer games, but also drastically shorter games. Eventually you start to trade of quantity when the quality hits a certain level, leaving you with less game (possibly at a higher cost to boot).
This is why the Xbox 360 and the Revolution (well not quite as much since Nintendo isn't too big on the whole HD craze) need to embrace one of the future technologies. But which one?
Personally, I'd place my money on the Blu-Ray format. Sony will be mass producing a lot of these since they did sell well over 80 milliion PS3's. Add in the fact that they own a motion picture company (Columbia, I think) and they already have at least one studio supporting it.
Additionally, in the long run, the Blu-Ray seems like it will be more scalable. 50GB might seem like a lot now, but in 10 years 50GB will be laughed at. Quality won't likely be an issue, so it will probably come down to price, in which case the HD-DVD wins. However, if Sony waves any fees to use their format, in the end it will be about even.
It will be interesting to see how much this plays out like the VHS, Betamax war.
The part of the article that stuck out the most to me was about the map editor.
The poster also says that Bungie is working on a map editor and movie maker for the game, so you can send and receive maps and movies via Xbox Live.
If you're anything like me, you play FPS's for the multiplayer action. I really don't care how dark and gritty the next Halo storyline is, because I'm sure it will be just as sub-par as the story from Halo 2. But I really don't care about that, it's all about the multiplayer for me, and a map maker/editor would enhance the experience by a lot.
Because the Xbox 360 will come with 20GB HD, I think people should be able to create fairly large maps, at least bigger than the ones you can make on Time Splitters (which was really disappointing to me). They've also been talking about how the Xbox 360 will be able to pull music, movies, etc. from a computer. Why not custom skins for the walls and other features in the map?
Although this is pure speculation, It would be awesome if even a limited map editor/maker were created for Halo 3. It looks like Bungie might have realized that most people don't give a rat's rump about the single player campaign, and have focused more on the multiplayer aspect of the game.
I know that cassettes are still popular in less developed portions of the world, but they've basically gone out of style in America. How long until cassettes in good condition become collectors items?
If you browse around on some music stores, old vinyl records are going for several hundred dollars, whereas a CD of the groups music is priced regularly. Just because they've gone out of style, doesn't mean you should throw away your cassettes. In 50 years who knows how much money they might be worth, especially if you've got a cassette by a popular group from the time that's still in good shape.
Millions of people are happily spending their money to watch a movie they don't understand. What gives?
It's basically the same scenario as with the Matrix trilogy (well almost). Everyone just wanted to know how it ended exactly, if for no other reason than closure. Even though 90% of the people knew ultimately where the story was headed, everyone still wanted the little details.
Otherwise, the author of the article is right in that the newer movies really don't do a good job of explaining what's going on. The part about Anakin having mental problems from post traumatic stress disorder would have explained his character a lot better. Personally, I still think Hayden Christensen was a poor choice to play the part and would've ruined it anyhow, but they really could've given us a lot more.
Additionally, General Grievous just sort of popped into existance. Assuming that I would know all about him from the various other publications is a mistake. Thinking back on it, it really made the movie seem a little off.
While the hardcore fans of Star Wars will have read all the books, seen the cartoons, and read about other lore and history on the internet, there're a lot of us out there who haven't. Some of us saw the movie just for the sake of seeing it. And in the end, I guess the box office take is good enough to justify producing movies in that fashion.
In an earlier article on slashdot about Dell using OS X on their computers, someone pointed out that if this happened Microsoft would probably stop making office for Macs. This makes a certain amount of sense in that people won't want to switch if they can't keep a lot of the same applications, a problem that's plagued a lot of people considering switching to Mac.
It looks like Apple might be getting prepared for the chance that Microsoft does decide to withdraw their support from the Mac. It would be an interesting turn if Apple eventually tried marketing a few of these applications on Windows like they do with iTunes. Not likely to happen because Apple still wants to sell computers, but it would give Microsoft a little competition other than Open Office.
It's kind of funny how people will complain like this: "So I was downloading the new Star Wars movie off of BT so I didn't have to pay the ridiculous $12 movie ticket price just to see it. Anyhow, some company bundled some spyware with the movie that installed on my machine! That's like illegal! They should get into serious trouble for this."
Just a little ironic how the same people who use P2P programs for illegal purposes complain when someone will do something legally questionable to their computer.
