The big problem I see with your logic is that yes they will make a few bucks off grandma, but collectively grandma, and the rest of the crazy casual market make up in sheer numbers a whole lot more money than hardcore gamers. Just look at Pokemon for instance. Hardcore gamers could all band together to support some uber awesome FPS, and NEVER come even close to the purchasing power of little kids, their parents who buy a starter deck to play with their kids, the hardcore of Pokemon, etc. Face it my friend. The hardcore are a market someone in the game industry will always cater to, but we are small beans compared to the mass market. Nintendo knows how to fawking make money. N64, and Gamecube were utter failures in the hardcore segments eye's yet Nintendo made a crapload of money on both consoles while MS & Sony still haven't broken even for their endeavors during the same periods.
Yeah, I know about that. I certainly hope I would given I'm currently IN the country. It's going to be done on a pilot basis. At that I'm not expecting it to last very long. Americans doing trial by jury are dumbasses (done it, never will get wrangled into it again in the states), but the Japanese are just plain harsh. The Japanese public in general are very oblivious to their own lives, and they really like it that way (even moreso than Americans), but once you make them look at someone else's misdoings, good fucking luck. The mentality is just so different it's insane. Once you are on trial, you are doomed.
Difference is people have far less cars, drive them far less, people cooperate with the police here, and if you did such a thing theres an over 90% chance you'll get busted for doing that whether or not it's reported. Not to mention if you got picked up in a sweep of people they were looking for who did such a thing, and you were in the area, that can affect your reputation pretty badly. General populous has a guilty until proven innocent mentality, and even then it's debatable (what were you doing in the area a crime was committed anyways?). It's a big reason why Japanese won't allow trial by peers. If you think judges can be assholes, try pleading your case to a bunch of people that made up their mind the moment they walked into the room, and saw you in the defendant's chair. Once your convicted of something you better hope your pretty because prostitution will probably be the only thing that can pay your bills when your get out. There are no 2nd chances with such things.
Less about respect, and more about fear of being ostracized. Sure you'll get away with it a few times, but not too many times. People have eyes, and you really never get to hear what other people say about you in Japan. Pretty important stuff when you generally end up getting to know your community better since your on foot allot more, and on public transportation. Once you are caught, and have a black mark for doing something bad, you'll spend a damn long time clawing your way outa that hole if you ever can. It's easy to sluff off personal guilt in other countries, but in one thats so entrenched with the idea of personal guilt...it's hard to have it not rub off on you after a while. Theres others, but thats a big one I've noticed.
Acccctually the main problem is the main populous of Japan just doesn't care. They are FAR more apathetic to everything going on around them than any other simple minded part of the US. They generally don't care as long as something doesn't bother their microcosm of life. Even at that they'll far too often just move aside when it does. I really like the country (hell I'm still enjoying it even though were having an Fing MONSOON hitting land here), but thats something I just have never been able to get used to. People here just don't care, and those that do are seen as disrupting the flow of things, and thus all too often get ostracized.
This move is purely been made because the internet has allowed people in other places to stand up for themselves elsewhere. Sure it won't keep scandalous information about politicians, and hopefuls from getting out, but it'll sure help make sure such information is never taken seriously. China's government WISHES they could control media as well as Japan is able to, and they do it so effortlessly because it's all too often self censored. Anywhere like the internet where anyone can do some damage they make the "outer fringes" in people's minds.
You really know jack assed shit about E3, let alone how a convention is run don't you? Press has ZERO trouble covering everything. The main show you see everywhere online is pretty much just allot of glitter. The people who you say should be there have whats called appointments setup. Only reason they may not get their crap done is because they were dicking around trying to win the latest GeForce Nvidia is giving away (those buttons were stupid as hell last year). Only people who have trouble covering such setups are bloggers, and lesser sites. Now while I'm of the opinion bloggers have ZERO valid press credentials, lesser sites need an oportunity to get a foot in the door which the main show is for. They get to fight through the fans to make contancts. With the current setup that is a whole hell of allot harder. This is in effect, mostly slamming the door shut on people who wish to start a site or mag up without allot more startup time.
I've been to E3 on all sides of the fence: developer, press, and as a fan. Now while I'm all for kicking a HUGE ammount of the slobbering masses out (banning retail clerks was BIG plus this last year), but how the show is now is just crappy. If they'd just check credentials a little better, or just outright do away with the free passes anyone can get (make the entry fee $100 minimum) it'd make sure allot more people were there for reasons that don't coencide with "it was a 30 min drive from my home".
