I agree. Next Generation was a very good magazine. However, running a magazine is a business, and the subscription numbers just weren't there to bring in the advertising dollars. They tweaked with their formula to grow their audience but this only hastened the decline.
In spite of the fact that market is bigger (and older) than it was 10 years ago, I *still* doubt the market could support such a magazine. I think the growth in the market has been due largely to the increase of "casual" gamers, vs. "hardcore" gamers that would be inclined to get a magazine subscription solely dedicated. I'd love to be proven wrong, however.
In the meantime, have you checked out Game Developer magazine? Not exactly a replacement for Next Generation, but it does cover a lot of aspects of the industry that the mainstream gaming press ignores.
They're ditching Win32, though there will be binary compatibility for older apps.
So, they're ditching Win32, but they... aren't?
Not only will this make things much safer (.NET is garbage-collected, type-safe, etc.), but it allows for much easier development (compare MFC to, say, WinForms).
How is this? If the old API never goes away, how are you not adding another layer of "cruft"? Consider DirectX -- even with the DirectX 9 SDK, I can still compile apps that use Directdraw surfaces (which was "removed" from the API years ago). I'm not sure how you can maintain compatibility but ensure against writing new apps that use old api's.
This is going to sound like a troll, but I'm honestly curious. Is Microsoft simply removing the documentation for Win32 and nothing more?
I've seen a few comments along the lines of "Well, that sounds great but I wish it had xyz feature". Of course, if you tacked on all these features you'd quickly wind up with a machine that can't be sold for $500 and cannibalizes Apple's sales on other products.
That said... I hope you can easily upgrade the RAM. Well, actually, I'll settle for being able to upgrade the RAM at all -- but the description of the form factor leads me to think that upgrading memory might be as easy as swapping out the battery in your iPod.
It uses the same source video as was used to make this gif...
Sorry, wrong. This guy shot several different sequences. One with just pillow, one with DS, one with Teddy. They are shot from slightly different angles and feature different games being played. Besides that, seems a stretch to fake something that has been independently confirmed by multiple sources, no?
If you look at the bear video frame by frame, you'll see the UMD magically disappear after it "hits" the bear.
Go see an optometrist, now. This "magic" disapearance is due to the disc bouncing off of the bear, sliding down the pillow and falling out of view of the camera. You can clearly see this happening. Well, maybe not *you* personally, but I was speaking to the audience in general.
Also, the blurring in the frame where the bear gets hit is clearly artificial.
You work for Sony, don't you? When you look at individual frames of video, things that are moving tend to appear more blurred than those that aren't.
Finally:
What's next? Flawed window breaks when hit with brick?
It's not as if this guy was applying a whole lot of torque to the thing. It's not a 90 degree bend, he's putting a slight amount of pressure in just the right(wrong) spot and pow!
For reference, iPod's are designed to withstand being dropped from heights of up to 5ft (and I can tell you from experience that they can... repeatedly). This is to ensure that the product can withstand the realities of everyday use. So, wouldn't you expect that Sony would ruggedize this device so as to withstand your occasional button-mashing gamer? Apparently not if you want to get your product to market at the same time as your competitor.
I read this PR twice, convinced that I had read this wrong or that it was some kind of a hoax, thinking "can this mean what I think it means?".
This is bad. So very bad. If this is true (see above), this will essentially kill the football franchises of Sony/989 Studios, Sega, and Midway. It doesn't matter how good a game is -- without the license to use the official teams and players, you are toast.
The immediate effect of this will be price. When Sega slashed it's sports line to $20, EA followed suit by dropping it's sports titles to $30. Think that will happen when EA has no competition? Quality will be the next to go -- what will be EA's motivation to innovate? When SCEA first released NFL Gameday for the Playstation, EA cancelled it's Madden because of its inferrior quality. They came back the next year with a much-improved offering. Without compeition, what will stop EA from shoveling out complete garbage? There wasn't a lot of year-on-year innovation in the first place, but now I'll be surprised if they do little more update the team rosters.
Oh, and doesn't easpouse's husband work for EA Tiburon? I guess that situation isn't going to improve. "Where else are you going to work? Sega? Bwah hah hah hah!". Guess I better figure out how the BCS works... damn you EA!!!
First, there was Dance Dance Revolution. And it made geeks look silly.
Then, there was Karaoke Revolution. Sillyness was redefined. DDR players would point and laugh -- it was that silly.
