The Wii is on a steep downward trend whilst the 360 and PS3 sales are picking up (I'd imagine the Wii's attatch rate is also getting quite low). It's already falling behind the PSP, 3DS and PS3 in Japan, it's not unthinkable it could happen in the west too.
Developers simply aren't making big budget games for the console. The last major western third party game was what, Epic Mickey? It wasn't a flop (did a million copy) but it was rushed out of the door. Tales of Graces F is coming out for the PS3 in the west but not the Wii version it's a port of, that's a death knell for the console.
Low budget party games still sell in large numbers on the console but major, meaty games are few and far between.
As for the Wii 2... E3 is too early, they need to promote the 3DS. TGS is possibly too early as well (and I'm fully expect DQX to headline). A late autumn, early winter reveal at a dedicated Nintendo event seems likely to me. There also haven't been any rumours what could be featuring in the console either, pretty much every console announcement of the last few years has had lots of leaks hinting about what they'd feature.
As to what could feature in it... How about gyroscopic feedback? forget rumble, I want to feel the Wiimote kick in my hand, if I'm swinging a heavy sword, I want it to be harder to swing than a light dagger. The tech's been floating around for a while, I'd love to see if in a games controller.
There are thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of people who bought a Nintendo DS and an R4 (or other type of flash card) and have not bought any games since. Are we supposed to believe that they bought a $150 piece of gaming hardware and would never have bought any games for it?
A pirated copy does not always mean a lost sale but it is equally wrong to assume that no sales are lost due to piracy. Overall a pirated copy from a statistical POV represents a fraction of a lost sale.
Do you get outraged when people say "I stole a kiss from her"? When people describe something priced cheap as a steal are you overcome with rage? Words have a wide of uses and their meanings are altered by use and context. Not only that, definitions evolve and change over time, the english language is defined by use.
If you can't measure it, it isn't proven but that doesn't mean it isn't true. Radiation for example didn't suddenly blink into existence the first time it was measured.
Science will never answer fundamental questions that can't be quantified. Why does the universe exist to begin with (it's all when and good saying how it began but that doesn't answer why it does). What is consciousness? Is it not natural for someone seeking the truth behind everything to seek out religion for areas where there will always be gaps?
The problem is when the students bring the school into things.
News stories don't report "boy A beat up Boy B", they report "boy A, beat up Boy B. Boys A and B both attend School C".
A school becoming known as a horrible, violent school affects all the students there. Colleges may not take them, teachers may not apply for vacant positions there, shops may even ban unaccompanied school children wearing their uniform (an Iceland in my local town did this). When I was a kid, the school would go mental if you ever did anything whilst wearing a school uniform.
The other angle is to look at school kids as employees. I certainly wouldn't be surprised to be sacked if my boss found out I beat up a co-worker outside of work or that I ran a Nazi website in my spare time. Like a place of work, if you want to work/learn somewhere, you have to respect their rules. Not all of these rules stop at the front entrance.
The article just highlights why radio/microwave interference is taken so seriously by authorities. The fact a jammer costs $30 is moot, buying a jammer is illegal and stupid.
How much gunpowder could you buy for $30 (or just raw ingredients for bombs)?
Depends on where you are for those regulations but regardless, you're being told what you can do with your own property.
Non dangerous examples you can't do with your own property: Operate a radio transmitter at anything other than a narrow range of open frequencies. Turn your house into a store or build a permanent structure in your back garden without the government saying its ok.
Car analogy! You can modify your car but without the OK of an insurance company, you'll be driving without insurance and breaking the law (depending on where you live). Certain modifications can make it near impossible to be insured
Consoles are not computers. They are very specifically not computers according to the EU in fact. If you bought it for use as a PC, you wasted your money.
It ran Linux by a dog, next to no one used Linux on it (more than once at least). In court, no one was even able to produce evidence that Sony marketed Linux as a PS3 feature and the class action was thrown out almost at the first hurdle. The only 'advert' I've seen, a quote about Sony being really behind Linux, was just a quote in the manual for Yellow Dog Linux.
