This is not news to me, nor should it be to anyone who watched the Making of Documentary that came with the special edition Halo 2. Basically, Bungie sat around on their asses doing nothing until about a year/6 months before the release date, and then started working like crazy. It shows you that the New Mombasa E3 demo was not built on the existing game engine and had to be completely scrapped.
I doubt this will happen again, as it sounds like they're far into production already, but if it should, I doubt I'll buy the game.
It's nice to see some 360s selling in Japan, but I wonder how many of these people bought a 360 out of frustration, due to limited Wii and, to a larger extent, PS3 shipments.
Nintendo offers 12-month product warranties for all their systems; so if you buy the base Wii package for $250, you still have protection for one year. Man, you gotta love Gamestop and their ability to prey on the fears of the uninformed public.
I bet Nintendo will release this in Nintendo and Europe as well, about a year and a half or so after launch, along with some other modest hardware improvements, such as a hard drive or maybe some more flash memory. I have a 360 to tide me over until then, and there's nothing at launch (since I can get Zelda for my Gamecube) that I desperately need. I got burned with the DS Lite; wanna make sure that doesn't happen again. nte That being said, why wasn't this originally included? It makes perfect sense, given that they're trying to make it a family centerpiece with the channels and such.
Oh yeah, and hopefully the CNN thing is true. Although, wouldn't just turning your TV channel to CNN be a little easier?
You must not have that big of a music library if you don't realize something is very wrong with this. I should not have to pay for hundreds of blank CDs just to be able to transfer my music collection.
Are there any features that you wanted to include in Internet Explorer 7 but had to cut due to time constraints or other conflicts? If so, will we see these in a Service Pack or maybe IE8?
Some people thought the character in Portal might be Adrian Sheppard from Opposing Force fame, but this seems to put that thought to rest. I'm still hoping for a bigger role for Sheppard in Episode 2 or 3.
...but the fact that your home page is constantly updated by every little thing each of your friends does. Add a new photo? Bingo, alert, plus a thumbnail of the photo to clutter the page. Write something on another person's wall? You'll get a copy of the message on your main page. Most of us, if we care about every little detail of a friend's life, will intentionally browse that person's profile ourselves, as we spend enough time aimlessly surfing the site anyway.
While 2 million users usually depicts a great service that is worth coming back, part of me believes that so many DS owners are gaga over it due to it being the first real online infrastructure they've ever had. I've played online with my Dreamcast, XBox, XBox 360, and PC. These are all great online platforms, whether it be to play Phantasy Star Online, Rainbow Six 3, Halo 2, or GRAW. I was excited for Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection last November and played many games of Mario Kart online before snaking became rampant. In fact, I own six Wi-Fi games for the system (Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Tony Hawk, Metroid, Tetris, and Starfox) but I rarely play them online at all. Why? Lack of communication, poor matchmaking features, and that horrible system known as the friends list.
While the ease of use and price, or lack thereof, have certainly helped Nintendo reach this milestone, I also have to wonder if not having any substantial online for their previous systems have prevented users from knowing exactly what they're missing.
But think about Virtual Console? How will purchases be made? Surely there must be a credit card option? If so, let us tie our account to a credit card for online gaming as well; you do not have to charge, but it proves that the child has the consent of a parent or relative to go online.
I like not having to pay for my DS to use Wifi, but the friend code system makes me pull my hair out. There are so many little checks and safeguards thrown in to prevent you from being able to easily and effectively add people to your friends list. I would rather pay a subscription fee like I do for XBox Live and be able to enjoy seamless integration of friends, messages, etc. throughout all my games.
I used Windows 98 since the summer of 99 until the present, when I just got my new notebook. It was running absolutely no firewalls, virus checkers, or anti-spyware programs and was on my wireless network, and it had absolutely nothing wrong with it - no drops in performance, no bugs, etc. Old operating systems are entirely usable in the present day, as long as you are not an idiot when it comes to using the idiot and can tolerate the subpar support provided for you with new applications and programs.
