I knew that when I replied. I apologize, hoewever, if I misunderstood your post. I thought you were saying that you were forced to buy a Nintendo gadget.
"I'll admit that I bought DK64 just to get a MemPak so I could play Zelda:MM. I the promptly sold DK64 to get wetrix. And if someone owned a 64 and didn't have Starfox64 they fail."
Um, they also sold both the Memory Expansion and the Rumble Pak seperately.
"Anyway the point was: Nintendo loves to build gadgets for their consoles and then manage to FORCE fans into buying them: Final Fantasy Chronicles, Zelda 4 swords? the rumble pack?, the memory expansion?"
Nintendo didn't make the Chronicles game. The memory expansion and rumble paks were add-ons that came packaged with games. Your definition of 'forced' is cartoonesque.
"Name a single trademark that appears on a typical screen when playing WoW. Just one."
You got me. I didn't phrase that all too well. I was thinking of games like Ninja Turtles where the main characters are trademarked. However, on Blizzard's site, they show a bunch of screen grabs without any markings indicating trademark. Weird.
"Well now I get a sense of where the inability to know the market comes from. Get a clue Ballmer -- to best compete with your competition you get to know them intimately."
He's talking about his kids not using those products, not himself.
"People who are too shallow to see past how some dork dresses get what they deserve, sheez.."
Sadly, the likelihood is that nearly all of us are guilty of this in some form or another. I've watched as people right here on Slashdot have summed up a poster's intelligence by how many typos or grammatical errors that person had made. We should all be mindful of the 'never judge a book by its cover' lesson we all learned as kids.
"Screenshots are used in 95%+ of the how-to books on computing that are out there today. I fail to see how this is different."
GUIs of apps don't typically include trademarked images within them. Games, however, usually have nothing but trademarked characters in the screens. They own trademark, you gotta respect that trademark. It's hardly any different than trying to sell a T-Shirt with a picture of Donkey Kong on it.
"If I write a book, "How to win at World of Warcraft(tm)", Blizzard has no legal basis to interfere."... until you start using screenshots from the game, that's when you start getting into legal difficulties. I'm reminded of when Paramount went running around to Star Trek fan sites in the mid-to-late 90's demanding they take down screen caps from the various series.
"Blizzard has no legal basis to interfere."
I'm afraid Blizzard does actually have a legal basis here, mainly because screenshots are involved. Will it hold up? Is it right? Are they evil puppy eaters? I'm not trying to answer any of those questions. I'm just pointing out that this shit's happened before all in the name of trademarks.
"Hmm... hibernate support built into Windows which "just works" out of the box, or an unofficial kernal patch set that works most of the time, if you're lucky."
I've had good luck with both XP and 2K. I don't get BSODs. I rarely reboot. I've used both on a wide number of machines and feel quite comfortable saying this. However, I have NOT had hibernate or Standby work reliably. Sure, when I get my shiny new laptop both modes work just fine. Then, a month or two later, stupid things start happening. Windows won't come OUT of either mode properly. It'll either hang or just plain behave stupid until a reboot. Windows rot.
I don't think modern versions of Windows resembles the unstable piece of crap it's made out to be here on Slashdot, but standby and hibernation are features I just plain cannot rely on. I look at Mac users with envy on this point.
"Is it just me, or has pretty much every FF game changed something major that pissed off the fanbase to no end until they played it and possibly found it groovy?"
With games like Final Fantasy, it's hard to pin down exactly what it is about the game that made it so compelling. Was it the setting? The story? The battles? The graphic style? OMG if they change one of those aspects, are they going to ruin the magic? Honestly, I think the reactions you mentioned are perfectly normal and to be expected. People live their lives within their comfort zones. Breaking out of that comfort zone can be scary.
I think it's safe to say that Square doesn't make its choices lightly. When a company behaves like this, there are bound to be negative reactions.
I don't think that's what he meant. I think he expected people to go apeshit over the possibility that some will have to wait longer than others for the Rev. If you put his reply into that context, it sounds more like he's saying "relax, a non-worldwide launch isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just look at what happened to the 360."
I hope I'm not putting words into his mouth, but that's how I interpreted it.
"A guy from work is willing to buy my DS for his daughter at a fair price if I want to trade up to the DS Lite. I guess a lot of children are asking their parents for them."
It's not just children. My gf isn't a gamer, but she loves Mario Kart. The DS was cheap enough for me to get her her own DS with her own copy of Mario Kart. (When I say 'cheap enough', I mean that if MK was a PSP game, she'd be out of luck.) We play the hell out of that game. She even goes on-line with it. Since then, I've gotten her a couple of other games.
Nintendo has stated before they're trying to broaden their audience towards non-gamers. From where I sit, they're doing an excellent job. Long live Nintendo.
"Not so for me. I have seen countless reboots from XP taking a hike in mid air."