Don't worry...you'll get dragon force soon. It's not a full blown RPG supposedly, but good enough for me. I keep getting giddy every time I see the adverts all over the train stations here in Tokyo. It'll be out here on the 12th ^^
Pretty much the same thing with the Las Vegas/Henderson location. Not in a bad location per se, but really a WTF location when there are MUCH better/more centrally located stores. It's in a so/so neighborhood, in an asscrack area of the valley a small fraction will find it easy to get to.
Then buy a phone you can sync to your address book on your computer. I carry around one of the most expensive phones on the market right now (Nokia N95, yes, even more expensive than an iPhone), but one of the main selling points for me was the phones ability to sync contacts, calendars, photos, etc on my Mac & PC just like an iPhone, Treo, and Windows Mobile phones. Hell it's syncing works better imo than all the others with the iPhone being the exception. Even if someone were to steal my phone, it'd be useless. It's got a fairly standard Symbian OS feature called SIM lock. Most phones have the option, but usually people can access the phones other functions, and contacts. With the Symbian OS it completely locks you out of doing anything with the phone until one of the few SIMs it recognizes are inserted, or you key in the SIM lock code to register that SIM with the phone. Wish that was something that was part of the standard setup for cellphones though. Would stop people from getting sticky fingers allot more often when your out having lunch, and aren't paying attention to your phone.
The only people who would really fall for such a farce are land locked (with China), have little technology, or means to strike back, and have people further up the chain who would direct their anger to the correct destination upon learning they had been played the fool. You think China bases allot of it's actions upon it's outward appearance, they are nothing next to the crazy people they could piss off. Not to mention China needs their oil a hell of allot more than the US. The US has been actively holding on to oil deposits, and capping it's oil supplies for the eventual day that OPEC tries to tell us to shove off, or they just can't keep the stream coming. It won't be too much longer before the US has more oil available to it within it's own borders than the rest of the world put together. Heck I have friends who's family is old money, and oil, yet they are going bankrupt because the US government has capped their oil reserve for the past decade. I can go scoop the oil directly out of the ground with my hand, but they can't touch it, and we honestly didn't stop ocean oil drilling for the Greenpeacers. We'll be right back out there the moment we need it.
This guy wreaks of wanting so very badly to be more than he really is. This is allot of smoke, but will probably just fade in a few weeks once the/. and Digg hordes stop looking for his Blind Date tripe. At least I hope so anyways. One Blind Date show is bad enough.
Guess I must just be the oddball then. The dock stays on the bottom for me. Key is having it hide when not in use. Such a waste to have screen real-estate eaten by icons you need intermittently.
Nokia phones like the N95 already support SIP out of the box without any extra software. Most other PDA style phones support VoIP apps generally as long as your not looking at Palm.
Have you actually USED an N95 for it's GPS functionality? I bought one on day 1 it released in the US. It's PISS, POOR. More often than not I can get halfway to my destination via pulling up google maps, and going before it even gets a GPS lock, and I live in Las Vegas where theres virtually no buildings to block the view. Not to mention even when it gets a GPS lock it's very lousy when in a car. The GPS functionality in my N95's built in GPS receiver is next to useless compared to my aging 3 year old Holux receiver I used to use with my Palm. Not to mention the N95 is a gaw damn pig when it comes to battery life. Full charge lasts 1 day (usually less with moderate use), and GPS use will kill it in 2 hours or less.
What we have here is a classic case of something worse than an Apple fanboy. We have an anti-Apple fanboy on our hands. Yes I personaly own allot of Apple crap, and I'll probably just stick with my N95 for 6 months or so even with it's MANY shortcomings, but jury is still out on the iPhone until it hits.
Not trying to flame, but your thought that competitors will jump in on the look & feel is kinda laughable. Kinda like how they did with the iPod? Still handles allot better than anything else in the market, and customer service beats the rest still hands down.
Apple will never sell a Verizon or Sprint version of the phone. PERIOD. Thats a complete hardware redesign for the radio (same reason the Treo 700p will never show up on a GSM carrier). Apple is after worldwide GSM providers. Not backwater thinking US centric companies like those two. Want to switch to a local number when in Europe? Get yourself a new phone or be raped by Verizon/Sprint for overseas rates. Sure Cingular sucks if you need actual customer support, but I'll take being able to swap my SIM when I'm roaming around Asia any day.