Now, there is Beat Box Studio. "Silly" doesn't apply any more. You mark my words: this will be the first game that will prompt gamers to kick their own asses.
okay, agreed. the adequacy.org link was a bit obscure. It had a blurb about how AMD chips would turn your son into an evil hacker and so I went with it. 'Cus it's funny, see? Okay, maybe not.
Still, though... flamebait? Of all days I choose to post, I do it on the day that Jerry Sanders gets mod points. Damnit!
I'm not offering any. At the same time, let's not laud AMD for slapping some 64 bit registers on somebody elses design. I'm just saying that I'm puzzled by the pro-AMD groupthink.
Now, I'm not up on IA-64, so I can't comment on whether it's a good design or not. However, I think it's unfortunate for intel that they are in a situation where they are continually blasted by IT community.
The primary complaint with the iterations IA-32 is that the chip was overly complex (from a design and programming perspective) because Intel chose to maintain backwards compatibility. However, when they decided to start completely from scratch and create a completely new architecture with IA-64, they were roundly criticized for (wait for it) not maintaining backwards compatibility.
Now they are being written off as an also-ran that is now trying to "catch up" with AMD, which is a bit laughable when you consider that they only did what AMD has been doing for years (namely, copying a competitors design).
I think it's great that there's competition in the market, and that the consumer has largely benefitted from having two x86 vendors. But make no mistake: AMD is not the "good guy". They are not innovators by any stretch of the imagination. Many of their employees suffer deplorable work conditions. They offer a similar product at cheaper prices. End of story.
I love Apple products, but Apple has always had a problem competing with the low-price market -- they've always opted for high-quality, high-margin equipment.
Most of these flash-based players can be had for under $100 and exist in the "impulse buy" region. I seriously doubt that Apple will be able to put out a player for $150, even if it only has 256meg. Yes yes, *I* know will it be a much better product, but that wont matter to the tightwads.
If theres one company that I hate worse than Best Buy, it has to be Fry's Electronics. So, I devised a way to screw them both. Here's how:
1) Find loss leader in Fry's Electronics flier (typically a new release marquee video game)
2) Purchase Fry's loss leader at Best Buy. Use Best Buy's price-matching policy.
This way, I screw two companies with one purchase. Fry's misses the opportunity to sell me more items, and Best Buy takes the loss. Of course, this all ends when I get labeled a "frequent returner", but that's when I'll just start paying with cash and picking ever more clever monikers when filling out the price-match form ("Here's your 'Pikmin 2', Dr. Oppenheimer")
Dude, where have you been? There have been dozens of puzzles. There's been a set of puzzles released on a weekly basis. What do you think is corrupting all those jpeg's, anyhow?
Trust me, if it was hosted on a linux box, ilovebees.com would attain a godlike status on Slashdot, and everyone would talk about how ingenious the game is. ILB t-shirts would be the hottest selling item on ThinkGeek. Oh well.
Yes, Microsoft's goal with ilovebees is that you will ultimately give them money.
But then again, Microsoft's goal with Halo2 is that you will ultimately give them money. Are you going to argue that it's somehow less fun because of the economic motive? No, because that would be stupid. So why make the claim that this "advertisement" as you call it isn't fun? In the end, the means to meet Microsoft's goal involves creating something engaging and very fun to play. So who cares about the motive?
Oh, and by the way, VA Software's goal with Slashdot/Sourceforge/Freshmeat is that you will ultimately give them money. Guess you better stop reading, huh?
As far as I can tell from the articles that I've read, you need to have XP media center edition. So , this doesn't really solve my problem -- which is namely wanting to have my music/pictures/whatever stored on the computer in my den (running xp pro), but be able to access it from the Xbox in my living room.
I can see the incentive for someone who already has a media center PC. Just not the holy grail i was looking for.
Okay, the system can be modded to run any x86 code you want. WE KNOW THIS ALREADY. You can install linux, windows, and whatever else that will fit in the ram (which is 128MB, seeing as how we've hacked the memory limit too) With this in mind, how many times are we going to see the same damn story over and over again?
For awhile now, I've been waiting for a music player that supports ogg vorbis. Not because I want to play ogg files (I have an iPod), I've just wanted to see what the new official slashdot why-i-wont-buy-it whine will be.
In a million years, I couldn't have predicted "It doesn't have an AM tuner". AM TUNER!?? Are you friggin kidding me?
Come on, just flat out say that you are never gonna buy one of these things.
I bet microsoft is watching IP addresses. If they see you turn around and leave when confronted they make a note.
