Definitely not going to abandon my PS3, but it will be a serious consideration when the next generation rolls out. Hopefully Sony have learned a lesson here. If they don't tighten things up, they will be hacked again within a few months.
The only hassle for me so far was phoning up the bank to get a new credit card sent out. I don't play online games much, and offline games and blu-rays are still playing fine.
You can still play both single player and co-op offline. I don't see how the experience is different from the PC version other than that you can play local co-op. Even after playing through the single player campaign, I didn't find the split screen co-op to be a pain in the ass at all - probably because there are no mobile enemies to be aware of, and the fact it was on a 40" HDTV.
So do PSN and Xbox live. I'm assuming this story is about potential lost sales. Funnily enough I expect developers will get more sales in the month or two after PSN is back online, as people get to play better demos with PSN Plus.. if I can't play a demo of your game, I will not buy it unless it's super cheap or very well known for being good.
Not really. Even 500GHz processors would still be extremely slow compared to quantum computers for crypto stuff, though this technology could presumably be used to make a very nice system bus, useful for graphics processing and other bandwidth intensive applications..
Have a look at Spotify:) I subscribed after the first story about the Amazon cloud service made me start considering the options. I love Amazon, but for the same price as subscribing to a cloud service and uploading my own music, I can just stream from a much larger collection instead. On the mobile app, you can use 3G/WiFi, or use offline playlists to save bandwidth/battery. You can also have a library of your own MP3s on the local storage of whatever device you're using. Altogether I think it's great. Especially considering I now have access to the Smashing Pumpkins Rarities and B-Sides album, which alone costs the same as an 8 month Premium Spotify subscription..! Could never bring myself to purchase it.
Hmm that's a shame, here's a link to part of the image. Unfortunately haven't been able to find the original image in high resolution, I'd really like to use it as the desktop background on my Xoom.
It's a little more additional effort, but for the ultimate in space saving, just rip it all. I've already done so with my CDs, but I can't face the DVD/blu-ray collection yet!
I've switched to Spotify for music now anyway, so even my ripped music collection has become slightly irrelevant! Hopefully soon Amazon or LoveFilm will start offering an HD streaming subscription service and then I won't have to worry about ripping my movies/TV shows either.
Loving my Kindle for books too, though annoyingly there have been a few books I've seen that sound like good reads, but the start of the series isn't available as an eBook yet. Kind of spoils the point if I have to go back to a paper book for the first book - means that I don't have the entire series stored away on the Kindle for re-reading in a few years.
Kindle renders pictures really nicely though, though obviously not in colour yet. I love the John James Audubon screen-lock pic (the birds/branches), would like to change things so that it only ever uses that as the screensaver (well, maybe that and the kindle tree/kid reading silhouette, that's also a beautiful image).
Kindle app on a colour tablet is really nice to use. It's actually decent on my phone too. I prefer a backlit screen when indoors, but the Kindle has already been great for taking on long journeys due to the excellent energy efficiency, and it will be really nice for just relaxing outside in summer with the e-ink screen:)
I did think that about webcams, but it must be that at least certain well known brands like Logitech either have generic compatibility modes in their cameras, or Sony did a deal to put their drivers into PS3s. Whatever the case, it worked right out of the box, and I'm not going to complain about that.
That's good to know, though I already got the 250 or whatever GB model assuming that I couldn't use a generic external drive.
I didn't know that about Xbox Live cheating either, again quite good to know..
Yes, I felt for years that the Xbox is a ripoff when it comes to peripherals and charging for Live access. A lot more people feel they can afford an Xbox Arcade (or whatever the base model is called these days) than just buying a PS3. The Xbox does do online parties/groups better than the PS3 in that you can stay grouped across multiple games without having to regroup each time, though I'm not sure that alone is worth the £40 a year. PSN Plus has since been launched, but I haven't considered that worth it either.
Don't see why it would cost an absolute fortune to have generic drivers for USB devices. My brother and I have both had success just plugging in a normal webcam into our PS3s. Likewise you can use any bluetooth headset with the PS3. For the Xbox you can only use their specially approved headsets if you want to go wireless. Even worse, you can only use MS approved storage devices for expansion (I think you can perhaps use any mass storage device but it limits you to a certain size limit).