Slashdot Mirror
Congratulations, we've all fallen victem to the same cruel joke every time some company decides to release a new console, product, etc.
And in the end, none of it matters if the games aren't very good anyhow. Now that we've gotten over the dick measuring contest to see who can spit out the most flops, maybe we can all get back to enjoying the games on our current generation systems, and hoping that we'll see even better games in the future.
I don't mean to sound like a troll, flamer, asshat, or other nasty forum lurker, but does the computational power of a console make or break it? I've got a cell phone that probably has more computational power than an SNES, but Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was a damned good game. Let's step away from our obsession with graphics and the raw-power of the machine and worry about other things.
Here's a few I can think of right now:
1) The Xbox 360 will still be using DVDs. Guess what, we have already managed to fill up a full DVD with some games. Because we're going with HD games now, that'll take up more space (or processor time if we compress it to save space) which we don't have.
2) The Xbox 360 is using 2.4GHhz wireless controllers last I heard. Not a bad concept, but what happens when the battery dies mid-game? What about the cost of batters that add up over time? What happens if I have some other 2.4GHz device such as a phone or wireless router in the near location? I'm not the most knowledgable about wireless communications, but could this cause some interference?
3) Backwards compatability might not be included. Every day I hear a different story. Please, someone tell me it's going to be there for sure. Shouldn't Microsoft be more worried about pissing off the installed customer base that they had to fight to get than trying to get a few more flops out of a processor?
Just my opinion, but let's focus more on the games than the hardware.
All-in-all, not a bad article. It was a fairly interesting read that expanded nicely on a few things, but really told many game fans a lot of things that we already knew. I'd like to see a more in-depth look at an actual game, rather than a hypothetical example.
I don't mean for this to sound like a bad thing. A lot of people have wished that Grand Theft Auto had been playable online or at least some multiplayer features (and don't talk about the crappy two player feature in GTA:SA, because that wasn't all that great) that would allow friends to play together.
There would be a few issues with such a game, but as long as most people aren't running around with heavy weapons, it would be 'aight. The mission system would largely be gone, but the fact that people could form gangs and have turf wars would be interesting.
Just so long as it doesn't borrow all of the crafting elements from other RPGs, I think it would be alright.
Perhaps this is Apple's answer to people saying cell phones are poised to serve as MP3 players and music downloading devices. Since Apple isn't in the mobile phone business, this might be a way to get their brand name out there even more and to keep some of their market dominance.
Blow past a car in a racing game, watch as it magically manages to stay on your tail and pass you back, despite the fact that it's a Ford Focus and you're practically driving an F1 car.
Score some points in a sports game, watch the computer complete every pass, sink every bucket, or score every goal, while your players seem to be inable to walk and chew gum at the same time.
Start pounding on the computer in an RTS, watch as it manages to produce enough units to flood the map, or research tech advantages in the blink of an eye to give it an edge.
While catch-up AI can make the game seem a lot more challenging because it keeps the computer opponent right there with you, it would be a lot nicer to see more programming to simulate things more realistically.
A computer is certainly capable of playing games fine, but as I pointed out, not all games. While I can run Civilization II just fine on a Pentium III, I dare you to try playing Doom (if it will let you) or any other newer game.
But mostly the reason I don't own a current console is because I mainly play strategy games. If the wide variety of (real-time and not) strategy games starts to become available on a console, with controls (I've never been able to control much beyond platformers with a gamepad) and visuals (my monitor has much higher resolution than my TV) that don't suck, then I'd consider that instead... but for now, probably not. (Though the Revolution is starting to look very tempting... we'll see when it actually comes out.)
I also discussed how computers have an advantage when it comes to RTS and FPS games. This is largely do to the controls and to a smaller extend the ability to play online (usually for cheaper than using a console). However, because next generation consoles are going have have USB ports (the PS2 already has USB ports and support for a keyboard if I recall correctly) this will become a non-issue. Additionally, including HDs with consoles alows developers the options of adding more content and patching games (which tends to happen a lot with RTS games.) which will allow more RTS games to be produced for consoles.
Additionally, the Xbox 360 and PS3 are both supporting HD, so the resolution issue won't really be there either. With every new generation of consoles, the gap between them and computers narrows. Eventually, it might not be incoceivable to have a console, running Linux, to take care of the majority of your needs that require a computer.