Make a note... of the 99.85% of people who click "No"? Doubtful.
Obviously not many people, legal or otherwise, are going to click "yes". My guess is that Microsoft doesn't care. I think what they're trying to do is gradually acquaint users with the notion that these checks will become gradually more commonplace. After awhile, they may become compulsory. After all, if you heat the water up too fast the frog hops out...
While I agree that the documentarty didn't delve too deeply into the nature of the industry, I don't really think it was the point. The point was to give an overview of the industry: a history, current trends, major figures, obstacles and struggles. In this respect I think it did a very good job. It also did this without becoming pedantic, or sensationalizing pieces of the story for dramatic effect.
Furthermore, I don't think you could have had a two hour documentary that properly fleshed out the topics you mention without cutting out something else. If your goal is to describe the game industry in two hours and you spend 30 minutes on Peter Molyneux's thought process during the development of "Magic Carpet"... you've spent too much time on it.
I think it did a very good job of presenting a balanced treatment on the subject of videogame violence. The mainstream media loves to jump on grand theft auto and doom, but this documentary showed both sides.
Your solution the problem you describe is a bit like cutting off your legs because you want to avoid ingrown toenails. Would you really bar anyone from making any sort of small scale solution until they pair up with a programmer? First off, few organizations have an IT department large enough where you could meet the demand (this is one of the reasons why people make apps in MS Access... they can't get a resource in IT). Furthermore, when you're designing at the MS Access level, you can change your application at the speed of whim, so you can figure out what you want while in design mode. Do you really want to tie up a developer in this cycle? And please resist saying "hey, these business users need to figure out what they want first!". Sorry, not realistic. You use a rapid prototyping environment like MS Access / Filemaker because you want something *now*.
The next version of DDR will sport integration with eyetoy, and will have modes that incorporate hand motion in concert with the foot steps. check it out
Not only have I wished Arpaio would lose the office...
Don't worry... it's likely that he lose the next election. Though many of his high-profile stunts (female chain gangs, tent city, making male inmates wear pink underwear) have endeared him to tough-on-crime concervatives in the past, he has gotten himself in hot water over recent gaffes/scandals. Many prominent Arizona republicans such as John McCain and the district attorney have endorsed Arpaio's competitor, Dan Saban, for the next election.
I'm a Arizona native, and I kinda figured this would happen to Arpaio. He was always kindof a wildcard, and knew he'd do something to get himself in trouble. Besides the jailcam thing, his deputies were involved in a sex-scandal. What really did him in, though, was his support of Janet Napolitano (a democrat) for governer.
Do a little more research on the matter. 36mpg in the city for a SUV (for any car) is outstanding.
It would be outstanding if it were accurate, but it's not. Reviewers have not come close 36mpg city or highway (again, 28mpg is the best USA Today could do). It's just not a big enough jump in effeciency over the non-hybrid version to warrant the switch.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. Next Generation was a very good magazine. However, running a magazine is a business, and the subscription numbers just weren't there to bring in the advertising dollars. They tweaked with their formula to grow their audience but this only hastened the decline.
In spite of the fact that market is bigger (and older) than it was 10 years ago, I *still* doubt the market could support such a magazine. I think the growth in the market has been due largely to the increase of "casual" gamers, vs. "hardcore" gamers that would be inclined to get a magazine subscription solely dedicated. I'd love to be proven wrong, however.
In the meantime, have you checked out Game Developer magazine? Not exactly a replacement for Next Generation, but it does cover a lot of aspects of the industry that the mainstream gaming press ignores.
How is this? If the old API never goes away, how are you not adding another layer of "cruft"? Consider DirectX -- even with the DirectX 9 SDK, I can still compile apps that use Directdraw surfaces (which was "removed" from the API years ago). I'm not sure how you can maintain compatibility but ensure against writing new apps that use old api's.
This is going to sound like a troll, but I'm honestly curious. Is Microsoft simply removing the documentation for Win32 and nothing more?
I've seen a few comments along the lines of "Well, that sounds great but I wish it had xyz feature". Of course, if you tacked on all these features you'd quickly wind up with a machine that can't be sold for $500 and cannibalizes Apple's sales on other products.
That said... I hope you can easily upgrade the RAM. Well, actually, I'll settle for being able to upgrade the RAM at all -- but the description of the form factor leads me to think that upgrading memory might be as easy as swapping out the battery in your iPod.