Slashdot Mirror
The big problem I see with your logic is that yes they will make a few bucks off grandma, but collectively grandma, and the rest of the crazy casual market make up in sheer numbers a whole lot more money than hardcore gamers. Just look at Pokemon for instance. Hardcore gamers could all band together to support some uber awesome FPS, and NEVER come even close to the purchasing power of little kids, their parents who buy a starter deck to play with their kids, the hardcore of Pokemon, etc. Face it my friend. The hardcore are a market someone in the game industry will always cater to, but we are small beans compared to the mass market. Nintendo knows how to fawking make money. N64, and Gamecube were utter failures in the hardcore segments eye's yet Nintendo made a crapload of money on both consoles while MS & Sony still haven't broken even for their endeavors during the same periods.
Ummm...you do know the PS2 STARTED at $299 right?
Yeah, I know about that. I certainly hope I would given I'm currently IN the country. It's going to be done on a pilot basis. At that I'm not expecting it to last very long. Americans doing trial by jury are dumbasses (done it, never will get wrangled into it again in the states), but the Japanese are just plain harsh. The Japanese public in general are very oblivious to their own lives, and they really like it that way (even moreso than Americans), but once you make them look at someone else's misdoings, good fucking luck. The mentality is just so different it's insane. Once you are on trial, you are doomed.
Difference is people have far less cars, drive them far less, people cooperate with the police here, and if you did such a thing theres an over 90% chance you'll get busted for doing that whether or not it's reported. Not to mention if you got picked up in a sweep of people they were looking for who did such a thing, and you were in the area, that can affect your reputation pretty badly. General populous has a guilty until proven innocent mentality, and even then it's debatable (what were you doing in the area a crime was committed anyways?). It's a big reason why Japanese won't allow trial by peers. If you think judges can be assholes, try pleading your case to a bunch of people that made up their mind the moment they walked into the room, and saw you in the defendant's chair. Once your convicted of something you better hope your pretty because prostitution will probably be the only thing that can pay your bills when your get out. There are no 2nd chances with such things.
Less about respect, and more about fear of being ostracized. Sure you'll get away with it a few times, but not too many times. People have eyes, and you really never get to hear what other people say about you in Japan. Pretty important stuff when you generally end up getting to know your community better since your on foot allot more, and on public transportation. Once you are caught, and have a black mark for doing something bad, you'll spend a damn long time clawing your way outa that hole if you ever can. It's easy to sluff off personal guilt in other countries, but in one thats so entrenched with the idea of personal guilt...it's hard to have it not rub off on you after a while. Theres others, but thats a big one I've noticed.
That stuff just tastes like shit.
Acccctually the main problem is the main populous of Japan just doesn't care. They are FAR more apathetic to everything going on around them than any other simple minded part of the US. They generally don't care as long as something doesn't bother their microcosm of life. Even at that they'll far too often just move aside when it does. I really like the country (hell I'm still enjoying it even though were having an Fing MONSOON hitting land here), but thats something I just have never been able to get used to. People here just don't care, and those that do are seen as disrupting the flow of things, and thus all too often get ostracized.
This move is purely been made because the internet has allowed people in other places to stand up for themselves elsewhere. Sure it won't keep scandalous information about politicians, and hopefuls from getting out, but it'll sure help make sure such information is never taken seriously. China's government WISHES they could control media as well as Japan is able to, and they do it so effortlessly because it's all too often self censored. Anywhere like the internet where anyone can do some damage they make the "outer fringes" in people's minds.
You really know jack assed shit about E3, let alone how a convention is run don't you? Press has ZERO trouble covering everything. The main show you see everywhere online is pretty much just allot of glitter. The people who you say should be there have whats called appointments setup. Only reason they may not get their crap done is because they were dicking around trying to win the latest GeForce Nvidia is giving away (those buttons were stupid as hell last year). Only people who have trouble covering such setups are bloggers, and lesser sites. Now while I'm of the opinion bloggers have ZERO valid press credentials, lesser sites need an oportunity to get a foot in the door which the main show is for. They get to fight through the fans to make contancts. With the current setup that is a whole hell of allot harder. This is in effect, mostly slamming the door shut on people who wish to start a site or mag up without allot more startup time.
I've been to E3 on all sides of the fence: developer, press, and as a fan. Now while I'm all for kicking a HUGE ammount of the slobbering masses out (banning retail clerks was BIG plus this last year), but how the show is now is just crappy. If they'd just check credentials a little better, or just outright do away with the free passes anyone can get (make the entry fee $100 minimum) it'd make sure allot more people were there for reasons that don't coencide with "it was a 30 min drive from my home".
Or...ya know...buy a PS2. They aren't exactly what you'd call expensive. Hell I can get refurbed PS2s for the price of new PS3 games.