Yeah, this happens to some people. I personally have had great luck with 2k and XP. However, I had a friend who had the problem you described. He replaced his motherboard and bingo, no more crashes. Sometimes hardware sucks, and it's a sad fact that Windows isn't as tolerant as Linux.
"The difference is you dont notice most crashes since nothing tells you the darn crap has crashed. It just throws its hands in the air cycle itself. What a way to get rid of BSOD, perform harakiri instead of showing the bluscrean."
Ugh. This comes up all the time. "Well, it's crashed, but you don't know it's crashed." I'm pretty darned sure most people (at least here on Slashdot) would notice that a.) Windows is mysteriously back to the Login Screen and b.) Everything they had open before isn't open anymore. Sorry man, this just isn't a good argument.
"The carrier has done well, except for that Russian spy that stole photons from the reactor back in 1986, fell off the ship, then "disappeared" from the hospital..."
Not only that, but we dismayed to find that Grand Theft Whale wasn't an extraditable offense in Russia!
"1. The games are downloaded and stored on you PSP. (Yay!)"
One game per memory card. Wee.
"2. The games are repackaged and sold as PSP games. (Boo!)"
The PSP has fewer control buttons than the PS1 controller. It also has a wider-aspect screen and stronger processing capabilities. I'd rather they repackaged it to make it more PSP friendly and smarten up the graphics a little bit.
"3. I'm completely missing the point of why this matters. (Likely)"
Actually, I'm missing the point as well. This smells an awful like like an attempt to syphon some of Nintendo's hype. Sony makes neato gadgets, but they've yet to impress me as a game company.
Slashdot Mirror
"As you may recall, the online infrastructure of N's consoles closely resembles two cans connected by a string."
This would have been funny like back in 2003. Today it's 'whaaa...?' Sorta like a Windows user making cracks that Linux doesn't support USB.
I knew that when I replied. I apologize, hoewever, if I misunderstood your post. I thought you were saying that you were forced to buy a Nintendo gadget.
"after a certain period of time, yes. But I don't like to wait."
Yep. A very cartoony definition of the word 'force'.
"I'll admit that I bought DK64 just to get a MemPak so I could play Zelda:MM. I the promptly sold DK64 to get wetrix. And if someone owned a 64 and didn't have Starfox64 they fail."
Um, they also sold both the Memory Expansion and the Rumble Pak seperately.
"Anyway the point was: Nintendo loves to build gadgets for their consoles and then manage to FORCE fans into buying them: Final Fantasy Chronicles, Zelda 4 swords? the rumble pack?, the memory expansion?"
Nintendo didn't make the Chronicles game. The memory expansion and rumble paks were add-ons that came packaged with games. Your definition of 'forced' is cartoonesque.
"Name a single trademark that appears on a typical screen when playing WoW. Just one."
You got me. I didn't phrase that all too well. I was thinking of games like Ninja Turtles where the main characters are trademarked. However, on Blizzard's site, they show a bunch of screen grabs without any markings indicating trademark. Weird.
"Well now I get a sense of where the inability to know the market comes from. Get a clue Ballmer -- to best compete with your competition you get to know them intimately."
He's talking about his kids not using those products, not himself.
"People who are too shallow to see past how some dork dresses get what they deserve, sheez.."
Sadly, the likelihood is that nearly all of us are guilty of this in some form or another. I've watched as people right here on Slashdot have summed up a poster's intelligence by how many typos or grammatical errors that person had made. We should all be mindful of the 'never judge a book by its cover' lesson we all learned as kids.
"You're counting on their trademark to sell the product on its own."
I see your point. I need to reconsider my view.
"Screenshots are used in 95%+ of the how-to books on computing that are out there today. I fail to see how this is different."
GUIs of apps don't typically include trademarked images within them. Games, however, usually have nothing but trademarked characters in the screens. They own trademark, you gotta respect that trademark. It's hardly any different than trying to sell a T-Shirt with a picture of Donkey Kong on it.
"If I write a book, "How to win at World of Warcraft(tm)", Blizzard has no legal basis to interfere." ... until you start using screenshots from the game, that's when you start getting into legal difficulties. I'm reminded of when Paramount went running around to Star Trek fan sites in the mid-to-late 90's demanding they take down screen caps from the various series.
"Blizzard has no legal basis to interfere."
I'm afraid Blizzard does actually have a legal basis here, mainly because screenshots are involved. Will it hold up? Is it right? Are they evil puppy eaters? I'm not trying to answer any of those questions. I'm just pointing out that this shit's happened before all in the name of trademarks.
"Patents on business model ideas, not working machines, are evil."
Well.. I'm going to trust Google with my personal data (emails, chat logs, etc...) until they do something bad, then I'll consider reconsidering!