I know a lot of people have bad memories when the term "GCN-GBA Connectivity" comes to mind. Granted, I had about 7 friends who had GBAs/SPs and loved Crystal Chronicles, so we actually had enough enough to run two whole FFCC consoles at once, but I recognize that the majority (read: almost everyone else in existence) couldn't even get 3 other people plus themselves together on a regular basis. Four Swords was about the only other game that I thought utilized the GBA in a pretty decent way that wasn't gimmicky or useless.
However, I have high hopes for the DS-Wii Connectivity. For one, the connection is wireless, so that eliminates the need for the $15 cable that most people complained about having to go buy, despite it being packed in with Crystal Chronicles and Four Swords Adventures. Secondly, the DS is a much more advanced system, with a Download Play written right into the BIOS for ease of sharing game data. Lastly, the DS has a much better control interface than the GBA, with four face buttons instead of two and a touch screen for control schemes that can't always be easily mapped to a traditional control setting.
Plus, I think Nintendo's learned their lesson about forcing people to have an expensive portable in order to play the multiplayer function of a game. Well, at least I hope they have.
"Now you can connect your Prism Durosport to your home network with our new wireless adapter. Please note that the due to power requirements the Prism DuroSport must be plugged into the wall adapter when connected to the wireless adapter."
Right now I buy more CDs at retail than on iTunes Music Store for a few reasons:
1) I have two computers with iTunes that I want to put the CD on, so just popping it in the drive and ripping it in is much more organized and efficient.
2) Best Buy sells most of the CDs I buy at $10, which is what I consider a fair price.
Next year I'll be away at college, though, and I'm fairly certain my acess to Best Buy will be severly impaired, and I'll only be using one of my computers heavily (laptop). Thus, I'll probably buy CDs through the iTunes Music Store, as they sell Music Store cards in the campus bookstore.
There's simply no reason to restrict access to one method of purchasing or the other. You're simply hurting your own sales one way or another.
For the longest time, the Big N just flat out didn't care about their image. I mean, seriously, who preferred a purple Gamecube over a black one, or a purple Game Boy Advance over a Glacier? Some may make the argument that color is one of the more trivial factors in a system's launch, but it goes a long way to influencing public perception.
It looks like the company is finally realizing how big of a role public image plays in the success of the company. The GBA SP and now DS Lite are very sleek devices, and the Revolution isn't all that flashy but at least it doesn't sport a handle, either. With their first online first person shooter being released in two weeks, I'd like to assume that the company has finally turned it around and won't ever look back, but I'm just not that sure. Yet.
I bought a Shuffle last January to fulfill my traveling needs and avoid the expense of a normal iPod (as I was waiting for the video one even back then). Since the Shuffle is pretty limited, I ignored the Music Store and focused on importing my CDs and local band music. However, after getting a Video iPod for Christmas, I've started using the Music Store religiously. I get the free single(s) every week, scour the videos section for free ones (a Monk episode and the SNL Lazy Sunday skit so far), and even buy a few songs off of an artist's EP. I admit, I actually buy more songs in the Music Store these days than I get through regular CDs or other methods. And why not? They're cheap, come with album art already set up, and are downloaded in no time at all, saving one a trip to the store or struggles in trying to get enough sources or finding a healthy torrent.
My question is, wasn't this the whole point of the music store and selling songs for $0.99? Apple was hoping to defer would-be music pirates to a process that was legal but also cheaper than conventional means.
Because time is money even in the IM world. With probably hundreds of people on that person's buddy list, chances are they're talking to multiple people at once. Why use proper grammar to talk to one person when you can ignore netiquette and talk to five people in the same time?
If your default browser is Firefox, even if you click on a link like this by accident you'll be ok. I've accidentally clicked a few of these links (as they've come from people I've known to protect their comps) and Firefox provides that nice download summary giving you the extension/file type. Since they're all.pif or something like that, you can easily avoid infecting your computer.
Although I must say, a bot that chats with people to download it is pretty sophisticated. I wonder how long it'll be until they disguise worms as AIM updates or upgrades.
Slashdot Mirror
This is not news to me, nor should it be to anyone who watched the Making of Documentary that came with the special edition Halo 2. Basically, Bungie sat around on their asses doing nothing until about a year/6 months before the release date, and then started working like crazy. It shows you that the New Mombasa E3 demo was not built on the existing game engine and had to be completely scrapped. I doubt this will happen again, as it sounds like they're far into production already, but if it should, I doubt I'll buy the game.