There's no need for "Xbox compatible" hardware for stuff, it's just extortion. This is part of the reason I didn't buy an Xbox for so long, but eventually I gave in to buying one just so I could play online with friends who couldn't afford a PS3..
Remains to be seen what they do with the cross platform versions. Microsoft don't have a history of playing nice, ever. I don't even use voice/video chat apps, but this would be enough to make me at least look for a backup option to be on the safe side.
Disclaimer: I don't like Windows, and I don't particularly like MS, but my levels of pettiness have dropped to where I have bought an Xbox (but with the intention of mostly renting the games, or buying at budget prices).
Can't you already do that with the Xbox? Video chat is definitely there on PS3 if you just plug in a USB webcam, though I haven't tried it on my Xbox (I assume that MS would charge you for a special Xbox webcam rather than just letting you use any peripherals you want)
It's not unreasonable to expect that as bandwidth increases, caps increase too. I know that many ISPs aren't particularly reasonable, but they're going to be forced to be reasonable eventually, if they want customers. They may have a local monopoly, but if things were seriously that backward in my town that I couldn't even use the net properly, then I'd just move to a better area, or even a better country.
That fusion IO thing is actually 6GByte/s, which is 48Gbit/s (unless they made a mistake with capitals on that page), but it's not exactly small business/consumer grade stuff! If you set up a RAID array then you're obviously going to be able to handle higher bandwidths, but such a setup is really superfluous and overcomplicated for the majority of PC users.
Seeing as it's trivial to spoof an email from field, there's nothing the ISP can do to stop that. However if the spammers can also access your inbox, you have a problem worth complaining about.
if a movie isn't worth paying for, it's not worth "pirating"
The key difference is actually between "not worth paying extortionate fee for" and "not worth paying for". If they just brought the prices down to affordable (by average earnings standards, not by their own insane standards) levels with a good delivery system, then in many cases it would be worth it, and so they'd actually make much more profit if they gauge the price point correctly.
I don't "pay" for many of the movies I watch at the cinema, and that's why I'm happy to go see so many. It's actually cheaper here to get an "unlimited cinema" card than to buy two adult tickets per month. That's a no brainer for me, since there tends to be at least one new film each week on average that I am interested in seeing. Likewise I've started subscribing to Spotify and LoveFilm, and I'm spending a lot less than I would have been if I'd continued to buy CDs, DVDs, blu-rays and games (I still do buy some stuff that I really like, that might not be available at launch on a rental service, or I might want to lend to people, etc). I always felt dirty at the idea of doing rentals in the past, but it makes a lot of sense, especially with online streaming and/or freepost delivery. If online services keep improving, it will soon be much more convenient and worthwhile to just join an online streaming service than pirate TV and movies. There will always be assholes who want everything for free no matter the amount of time, money and effort went into creating it, and no matter the law or the creator's wishes, but they are definitely in the minority.
It might be a misinterpretation, but its the most common usage in the world today.
Yeah, because being commonly believed makes something true *facepalm*
When was the last time someone significantly increased hardwired bandwidth?
I guess Firewire, USB, HDMI, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt, etc. If you're talking switches then I think there are 10Gbps ones available but they aren't necessary for most home users and businesses yet - anything much above 10Gbps and you're going faster than most storage devices can currently handle anwyay, and for most people right now, 1Gbps should be acceptable for backups and file transfers.
I don't give a crap about increasing local ethernet speeds right now - the majority of people would get far more benefit from better internet connections. Most people can't even get 100Mbps internet, let alone 100Gbps.
I didn't say those with nothing to hide should consent to illegal searches either. I just said that having nothing to hide is not the reason to reject the illegal search. You should reject it if you have nothing to hide, but you should still reject it if you have something to hide. The reason to reject it is that it's invasive, and you don't have to comply if you don't want to.
Peoples is peoples, on console or PC. I agree that the market is not there yet, but Ubuntu has surprised a lot of people, including me. I'm not saying it will become popular enough for more mainstream desktop gaming, but it's not impossible either. MS' grasp on computing is waning - anything could happen in the next decade.
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Definitely not going to abandon my PS3, but it will be a serious consideration when the next generation rolls out. Hopefully Sony have learned a lesson here. If they don't tighten things up, they will be hacked again within a few months.