Try repairing your own gas boiler that you bought with your own money. Try doing your electricals or plumbing. All your property, all illegal to work on without being authorised to do so in a number of jurisdictions.
So... Sony are now the evil and greedy because the Linux they put on the PS3 was locked down and heavily sand boxed?
You seem to be forgetting that, not only did Sony have no obligation to release a console with Linux on it but also, as far as I'm aware, no other mainstream games console maker has put in a full OS of this nature onto a console.
Thanks to this reaction, you can be sure no other manufacturer will ever even consider putting Linux on a console now.
The mobile phone rulings have next to zero to do with this.
Mobile phones are a special case because they're designed to potentially work on any network, it's considered anti-competitive to lock you to a network. There is no good reason for sim locking except for anti-competative practices.
The locking mechanisms on the PS3 aren't anti-competative (it'll never be possible to put a 360 disc into the PS3 and for it to play), rather than hurt competition, they help the games market (the DS and PSP both were hit massively by piracy) and they're important for security.
Mod chips for consoles have almost universally been declared illegal in European courts. This isn't suddenly going to change.
So... the reason it's illegal in most places outside of the US is? I love the conspiracy theories on hemp.
You can use it as paper... but renewable forests are easier and cheaper to manage than fields of crops. You can use it as rope... but Silk and nylon have the nice handy bonus of not rotting from the inside out (which you usually only discover when your hemp rope suddenly breaks). You can use it for clothing... but it's very coarse, creases easily, scorches if you try to iron it and rots very easily. You can eat it, but it's pretty horrible tasting. It can shrink cancer but not cure it, just like hundreds of other existing treatments.
Knowingly skipping the User Agreement has never been a loophole that stops it applying. I've forgotten the exact term but if you've knowingly operated under the terms of a contract and the other party has it on reasonable faith that you agreed, it doesn't matter if you signed/agreed it or not.
I don't have a link to it but I'm pretty sure that Microsoft took someone to court who thought he was immune because he patched out the EULA. He thought wrong.
They could've included shapes with 3,5 or whatever squares, they could've made them only connected by corners. Just because they follow a pattern doesn't mean design considerations didn't go into them. The design documents for Tetris showed they considered putting in other shapes.
Copyright is all about context and if enough has been done to consider something an original work. I cannot, for example, copyright the first 1000 prime numbers. If, however I put them into a book in an original, special layout that no one had thought about before and added something to those numbers, you would not be allowed to directly copy that book's layout.
A basic shape isn't copyrightable. A combination of non-basic shapes is. Just like you can't copyright a letter but you can copyright a collection of letters.
Amazingly it even manages to go 250 miles before using any petrol! It's almost as if the vehicle had some magic store of energy! 60KWh of magic energy!
Are we going to get endless BS milage figures gained from running hybrid cars off of fully charged batteries for these tests?
I can say with 100 percent certainty that my car does infinity MPG! I tested it with the engine off and it rolling down a hill but that's still about as valid as this crap.
The businesses did not perform censorship. They have the right to do business with who they want (except if they're covered by discrimination laws). Wikileaks haven't been prevented from saying anything by them.
If I'm a shop keeper and I refuse to put a pro-life or a pro-abortion poster in my window am I engaging in censorship?
Wikileaks can still leak all they want, Visa can come out and say they don't like wikileaks and/or refuse to deal with them.
Slashdot Mirror
The Wii is on a steep downward trend whilst the 360 and PS3 sales are picking up (I'd imagine the Wii's attatch rate is also getting quite low). It's already falling behind the PSP, 3DS and PS3 in Japan, it's not unthinkable it could happen in the west too.
Developers simply aren't making big budget games for the console. The last major western third party game was what, Epic Mickey? It wasn't a flop (did a million copy) but it was rushed out of the door. Tales of Graces F is coming out for the PS3 in the west but not the Wii version it's a port of, that's a death knell for the console.
Low budget party games still sell in large numbers on the console but major, meaty games are few and far between.