"Hmm... hibernate support built into Windows which "just works" out of the box, or an unofficial kernal patch set that works most of the time, if you're lucky."
I've had good luck with both XP and 2K. I don't get BSODs. I rarely reboot. I've used both on a wide number of machines and feel quite comfortable saying this. However, I have NOT had hibernate or Standby work reliably. Sure, when I get my shiny new laptop both modes work just fine. Then, a month or two later, stupid things start happening. Windows won't come OUT of either mode properly. It'll either hang or just plain behave stupid until a reboot. Windows rot.
I don't think modern versions of Windows resembles the unstable piece of crap it's made out to be here on Slashdot, but standby and hibernation are features I just plain cannot rely on. I look at Mac users with envy on this point.
"FIRST POST"
In the original version, I posted first!!
"And this is coming from a guy that works for EA???"
Dupe!!! Quick, we need a few other people to verify this is a dupe!
"Is it just me, or has pretty much every FF game changed something major that pissed off the fanbase to no end until they played it and possibly found it groovy?"
With games like Final Fantasy, it's hard to pin down exactly what it is about the game that made it so compelling. Was it the setting? The story? The battles? The graphic style? OMG if they change one of those aspects, are they going to ruin the magic? Honestly, I think the reactions you mentioned are perfectly normal and to be expected. People live their lives within their comfort zones. Breaking out of that comfort zone can be scary.
I think it's safe to say that Square doesn't make its choices lightly. When a company behaves like this, there are bound to be negative reactions.
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
I don't think that's what he meant. I think he expected people to go apeshit over the possibility that some will have to wait longer than others for the Rev. If you put his reply into that context, it sounds more like he's saying "relax, a non-worldwide launch isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just look at what happened to the 360."
I hope I'm not putting words into his mouth, but that's how I interpreted it.
"A guy from work is willing to buy my DS for his daughter at a fair price if I want to trade up to the DS Lite. I guess a lot of children are asking their parents for them."
It's not just children. My gf isn't a gamer, but she loves Mario Kart. The DS was cheap enough for me to get her her own DS with her own copy of Mario Kart. (When I say 'cheap enough', I mean that if MK was a PSP game, she'd be out of luck.) We play the hell out of that game. She even goes on-line with it. Since then, I've gotten her a couple of other games.
Nintendo has stated before they're trying to broaden their audience towards non-gamers. From where I sit, they're doing an excellent job. Long live Nintendo.
"Crap, and I was going to name my newest product Wicrosoft Mindows. Now what am I gonna do???"
1. Cry Foul
2. Gain Slashdot's undying support even though you're clearly in the wrong.
3. ????
4. Profit!
"Not so for me. I have seen countless reboots from XP taking a hike in mid air."
Yeah, this happens to some people. I personally have had great luck with 2k and XP. However, I had a friend who had the problem you described. He replaced his motherboard and bingo, no more crashes. Sometimes hardware sucks, and it's a sad fact that Windows isn't as tolerant as Linux.
"The difference is you dont notice most crashes since nothing tells you the darn crap has crashed. It just throws its hands in the air cycle itself. What a way to get rid of BSOD, perform harakiri instead of showing the bluscrean."
Ugh. This comes up all the time. "Well, it's crashed, but you don't know it's crashed." I'm pretty darned sure most people (at least here on Slashdot) would notice that a.) Windows is mysteriously back to the Login Screen and b.) Everything they had open before isn't open anymore. Sorry man, this just isn't a good argument.
"The carrier has done well, except for that Russian spy that stole photons from the reactor back in 1986, fell off the ship, then "disappeared" from the hospital..."
Not only that, but we dismayed to find that Grand Theft Whale wasn't an extraditable offense in Russia!
"It's the end of the month. Roland's rent is due"
"Rest assured, I was on Slashdot within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world."
"I hate to admit it, but Digg is starting to overshadow Slashdot (though Digg comments are horrible)."
Is the Digg offering rewards to ppl who spam it on Slashdot or something? Digg is better than Slashdot. Whoop-de-fuck.
"1. The games are downloaded and stored on you PSP. (Yay!)"
One game per memory card. Wee.
"2. The games are repackaged and sold as PSP games. (Boo!)"
The PSP has fewer control buttons than the PS1 controller. It also has a wider-aspect screen and stronger processing capabilities. I'd rather they repackaged it to make it more PSP friendly and smarten up the graphics a little bit.
"3. I'm completely missing the point of why this matters. (Likely)"
Actually, I'm missing the point as well. This smells an awful like like an attempt to syphon some of Nintendo's hype. Sony makes neato gadgets, but they've yet to impress me as a game company.
"Where else does someone being helpful offer to sell you an unused something they paid $1.2 million for?"
I'm surprised he even mentioned a device. I was expecting a bunch of "Go to Google you nitwit" replies.