The only hassle for me so far was phoning up the bank to get a new credit card sent out. I don't play online games much, and offline games and blu-rays are still playing fine.
You can still play both single player and co-op offline. I don't see how the experience is different from the PC version other than that you can play local co-op. Even after playing through the single player campaign, I didn't find the split screen co-op to be a pain in the ass at all - probably because there are no mobile enemies to be aware of, and the fact it was on a 40" HDTV.
So do PSN and Xbox live. I'm assuming this story is about potential lost sales. Funnily enough I expect developers will get more sales in the month or two after PSN is back online, as people get to play better demos with PSN Plus.. if I can't play a demo of your game, I will not buy it unless it's super cheap or very well known for being good.
I can assure you that there will still be plenty of "promises", no matter how fast things get..
Not really. Even 500GHz processors would still be extremely slow compared to quantum computers for crypto stuff, though this technology could presumably be used to make a very nice system bus, useful for graphics processing and other bandwidth intensive applications..
Duh
Have a look at Spotify :) I subscribed after the first story about the Amazon cloud service made me start considering the options. I love Amazon, but for the same price as subscribing to a cloud service and uploading my own music, I can just stream from a much larger collection instead. On the mobile app, you can use 3G/WiFi, or use offline playlists to save bandwidth/battery. You can also have a library of your own MP3s on the local storage of whatever device you're using. Altogether I think it's great. Especially considering I now have access to the Smashing Pumpkins Rarities and B-Sides album, which alone costs the same as an 8 month Premium Spotify subscription..! Could never bring myself to purchase it.
Hmm that's a shame, here's a link to part of the image. Unfortunately haven't been able to find the original image in high resolution, I'd really like to use it as the desktop background on my Xoom.
It's a little more additional effort, but for the ultimate in space saving, just rip it all. I've already done so with my CDs, but I can't face the DVD/blu-ray collection yet!
I've switched to Spotify for music now anyway, so even my ripped music collection has become slightly irrelevant! Hopefully soon Amazon or LoveFilm will start offering an HD streaming subscription service and then I won't have to worry about ripping my movies/TV shows either.
Loving my Kindle for books too, though annoyingly there have been a few books I've seen that sound like good reads, but the start of the series isn't available as an eBook yet. Kind of spoils the point if I have to go back to a paper book for the first book - means that I don't have the entire series stored away on the Kindle for re-reading in a few years.
Kindle renders pictures really nicely though, though obviously not in colour yet. I love the John James Audubon screen-lock pic (the birds/branches), would like to change things so that it only ever uses that as the screensaver (well, maybe that and the kindle tree/kid reading silhouette, that's also a beautiful image).
Kindle app on a colour tablet is really nice to use. It's actually decent on my phone too. I prefer a backlit screen when indoors, but the Kindle has already been great for taking on long journeys due to the excellent energy efficiency, and it will be really nice for just relaxing outside in summer with the e-ink screen :)
I did think that about webcams, but it must be that at least certain well known brands like Logitech either have generic compatibility modes in their cameras, or Sony did a deal to put their drivers into PS3s. Whatever the case, it worked right out of the box, and I'm not going to complain about that.
That's good to know, though I already got the 250 or whatever GB model assuming that I couldn't use a generic external drive.
I didn't know that about Xbox Live cheating either, again quite good to know..
Yes, I felt for years that the Xbox is a ripoff when it comes to peripherals and charging for Live access. A lot more people feel they can afford an Xbox Arcade (or whatever the base model is called these days) than just buying a PS3. The Xbox does do online parties/groups better than the PS3 in that you can stay grouped across multiple games without having to regroup each time, though I'm not sure that alone is worth the £40 a year. PSN Plus has since been launched, but I haven't considered that worth it either.
Don't see why it would cost an absolute fortune to have generic drivers for USB devices. My brother and I have both had success just plugging in a normal webcam into our PS3s. Likewise you can use any bluetooth headset with the PS3. For the Xbox you can only use their specially approved headsets if you want to go wireless. Even worse, you can only use MS approved storage devices for expansion (I think you can perhaps use any mass storage device but it limits you to a certain size limit).