As for the Wii 2... E3 is too early, they need to promote the 3DS. TGS is possibly too early as well (and I'm fully expect DQX to headline). A late autumn, early winter reveal at a dedicated Nintendo event seems likely to me. There also haven't been any rumours what could be featuring in the console either, pretty much every console announcement of the last few years has had lots of leaks hinting about what they'd feature.
As to what could feature in it... How about gyroscopic feedback? forget rumble, I want to feel the Wiimote kick in my hand, if I'm swinging a heavy sword, I want it to be harder to swing than a light dagger. The tech's been floating around for a while, I'd love to see if in a games controller.
There are thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of people who bought a Nintendo DS and an R4 (or other type of flash card) and have not bought any games since. Are we supposed to believe that they bought a $150 piece of gaming hardware and would never have bought any games for it?
A pirated copy does not always mean a lost sale but it is equally wrong to assume that no sales are lost due to piracy. Overall a pirated copy from a statistical POV represents a fraction of a lost sale.
Do you get outraged when people say "I stole a kiss from her"? When people describe something priced cheap as a steal are you overcome with rage? Words have a wide of uses and their meanings are altered by use and context. Not only that, definitions evolve and change over time, the english language is defined by use.
You've been told wrong by countless people.
If you can't measure it, it isn't proven but that doesn't mean it isn't true. Radiation for example didn't suddenly blink into existence the first time it was measured.
Science will never answer fundamental questions that can't be quantified. Why does the universe exist to begin with (it's all when and good saying how it began but that doesn't answer why it does). What is consciousness? Is it not natural for someone seeking the truth behind everything to seek out religion for areas where there will always be gaps?
The PSP got broken at a fundamental HW level and it happened to allow a mod that didn't require any soldering.
The Slim never featured linux to begin with. They cut out the hardware to enable dual booting the way it had been done in other models to save costs.
Sony didn't start it. Geohot started it by using Linux as a method of hacking the PS3 (which is why Sony then removed it).
The more hassle it is to play catchup, the less people who'll use firmware hacks for piracy. Sony don't have to win, they just have to put up a fight.
The trailer seems to give away every major twist that is likely to feature in the film.
I haven't seen a trailer spoil a film so much since Swimfan (the trailer is literally the film's plot condenced into 2 minutes)
The problem is when the students bring the school into things.
News stories don't report "boy A beat up Boy B", they report "boy A, beat up Boy B. Boys A and B both attend School C".
A school becoming known as a horrible, violent school affects all the students there. Colleges may not take them, teachers may not apply for vacant positions there, shops may even ban unaccompanied school children wearing their uniform (an Iceland in my local town did this). When I was a kid, the school would go mental if you ever did anything whilst wearing a school uniform.
The other angle is to look at school kids as employees. I certainly wouldn't be surprised to be sacked if my boss found out I beat up a co-worker outside of work or that I ran a Nazi website in my spare time. Like a place of work, if you want to work/learn somewhere, you have to respect their rules. Not all of these rules stop at the front entrance.
The article just highlights why radio/microwave interference is taken so seriously by authorities. The fact a jammer costs $30 is moot, buying a jammer is illegal and stupid.
How much gunpowder could you buy for $30 (or just raw ingredients for bombs)?
Depends on where you are for those regulations but regardless, you're being told what you can do with your own property.
Non dangerous examples you can't do with your own property: Operate a radio transmitter at anything other than a narrow range of open frequencies. Turn your house into a store or build a permanent structure in your back garden without the government saying its ok.
Car analogy! You can modify your car but without the OK of an insurance company, you'll be driving without insurance and breaking the law (depending on where you live). Certain modifications can make it near impossible to be insured
Consoles are not computers. They are very specifically not computers according to the EU in fact. If you bought it for use as a PC, you wasted your money.
It ran Linux by a dog, next to no one used Linux on it (more than once at least). In court, no one was even able to produce evidence that Sony marketed Linux as a PS3 feature and the class action was thrown out almost at the first hurdle. The only 'advert' I've seen, a quote about Sony being really behind Linux, was just a quote in the manual for Yellow Dog Linux.