First of all, AMD is making a profit on that fancy Athlon chip you're going to want to stick in your PC. Sony and Microsoft sell their consoles at a loss, and Nintendo has a pretty low price tag usually. This means greater value to the customer. This article about the Athlon 64 FX-57 posted on Slashdot earlier, and some of the reviews along with it, suggest that while you're playing 30% more for a top of the line CPU, you're only getting single digit increase in performance in some cases.
Console games are also designed for a hardware that will undergo minimal changes at worst. PC performance will increase dramatically over a relatively short period of time. First of all, this means that you don't have to worry about your console being out of date. The games made for it five years from now will still run on it perfectly fine. This is not very true with PCs, which have a somewhat shorter shelf-life. They're still viable, but they won't run the newest Doom or UT very well. Additionally, with a console you know that the software you buy for it will run at acceptible frame rates now, and not in 18 months when the hardware manages to catch up.
Graphically speaking, consoles will never be able to live up to what the latest and greaest PC can manage, but at their release time, consoles are about graphically on par with most computers. PCs also have the advantage of being for flexible in terms of what they can do. I can do a lot more on a PC (rant on /.) than I can do on a console. However, recently a lot of people have been working on getting Linux to run on consoles, so the advantages of a PC aren't as pronounced in this area any longer. However, on the whole, it's easier to do things related to the internet, word processing, etc. on a PC.
PCs and consoles generally do different types of games well. PCs are more favorable for FPS, RTS, and MMORPG games. Consoles are better for party games, multiplayer games (in the case where you don't have multipler computers and a LAN), and other situations like this. However, because the next generation consoles will be including HDs, USB ports, and other things that make them similar to a computer, consoles could be just as capable of having games like Warcraft 3 and EQ.
Essentially, consoles are becoming more and more like computers every generation. Some, like Nintendo, aren't following this approach as closely as Sony and Microsoft, but the overall trend seems to be in this direction. Yet because they are still consoles they have the simple advantage of "you insert the game and it plays." No installing, worrying if the hardware is good enough, or if you have other necessary things to get the game to run. Additionally, I've never seen a console give me a blue screen of death.
While a PC will always be able to deliver jaw dropping graphics, a console produces a more simplified gaming experience and at a much more reasonable price. Eventually, the only real advantage that the PC has, will amount to nothing when developers cannot figure out how to get the graphics to look any better or get them into a higher resolution.
This is my personal opinion, so take it how you will. For the record, no I don't hate PC gaming (I don't play as many PC games as I do console games, but I do still enjoy playing games like Starcraft, Civilization, and others on a PC.) so don't write me off as a hater. I'm just stating my views and hoping to inspire some intelligent discussion.
It really brings a lot of questions about spirituality and God into the mix. Kind of reminds me of the movie Flatliners.
Sony seems to have a large problem with denial. They simply choose to beleive that the problem doesn't exist, usually in spite of the fact that all evidence points to the fact that there is problem.
Case 1: UMD discs selling poorly.
Denial: We meant to say singular title, and failed to mention we could units sold differently than most people in order to make the numbers deceptive.
Case 2: PSP's have dead pixels in the screen.
Denial: This is common with all LCD devices (true to some extent) and is therefore not our fault. Lalalalalalala, we're not listening.
Case 3: PS2 DRE (This has happened to me).
Denial: As far as we're concerned there's absolutely nothing wrong with your PS2. However, you can pay $70 and shipping costs to have our technitians hit it with a putty knife.
Rather than actually admit that something might be wrong, Sony has time after time tried to sweep the problem under the rug or use smoke and mirror diversionary tactics. The end result is some terrible customer support.
It would probably be a good idea to stop using Social Security numbers for all of these reasons. This is one of those instances where it might be favorable to have a National identification. Sure, there's still the problem of the government having all of this information on everyone (It's not like online companies, banks, and other companies don't have this information about you already), but it could also prevent things like this from happening.
In Soviet America, private property seizes local government.
This is really a sad day.
50% while be whiny, angsty teens complaining about the world in blogs with poor grammar.
The other 50% will be companies data-mining those blogs for insights about what kind of products to market.
Then again I could be wrong as this means that the internet will be 0% porn, which as we all know just isn't going to happen.