Don't worry...you'll get dragon force soon. It's not a full blown RPG supposedly, but good enough for me. I keep getting giddy every time I see the adverts all over the train stations here in Tokyo. It'll be out here on the 12th ^^
Pretty much the same thing with the Las Vegas/Henderson location. Not in a bad location per se, but really a WTF location when there are MUCH better/more centrally located stores. It's in a so/so neighborhood, in an asscrack area of the valley a small fraction will find it easy to get to.
Awesome! I'm off to the Henderson location ^^
Then buy a phone you can sync to your address book on your computer. I carry around one of the most expensive phones on the market right now (Nokia N95, yes, even more expensive than an iPhone), but one of the main selling points for me was the phones ability to sync contacts, calendars, photos, etc on my Mac & PC just like an iPhone, Treo, and Windows Mobile phones. Hell it's syncing works better imo than all the others with the iPhone being the exception. Even if someone were to steal my phone, it'd be useless. It's got a fairly standard Symbian OS feature called SIM lock. Most phones have the option, but usually people can access the phones other functions, and contacts. With the Symbian OS it completely locks you out of doing anything with the phone until one of the few SIMs it recognizes are inserted, or you key in the SIM lock code to register that SIM with the phone. Wish that was something that was part of the standard setup for cellphones though. Would stop people from getting sticky fingers allot more often when your out having lunch, and aren't paying attention to your phone.
The only people who would really fall for such a farce are land locked (with China), have little technology, or means to strike back, and have people further up the chain who would direct their anger to the correct destination upon learning they had been played the fool. You think China bases allot of it's actions upon it's outward appearance, they are nothing next to the crazy people they could piss off. Not to mention China needs their oil a hell of allot more than the US. The US has been actively holding on to oil deposits, and capping it's oil supplies for the eventual day that OPEC tries to tell us to shove off, or they just can't keep the stream coming. It won't be too much longer before the US has more oil available to it within it's own borders than the rest of the world put together. Heck I have friends who's family is old money, and oil, yet they are going bankrupt because the US government has capped their oil reserve for the past decade. I can go scoop the oil directly out of the ground with my hand, but they can't touch it, and we honestly didn't stop ocean oil drilling for the Greenpeacers. We'll be right back out there the moment we need it.
Heh, do you remeber when MS was selling IE separate from Windows 3.1 for $50? Man...those were the days...
Yeah, someone doesn't sound just slightly angry they wern't Nintendo's target demographic.
Yeah, I'm a Mac head. Started with OS 6 I think. Man those were terrible days.
This guy wreaks of wanting so very badly to be more than he really is. This is allot of smoke, but will probably just fade in a few weeks once the /. and Digg hordes stop looking for his Blind Date tripe. At least I hope so anyways. One Blind Date show is bad enough.
Guess I must just be the oddball then. The dock stays on the bottom for me. Key is having it hide when not in use. Such a waste to have screen real-estate eaten by icons you need intermittently.
Nokia phones like the N95 already support SIP out of the box without any extra software. Most other PDA style phones support VoIP apps generally as long as your not looking at Palm.
You've never used a laptop for extended periods have you? Thats extra amount of unnecessary computing really sucks down the battery life.
Have you actually USED an N95 for it's GPS functionality? I bought one on day 1 it released in the US. It's PISS, POOR. More often than not I can get halfway to my destination via pulling up google maps, and going before it even gets a GPS lock, and I live in Las Vegas where theres virtually no buildings to block the view. Not to mention even when it gets a GPS lock it's very lousy when in a car. The GPS functionality in my N95's built in GPS receiver is next to useless compared to my aging 3 year old Holux receiver I used to use with my Palm. Not to mention the N95 is a gaw damn pig when it comes to battery life. Full charge lasts 1 day (usually less with moderate use), and GPS use will kill it in 2 hours or less.
What we have here is a classic case of something worse than an Apple fanboy. We have an anti-Apple fanboy on our hands. Yes I personaly own allot of Apple crap, and I'll probably just stick with my N95 for 6 months or so even with it's MANY shortcomings, but jury is still out on the iPhone until it hits.
Not trying to flame, but your thought that competitors will jump in on the look & feel is kinda laughable. Kinda like how they did with the iPod? Still handles allot better than anything else in the market, and customer service beats the rest still hands down.
Apple will never sell a Verizon or Sprint version of the phone. PERIOD. Thats a complete hardware redesign for the radio (same reason the Treo 700p will never show up on a GSM carrier). Apple is after worldwide GSM providers. Not backwater thinking US centric companies like those two. Want to switch to a local number when in Europe? Get yourself a new phone or be raped by Verizon/Sprint for overseas rates. Sure Cingular sucks if you need actual customer support, but I'll take being able to swap my SIM when I'm roaming around Asia any day.
Psh...this is /. At least geek it up a little =P
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