Try repairing your own gas boiler that you bought with your own money. Try doing your electricals or plumbing. All your property, all illegal to work on without being authorised to do so in a number of jurisdictions.
So... Sony are now the evil and greedy because the Linux they put on the PS3 was locked down and heavily sand boxed?
You seem to be forgetting that, not only did Sony have no obligation to release a console with Linux on it but also, as far as I'm aware, no other mainstream games console maker has put in a full OS of this nature onto a console.
Thanks to this reaction, you can be sure no other manufacturer will ever even consider putting Linux on a console now.
The mobile phone rulings have next to zero to do with this.
Mobile phones are a special case because they're designed to potentially work on any network, it's considered anti-competitive to lock you to a network. There is no good reason for sim locking except for anti-competative practices.
The locking mechanisms on the PS3 aren't anti-competative (it'll never be possible to put a 360 disc into the PS3 and for it to play), rather than hurt competition, they help the games market (the DS and PSP both were hit massively by piracy) and they're important for security.
Mod chips for consoles have almost universally been declared illegal in European courts. This isn't suddenly going to change.
So... the reason it's illegal in most places outside of the US is? I love the conspiracy theories on hemp.
You can use it as paper... but renewable forests are easier and cheaper to manage than fields of crops. You can use it as rope... but Silk and nylon have the nice handy bonus of not rotting from the inside out (which you usually only discover when your hemp rope suddenly breaks). You can use it for clothing... but it's very coarse, creases easily, scorches if you try to iron it and rots very easily. You can eat it, but it's pretty horrible tasting. It can shrink cancer but not cure it, just like hundreds of other existing treatments.
I can't wait to hand over my credit card info to an organisation dedicated to releasing secret information!
Wonder if they sell Wikileaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy...
Knowingly skipping the User Agreement has never been a loophole that stops it applying. I've forgotten the exact term but if you've knowingly operated under the terms of a contract and the other party has it on reasonable faith that you agreed, it doesn't matter if you signed/agreed it or not.
I don't have a link to it but I'm pretty sure that Microsoft took someone to court who thought he was immune because he patched out the EULA. He thought wrong.
erk: I left my phone at home
riv: Thames
pub: The Royal Oak
R: Me 'arties
n: o spells no
K: mart
Da: da daa da da da daaaa da daa daa daaaaaa
Again it's about context.
They could've included shapes with 3,5 or whatever squares, they could've made them only connected by corners. Just because they follow a pattern doesn't mean design considerations didn't go into them. The design documents for Tetris showed they considered putting in other shapes.
Copyright is all about context and if enough has been done to consider something an original work. I cannot, for example, copyright the first 1000 prime numbers. If, however I put them into a book in an original, special layout that no one had thought about before and added something to those numbers, you would not be allowed to directly copy that book's layout.
A basic shape isn't copyrightable. A combination of non-basic shapes is. Just like you can't copyright a letter but you can copyright a collection of letters.
Tetris is trademarked. A near identical product with a name that could easily be confused for the original is exactly why Trademark laws were created.
Also I believe the set of shapes Tetris uses are protected by copyright laws
Amazingly it even manages to go 250 miles before using any petrol! It's almost as if the vehicle had some magic store of energy! 60KWh of magic energy!
Are we going to get endless BS milage figures gained from running hybrid cars off of fully charged batteries for these tests?
I can say with 100 percent certainty that my car does infinity MPG! I tested it with the engine off and it rolling down a hill but that's still about as valid as this crap.
I don't know the answer for sure, would probably take an professor of English to give a concrete answer, I believe the answer is probably Its' though.
The businesses did not perform censorship. They have the right to do business with who they want (except if they're covered by discrimination laws). Wikileaks haven't been prevented from saying anything by them.
If I'm a shop keeper and I refuse to put a pro-life or a pro-abortion poster in my window am I engaging in censorship?
Wikileaks can still leak all they want, Visa can come out and say they don't like wikileaks and/or refuse to deal with them.