However, there are ads that bother the hell out of me and make me want to block them or stop visiting the page that hosts them. These usually include flash banner ads (shoot the monkey, sink a basket, hit the target, etc.) or animated .gifs or anything else that's more bandwidth intensive than my 56k connection at home can handle in a few seconds. Additionally, ads about products that I don't want or ads that look like scams or phishing attempts really bug me.
It's not the ads that are bad, it's the type, placement, and content of those ads that gets to me.
Schmidt said Google does not intend to offer a "person-to-person stored-value payments system" like PayPal's, in which money briefly resides in PayPal's control during the transaction, but he did not give details of how the Google system would differ.
Even though companies are out to make money and occasionally have to step on the toes of another company if they want to turn a profit, it's nice to see that not all computer business is so cut-throught. Maybe Google has realized that a little healthy competition is good, but more than likely they have slightly different aims or are trying to tie it in more with the rest of their services in a way that paypals method doesn't work.
Companies need to realize that crushing the competition and taking control of the market isn't going to be healthy for the consumer. Look at some of Microsoft's (Not to pick on them, but they're an obvious example) products like Internet Explorer. For a while it was the best browser around to many people, but after it gained control , Microsoft stopped upgrading it and fixing it, making it a rather sub-par product today.
To those of you who say that Google or any other company wouldn't fall into the same trap if they gained market dominance is plain ignorance. Go ahead and root for Google, Apple, Sun, AMD, or any other underdog company, but just remeber that they're as capable as being as evil and ruthless as some people feel that Microsoft, Sony, Intel and other industry leaders are today.
"We think Microsoft is trying to strong-arm the industry into the adoption of an incomplete and not accepted standard".
Gee, when's the last time this happened?
Personally, it will only be a matter of time until the spammers figure out a way to get around this. End result: a serious pain for everyone that accomplishes nothing.
Personally, I found it kind of amusing that there was an article so pointless or boring that not even /. would bother starting a heated debate, flame war, string of Soviet Russia jokes.
membership has grown to over 25 million from 90,000 in 2000. Either there are a lot of 13 year old girls out there or more people are using it than we think. For all I know, my coworker in the next cubicle could be a secret Neopet closet case.
I've never been to the site before, and now I have even less of a reason to go. Personally, I just don't trust/like a TV channel that calls itself M(usic)TV without playing any actual music. (Yes I'm aware that they have videos at 3 in the morning or some ungodly hour when I'm not awake.) Just my personal opinion though.
This means that only around 5% or so of the customer base is actually buying UMD movies (and that's assuming that each person only bought one movie). Doesn't this normally constitute a huge failure? Yet the Sony PR company will probably use this to proclaim the sucess of the PSP and UMD.
The results aren't surprising to me considering the serious limitations of the format: same price as a DVD for lower quality and the inablity to be used on anything else but a PSP. Sure it's a nice feature, but it would seem as though a majority of the people really don't care.
Although it would be a lot harder from a technical standpoint, why not create some extra hardware that would allow the PSP to play DVDs? Given Sony's history of building a console and then adding in the neat features later (PS2 HD, Network Card, Multi-tap) they could've made even more money selling people the extra hardware. To me, UMD movies just never made much sense from any point of view.
Although it's a really good game, World of Warcraft isn't what I'd call finished, there are still a lot of glaring problems and annoyances that can ruin the otherwise wonderful gaming experience a person has when playing. For Blizzard to even think about working on an expansion or devouting any staff to it is a waste of time and counterproductive.
Just like at how this has caused problems for Microsoft. They've started working on Longhorn thinking that they were done with Windows XP. However, nearly every month some design flaw or security hole is found which requires dozens of developers or coders to be reassigned to fix the problems in their current generation software. You could have two different teams, one for each project, but you still end up splitting your work force.
Like Longhorn, the next generation software will only be delayed because there are too many problems with the current generation software to devout the entire company towards building the next. The project can't be delayed for ever and eventually needs a target release date. It's likely that it won't be on schedule, features will need to get left out, and in the end a lot of shoddy coding will be done to get the software out the door. Then the problem repeats.
Software companies, Blizzard included, shouldn't be worrying about sequals or next generation software before they've got all the problems fixed. The article really doesn't give much information other than it's been announced (big surprise there), so it's difficult to say whether or not they're giving the project developement time. However, the temptation will most assuredly be there at some point.