Finally:
It's not as if this guy was applying a whole lot of torque to the thing. It's not a 90 degree bend, he's putting a slight amount of pressure in just the right(wrong) spot and pow!
For reference, iPod's are designed to withstand being dropped from heights of up to 5ft (and I can tell you from experience that they can... repeatedly). This is to ensure that the product can withstand the realities of everyday use. So, wouldn't you expect that Sony would ruggedize this device so as to withstand your occasional button-mashing gamer? Apparently not if you want to get your product to market at the same time as your competitor.
I read this PR twice, convinced that I had read this wrong or that it was some kind of a hoax, thinking "can this mean what I think it means?".
This is bad. So very bad. If this is true (see above), this will essentially kill the football franchises of Sony/989 Studios, Sega, and Midway. It doesn't matter how good a game is -- without the license to use the official teams and players, you are toast.
The immediate effect of this will be price. When Sega slashed it's sports line to $20, EA followed suit by dropping it's sports titles to $30. Think that will happen when EA has no competition? Quality will be the next to go -- what will be EA's motivation to innovate? When SCEA first released NFL Gameday for the Playstation, EA cancelled it's Madden because of its inferrior quality. They came back the next year with a much-improved offering. Without compeition, what will stop EA from shoveling out complete garbage? There wasn't a lot of year-on-year innovation in the first place, but now I'll be surprised if they do little more update the team rosters.
Oh, and doesn't easpouse's husband work for EA Tiburon? I guess that situation isn't going to improve. "Where else are you going to work? Sega? Bwah hah hah hah!". Guess I better figure out how the BCS works... damn you EA!!!
IT'S A COOKBOOK!!!
First, there was Dance Dance Revolution. And it made geeks look silly.
Then, there was Karaoke Revolution. Sillyness was redefined. DDR players would point and laugh -- it was that silly.
Now, there is Beat Box Studio. "Silly" doesn't apply any more. You mark my words: this will be the first game that will prompt gamers to kick their own asses.
okay, agreed. the adequacy.org link was a bit obscure. It had a blurb about how AMD chips would turn your son into an evil hacker and so I went with it. 'Cus it's funny, see? Okay, maybe not.
Still, though... flamebait? Of all days I choose to post, I do it on the day that Jerry Sanders gets mod points. Damnit!
I'm not offering any. At the same time, let's not laud AMD for slapping some 64 bit registers on somebody elses design. I'm just saying that I'm puzzled by the pro-AMD groupthink.
Now, I'm not up on IA-64, so I can't comment on whether it's a good design or not. However, I think it's unfortunate for intel that they are in a situation where they are continually blasted by IT community.
The primary complaint with the iterations IA-32 is that the chip was overly complex (from a design and programming perspective) because Intel chose to maintain backwards compatibility. However, when they decided to start completely from scratch and create a completely new architecture with IA-64, they were roundly criticized for (wait for it) not maintaining backwards compatibility.
Now they are being written off as an also-ran that is now trying to "catch up" with AMD, which is a bit laughable when you consider that they only did what AMD has been doing for years (namely, copying a competitors design).
I think it's great that there's competition in the market, and that the consumer has largely benefitted from having two x86 vendors. But make no mistake: AMD is not the "good guy". They are not innovators by any stretch of the imagination. Many of their employees suffer deplorable work conditions. They offer a similar product at cheaper prices. End of story.
I love Apple products, but Apple has always had a problem competing with the low-price market -- they've always opted for high-quality, high-margin equipment.
Most of these flash-based players can be had for under $100 and exist in the "impulse buy" region. I seriously doubt that Apple will be able to put out a player for $150, even if it only has 256meg. Yes yes, *I* know will it be a much better product, but that wont matter to the tightwads.
If theres one company that I hate worse than Best Buy, it has to be Fry's Electronics. So, I devised a way to screw them both. Here's how:
1) Find loss leader in Fry's Electronics flier (typically a new release marquee video game)
2) Purchase Fry's loss leader at Best Buy. Use Best Buy's price-matching policy.
This way, I screw two companies with one purchase. Fry's misses the opportunity to sell me more items, and Best Buy takes the loss. Of course, this all ends when I get labeled a "frequent returner", but that's when I'll just start paying with cash and picking ever more clever monikers when filling out the price-match form ("Here's your 'Pikmin 2', Dr. Oppenheimer")
Dude, where have you been? There have been dozens of puzzles. There's been a set of puzzles released on a weekly basis. What do you think is corrupting all those jpeg's, anyhow?