It's nice to see some 360s selling in Japan, but I wonder how many of these people bought a 360 out of frustration, due to limited Wii and, to a larger extent, PS3 shipments.
would like to welcome our synth-producing, human assimilating, Combine overlords.
Any Mario Kart will do, but Mario Kart 64 especially. And I must say, Gears of War has a pretty kicking co-op game going for it.
Nintendo offers 12-month product warranties for all their systems; so if you buy the base Wii package for $250, you still have protection for one year. Man, you gotta love Gamestop and their ability to prey on the fears of the uninformed public.
I bet Nintendo will release this in Nintendo and Europe as well, about a year and a half or so after launch, along with some other modest hardware improvements, such as a hard drive or maybe some more flash memory. I have a 360 to tide me over until then, and there's nothing at launch (since I can get Zelda for my Gamecube) that I desperately need. I got burned with the DS Lite; wanna make sure that doesn't happen again.
nte
That being said, why wasn't this originally included? It makes perfect sense, given that they're trying to make it a family centerpiece with the channels and such.
Oh yeah, and hopefully the CNN thing is true. Although, wouldn't just turning your TV channel to CNN be a little easier?
You must not have that big of a music library if you don't realize something is very wrong with this. I should not have to pay for hundreds of blank CDs just to be able to transfer my music collection.
Are there any features that you wanted to include in Internet Explorer 7 but had to cut due to time constraints or other conflicts? If so, will we see these in a Service Pack or maybe IE8?
the 400,000 delegated for North America at launch may dip even lower? Looks like those Ebay pre-orders just rose in stock...
Some people thought the character in Portal might be Adrian Sheppard from Opposing Force fame, but this seems to put that thought to rest. I'm still hoping for a bigger role for Sheppard in Episode 2 or 3.
A Microsoft employee called Window? Why, that's like an ice cream man named Cone!
...but the fact that your home page is constantly updated by every little thing each of your friends does. Add a new photo? Bingo, alert, plus a thumbnail of the photo to clutter the page. Write something on another person's wall? You'll get a copy of the message on your main page. Most of us, if we care about every little detail of a friend's life, will intentionally browse that person's profile ourselves, as we spend enough time aimlessly surfing the site anyway.
While 2 million users usually depicts a great service that is worth coming back, part of me believes that so many DS owners are gaga over it due to it being the first real online infrastructure they've ever had. I've played online with my Dreamcast, XBox, XBox 360, and PC. These are all great online platforms, whether it be to play Phantasy Star Online, Rainbow Six 3, Halo 2, or GRAW. I was excited for Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection last November and played many games of Mario Kart online before snaking became rampant. In fact, I own six Wi-Fi games for the system (Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Tony Hawk, Metroid, Tetris, and Starfox) but I rarely play them online at all. Why? Lack of communication, poor matchmaking features, and that horrible system known as the friends list. While the ease of use and price, or lack thereof, have certainly helped Nintendo reach this milestone, I also have to wonder if not having any substantial online for their previous systems have prevented users from knowing exactly what they're missing.
...giant enemy crab?
But think about Virtual Console? How will purchases be made? Surely there must be a credit card option? If so, let us tie our account to a credit card for online gaming as well; you do not have to charge, but it proves that the child has the consent of a parent or relative to go online.
I like not having to pay for my DS to use Wifi, but the friend code system makes me pull my hair out. There are so many little checks and safeguards thrown in to prevent you from being able to easily and effectively add people to your friends list. I would rather pay a subscription fee like I do for XBox Live and be able to enjoy seamless integration of friends, messages, etc. throughout all my games.
I used Windows 98 since the summer of 99 until the present, when I just got my new notebook. It was running absolutely no firewalls, virus checkers, or anti-spyware programs and was on my wireless network, and it had absolutely nothing wrong with it - no drops in performance, no bugs, etc. Old operating systems are entirely usable in the present day, as long as you are not an idiot when it comes to using the idiot and can tolerate the subpar support provided for you with new applications and programs.