There's no need for "Xbox compatible" hardware for stuff, it's just extortion. This is part of the reason I didn't buy an Xbox for so long, but eventually I gave in to buying one just so I could play online with friends who couldn't afford a PS3..
Which is like buying an Apache helicopter and using the 30mm cannon to mow your lawn.
Remains to be seen what they do with the cross platform versions. Microsoft don't have a history of playing nice, ever. I don't even use voice/video chat apps, but this would be enough to make me at least look for a backup option to be on the safe side.
Disclaimer: I don't like Windows, and I don't particularly like MS, but my levels of pettiness have dropped to where I have bought an Xbox (but with the intention of mostly renting the games, or buying at budget prices).
Can't you already do that with the Xbox? Video chat is definitely there on PS3 if you just plug in a USB webcam, though I haven't tried it on my Xbox (I assume that MS would charge you for a special Xbox webcam rather than just letting you use any peripherals you want)
It's not unreasonable to expect that as bandwidth increases, caps increase too. I know that many ISPs aren't particularly reasonable, but they're going to be forced to be reasonable eventually, if they want customers. They may have a local monopoly, but if things were seriously that backward in my town that I couldn't even use the net properly, then I'd just move to a better area, or even a better country.
That fusion IO thing is actually 6GByte/s, which is 48Gbit/s (unless they made a mistake with capitals on that page), but it's not exactly small business/consumer grade stuff! If you set up a RAID array then you're obviously going to be able to handle higher bandwidths, but such a setup is really superfluous and overcomplicated for the majority of PC users.
Seeing as it's trivial to spoof an email from field, there's nothing the ISP can do to stop that. However if the spammers can also access your inbox, you have a problem worth complaining about.
Finally, National Security is helping me to conduct my illegal activities!
Speak for yourself please :)
if a movie isn't worth paying for, it's not worth "pirating"
The key difference is actually between "not worth paying extortionate fee for" and "not worth paying for". If they just brought the prices down to affordable (by average earnings standards, not by their own insane standards) levels with a good delivery system, then in many cases it would be worth it, and so they'd actually make much more profit if they gauge the price point correctly.
I don't "pay" for many of the movies I watch at the cinema, and that's why I'm happy to go see so many. It's actually cheaper here to get an "unlimited cinema" card than to buy two adult tickets per month. That's a no brainer for me, since there tends to be at least one new film each week on average that I am interested in seeing. Likewise I've started subscribing to Spotify and LoveFilm, and I'm spending a lot less than I would have been if I'd continued to buy CDs, DVDs, blu-rays and games (I still do buy some stuff that I really like, that might not be available at launch on a rental service, or I might want to lend to people, etc). I always felt dirty at the idea of doing rentals in the past, but it makes a lot of sense, especially with online streaming and/or freepost delivery. If online services keep improving, it will soon be much more convenient and worthwhile to just join an online streaming service than pirate TV and movies. There will always be assholes who want everything for free no matter the amount of time, money and effort went into creating it, and no matter the law or the creator's wishes, but they are definitely in the minority.
It might be a misinterpretation, but its the most common usage in the world today.
Yeah, because being commonly believed makes something true *facepalm*
When was the last time someone significantly increased hardwired bandwidth?
I guess Firewire, USB, HDMI, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt, etc. If you're talking switches then I think there are 10Gbps ones available but they aren't necessary for most home users and businesses yet - anything much above 10Gbps and you're going faster than most storage devices can currently handle anwyay, and for most people right now, 1Gbps should be acceptable for backups and file transfers.
I don't give a crap about increasing local ethernet speeds right now - the majority of people would get far more benefit from better internet connections. Most people can't even get 100Mbps internet, let alone 100Gbps.
Nobody has said any different.
I didn't say those with nothing to hide should consent to illegal searches either. I just said that having nothing to hide is not the reason to reject the illegal search. You should reject it if you have nothing to hide, but you should still reject it if you have something to hide. The reason to reject it is that it's invasive, and you don't have to comply if you don't want to.
Peoples is peoples, on console or PC. I agree that the market is not there yet, but Ubuntu has surprised a lot of people, including me. I'm not saying it will become popular enough for more mainstream desktop gaming, but it's not impossible either. MS' grasp on computing is waning - anything could happen in the next decade.
Google* (stupid Android touch keyboard ;)