Pfc Nobodyman has your back, too.
Trust me, if it was hosted on a linux box, ilovebees.com would attain a godlike status on Slashdot, and everyone would talk about how ingenious the game is. ILB t-shirts would be the hottest selling item on ThinkGeek. Oh well.
Clueless one,
Yes, Microsoft's goal with ilovebees is that you will ultimately give them money.
But then again, Microsoft's goal with Halo2 is that you will ultimately give them money. Are you going to argue that it's somehow less fun because of the economic motive? No, because that would be stupid. So why make the claim that this "advertisement" as you call it isn't fun? In the end, the means to meet Microsoft's goal involves creating something engaging and very fun to play. So who cares about the motive?
Oh, and by the way, VA Software's goal with Slashdot/Sourceforge/Freshmeat is that you will ultimately give them money. Guess you better stop reading, huh?
As far as I can tell from the articles that I've read, you need to have XP media center edition. So , this doesn't really solve my problem -- which is namely wanting to have my music/pictures/whatever stored on the computer in my den (running xp pro), but be able to access it from the Xbox in my living room.
I can see the incentive for someone who already has a media center PC. Just not the holy grail i was looking for.
Okay, the system can be modded to run any x86 code you want. WE KNOW THIS ALREADY. You can install linux, windows, and whatever else that will fit in the ram (which is 128MB, seeing as how we've hacked the memory limit too) With this in mind, how many times are we going to see the same damn story over and over again?
"They've got QUICKEN running on Xbox!? OMFG!!!"
Sorry, not interested anymore.
For awhile now, I've been waiting for a music player that supports ogg vorbis. Not because I want to play ogg files (I have an iPod), I've just wanted to see what the new official slashdot why-i-wont-buy-it whine will be.
In a million years, I couldn't have predicted "It doesn't have an AM tuner". AM TUNER!?? Are you friggin kidding me?
Come on, just flat out say that you are never gonna buy one of these things.
Obviously not many people, legal or otherwise, are going to click "yes". My guess is that Microsoft doesn't care. I think what they're trying to do is gradually acquaint users with the notion that these checks will become gradually more commonplace. After awhile, they may become compulsory. After all, if you heat the water up too fast the frog hops out...
While I agree that the documentarty didn't delve too deeply into the nature of the industry, I don't really think it was the point. The point was to give an overview of the industry: a history, current trends, major figures, obstacles and struggles. In this respect I think it did a very good job. It also did this without becoming pedantic, or sensationalizing pieces of the story for dramatic effect.
Furthermore, I don't think you could have had a two hour documentary that properly fleshed out the topics you mention without cutting out something else. If your goal is to describe the game industry in two hours and you spend 30 minutes on Peter Molyneux's thought process during the development of "Magic Carpet"... you've spent too much time on it.
I think it did a very good job of presenting a balanced treatment on the subject of videogame violence. The mainstream media loves to jump on grand theft auto and doom, but this documentary showed both sides.
Your solution the problem you describe is a bit like cutting off your legs because you want to avoid ingrown toenails. Would you really bar anyone from making any sort of small scale solution until they pair up with a programmer? First off, few organizations have an IT department large enough where you could meet the demand (this is one of the reasons why people make apps in MS Access... they can't get a resource in IT). Furthermore, when you're designing at the MS Access level, you can change your application at the speed of whim, so you can figure out what you want while in design mode. Do you really want to tie up a developer in this cycle? And please resist saying "hey, these business users need to figure out what they want first!". Sorry, not realistic. You use a rapid prototyping environment like MS Access / Filemaker because you want something *now*.
The next version of DDR will sport integration with eyetoy, and will have modes that incorporate hand motion in concert with the foot steps. check it out
yeah... kinda depressing, ya think? Feed inmates contaminated food: okay. Cross party lines: you're toast.
I'm a Arizona native, and I kinda figured this would happen to Arpaio. He was always kindof a wildcard, and knew he'd do something to get himself in trouble. Besides the jailcam thing, his deputies were involved in a sex-scandal. What really did him in, though, was his support of Janet Napolitano (a democrat) for governer.
Do a little more research on the matter. 36mpg in the city for a SUV (for any car) is outstanding.
It would be outstanding if it were accurate, but it's not. Reviewers have not come close 36mpg city or highway (again, 28mpg is the best USA Today could do). It's just not a big enough jump in effeciency over the non-hybrid version to warrant the switch.