Hopefully they'll learn a valuable lesson where so many have gone wrong before, otherwise things just tend to get worse and worse as time goes on and the cycle repeats.
However, I don't think that the Revolution or the Xbox 360 make use of either of these formats. I'm not sure what the Revolution will be using, but it is rumored to have DVD support now. The Xbox 360 will be using regular DVDs last I heard. The only problem with this is that the next generation games will take up a lot more space, especially since the Xbox 360 and the PS3 have been pushing the high resolution HD formats.
Because you end up with more polies on screen, you need higher resultion texture maps to create larger detail. This results in bigger files, which means more space used on a DVD. Considering that a few games today have pushed the capacity of the DVD (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas comes to mind) to the limits, we're looking at drastically nicer games, but also drastically shorter games. Eventually you start to trade of quantity when the quality hits a certain level, leaving you with less game (possibly at a higher cost to boot).
This is why the Xbox 360 and the Revolution (well not quite as much since Nintendo isn't too big on the whole HD craze) need to embrace one of the future technologies. But which one?
Personally, I'd place my money on the Blu-Ray format. Sony will be mass producing a lot of these since they did sell well over 80 milliion PS3's. Add in the fact that they own a motion picture company (Columbia, I think) and they already have at least one studio supporting it.
Additionally, in the long run, the Blu-Ray seems like it will be more scalable. 50GB might seem like a lot now, but in 10 years 50GB will be laughed at. Quality won't likely be an issue, so it will probably come down to price, in which case the HD-DVD wins. However, if Sony waves any fees to use their format, in the end it will be about even.
It will be interesting to see how much this plays out like the VHS, Betamax war.
The poster also says that Bungie is working on a map editor and movie maker for the game, so you can send and receive maps and movies via Xbox Live.
If you're anything like me, you play FPS's for the multiplayer action. I really don't care how dark and gritty the next Halo storyline is, because I'm sure it will be just as sub-par as the story from Halo 2. But I really don't care about that, it's all about the multiplayer for me, and a map maker/editor would enhance the experience by a lot.
Because the Xbox 360 will come with 20GB HD, I think people should be able to create fairly large maps, at least bigger than the ones you can make on Time Splitters (which was really disappointing to me). They've also been talking about how the Xbox 360 will be able to pull music, movies, etc. from a computer. Why not custom skins for the walls and other features in the map?
Although this is pure speculation, It would be awesome if even a limited map editor/maker were created for Halo 3. It looks like Bungie might have realized that most people don't give a rat's rump about the single player campaign, and have focused more on the multiplayer aspect of the game.
If you browse around on some music stores, old vinyl records are going for several hundred dollars, whereas a CD of the groups music is priced regularly. Just because they've gone out of style, doesn't mean you should throw away your cassettes. In 50 years who knows how much money they might be worth, especially if you've got a cassette by a popular group from the time that's still in good shape.
It's basically the same scenario as with the Matrix trilogy (well almost). Everyone just wanted to know how it ended exactly, if for no other reason than closure. Even though 90% of the people knew ultimately where the story was headed, everyone still wanted the little details.
Otherwise, the author of the article is right in that the newer movies really don't do a good job of explaining what's going on. The part about Anakin having mental problems from post traumatic stress disorder would have explained his character a lot better. Personally, I still think Hayden Christensen was a poor choice to play the part and would've ruined it anyhow, but they really could've given us a lot more.
Additionally, General Grievous just sort of popped into existance. Assuming that I would know all about him from the various other publications is a mistake. Thinking back on it, it really made the movie seem a little off.
While the hardcore fans of Star Wars will have read all the books, seen the cartoons, and read about other lore and history on the internet, there're a lot of us out there who haven't. Some of us saw the movie just for the sake of seeing it. And in the end, I guess the box office take is good enough to justify producing movies in that fashion.
It looks like Apple might be getting prepared for the chance that Microsoft does decide to withdraw their support from the Mac. It would be an interesting turn if Apple eventually tried marketing a few of these applications on Windows like they do with iTunes. Not likely to happen because Apple still wants to sell computers, but it would give Microsoft a little competition other than Open Office.
Just a little ironic how the same people who use P2P programs for illegal purposes complain when someone will do something legally questionable to their computer.