I know a lot of people have bad memories when the term "GCN-GBA Connectivity" comes to mind. Granted, I had about 7 friends who had GBAs/SPs and loved Crystal Chronicles, so we actually had enough enough to run two whole FFCC consoles at once, but I recognize that the majority (read: almost everyone else in existence) couldn't even get 3 other people plus themselves together on a regular basis. Four Swords was about the only other game that I thought utilized the GBA in a pretty decent way that wasn't gimmicky or useless. However, I have high hopes for the DS-Wii Connectivity. For one, the connection is wireless, so that eliminates the need for the $15 cable that most people complained about having to go buy, despite it being packed in with Crystal Chronicles and Four Swords Adventures. Secondly, the DS is a much more advanced system, with a Download Play written right into the BIOS for ease of sharing game data. Lastly, the DS has a much better control interface than the GBA, with four face buttons instead of two and a touch screen for control schemes that can't always be easily mapped to a traditional control setting. Plus, I think Nintendo's learned their lesson about forcing people to have an expensive portable in order to play the multiplayer function of a game. Well, at least I hope they have.
is an advertisement for the wireless adapter:
"Now you can connect your Prism Durosport to your home network with our new wireless adapter. Please note that the due to power requirements the Prism DuroSport must be plugged into the wall adapter when connected to the wireless adapter."
This is the work of a genius.
Right now I buy more CDs at retail than on iTunes Music Store for a few reasons: 1) I have two computers with iTunes that I want to put the CD on, so just popping it in the drive and ripping it in is much more organized and efficient. 2) Best Buy sells most of the CDs I buy at $10, which is what I consider a fair price. Next year I'll be away at college, though, and I'm fairly certain my acess to Best Buy will be severly impaired, and I'll only be using one of my computers heavily (laptop). Thus, I'll probably buy CDs through the iTunes Music Store, as they sell Music Store cards in the campus bookstore. There's simply no reason to restrict access to one method of purchasing or the other. You're simply hurting your own sales one way or another.
For the longest time, the Big N just flat out didn't care about their image. I mean, seriously, who preferred a purple Gamecube over a black one, or a purple Game Boy Advance over a Glacier? Some may make the argument that color is one of the more trivial factors in a system's launch, but it goes a long way to influencing public perception.
It looks like the company is finally realizing how big of a role public image plays in the success of the company. The GBA SP and now DS Lite are very sleek devices, and the Revolution isn't all that flashy but at least it doesn't sport a handle, either. With their first online first person shooter being released in two weeks, I'd like to assume that the company has finally turned it around and won't ever look back, but I'm just not that sure. Yet.
I bought a Shuffle last January to fulfill my traveling needs and avoid the expense of a normal iPod (as I was waiting for the video one even back then). Since the Shuffle is pretty limited, I ignored the Music Store and focused on importing my CDs and local band music. However, after getting a Video iPod for Christmas, I've started using the Music Store religiously. I get the free single(s) every week, scour the videos section for free ones (a Monk episode and the SNL Lazy Sunday skit so far), and even buy a few songs off of an artist's EP. I admit, I actually buy more songs in the Music Store these days than I get through regular CDs or other methods. And why not? They're cheap, come with album art already set up, and are downloaded in no time at all, saving one a trip to the store or struggles in trying to get enough sources or finding a healthy torrent. My question is, wasn't this the whole point of the music store and selling songs for $0.99? Apple was hoping to defer would-be music pirates to a process that was legal but also cheaper than conventional means.
Because time is money even in the IM world. With probably hundreds of people on that person's buddy list, chances are they're talking to multiple people at once. Why use proper grammar to talk to one person when you can ignore netiquette and talk to five people in the same time?
If your default browser is Firefox, even if you click on a link like this by accident you'll be ok. I've accidentally clicked a few of these links (as they've come from people I've known to protect their comps) and Firefox provides that nice download summary giving you the extension/file type. Since they're all .pif or something like that, you can easily avoid infecting your computer.
Although I must say, a bot that chats with people to download it is pretty sophisticated. I wonder how long it'll be until they disguise worms as AIM updates or upgrades.