It happened in the U.S. with the dotcom bubble and it's happened more recently with housing. For a while, a given market is massively exploitable. Over time, everyone thinks it's exploitable, everyone moves in to doing it, the margins decrease, it loses its exploitability.
It's around that time that those who exploited it start selling books and running infomercial on the how to exploit it and exploit those who are looking to exploit it and in turn make a few extra bucks before it collapses.
In this case, the reasoning is that by limiting prices in a specific area, a monopolostic company is exposed to more competition...
I am not an economist so forgive me this this question seems obvious, but wouldn't enforcing a 'cheaper' price on a product be destroying competition? If there is competition already, and said competitions greatest competitive advantage is it's price (in lots of cases free), wouldn't forcing MS to lower prices mean you're taking away the competitive advantage and be giving MS an edge?
Monopolistic 'markets' set prices motivated by only one factor - maximum profits for firmse.
There's one thing I recall from my Econ. 101 class. A businesses #1 goal is to maximize profits, independently of what kind of market they are in. The only difference the market makes is who has the most (but not all) sway in setting the price. A business who is not trying to maximize profits is not a business, but a charity. Non-profit charities still have to make money, they're just not trying to make more than they need.
The other thing I remember is that a product/service is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. If Windows had cost $1 million per unit, no matter what the monopoly they had, they wouldn't likely sell any.
I picked up a free Beta code this weekend (GameStop wasn't taking any more pre-orders, but the guys hooked me up. That was after Wal-Mart put the game on the shelf all weekend but put a 'sale not allowed' if you tried to buy it at the register). Here are my quick and dirty impressions:
Good
Graphics - I think it's similar to EQ2. While the characters and the dwarven capitol city didn't impress me the 'outside' did. Running down the road and looking up at the mountain tops really gave a good perspective.
Food - Food always gave a benefit, not just for out of combat stuff either. One nice thing, I had food that would heal me for 40hp every 30s for 3 mins. Given that my total HP was 400, that was a nice benefit and saved my butt once.
Quest menu - Most quests I had gave good descriptions of where to find what I was looking for. Sure, it took a few moments to know "where" the location was on the map, but it came fast enough.
Quest loot - besides decent loot for leveling, every time I killed a cat, he dropped a 'claw' that I needed. I never had to kill 100 goblins to get 5 noses because 95 of them didn't have one.
Bad
Learning Curve - I felt like it just took too long to start to understand how to play this game. When I first played WoW, I was off killing things without thinking twice, and completing quests. Heck, this even coming from a guy who's played WoW, Daoc, CoH/CoV, AC2, EQ, EQ2, amongs others.
Character builder - Sorry, hair styles, facial shapes, and other features are just not very good. I didn't feel like I made an avatar that represented me.
User Interface (UI) - While similar to most games out there (see WoW), it's really hard to see which actions where active and which where in cooldown. This could be due to my resolution size.
Mini-map - Yes, the mini-map. I didn't like it. No option to 'zoom' out or in. Most of the time I just wanted to zoom out a bit farther, but I couldn't.
Character Name Noise - ARGH! First names, last names, titles that can be appended to your name "Dwaven Warrior of The Blue Mountains", and then "guild" names. You get a few people standing in the same area (oh, say, around merchants) and it's harder than hell to see the person you're trying to find. This was a down-side.
Crafting Nodes - Maybe I didn't have enough time to do this, but mine nodes could only be used once and would yield 1-2 copper/gold/etc ore. If you looked at your trade skill components, you often needed several to make the easiest item. That, coupled with a zoomed in mini-map and hard to find or vastly spread out nodes, finding metal to make items was far to much work to enjoy.
Crafting dependencies - Crafting worked like this. You pick one profession which will give you 3 sub-professions. Taking 'tinkerer' would give you 'Jewelry', 'Prospector(mining)', and 'cooking'. Yes, cooking. Only, to make the very easiest recipes I had to make a 'campfire'. Sure, I had a oven sitting in front of me or I could have picked 1 of many braziers but, they didn't work. You had to cook on a campfire to make 'cooked carrots'. I still don't know who could make a campfire, but as I saw it, I think they made trades people rely on other trade people to make items. Crafting was far to tedious and it just wasn't enjoyable.
Quests - Some quests are just wrong, others are vague. Most are good. One quest said "find so and so in the west hall". Only, 15mins later, I found the guy in the East hall. Another said, "find the ring under a black stone near a gate near the barracks", it also told you there was no barracks here... and nothing else. Ok, this made me mad. I'm level 10, a relative newbie, and this quest is already making me waist time trying to figure out what he's talking about? If I was max level and the only thing I had to do was 'quest' for stuff, then I would love some puzzles. No, I'm level 10 and I want to level, don't make me pull teeth to do it. If I ha
I wouldn't be surprised to see a november cut of about $100
Hey, why wait for a Sony price cut? EBgames/Gamestop is offering a $100 PS3 for the trade-in of a PS2 (an extra controller and a 8MB card). Probably because GS makes a killing on used systems/games and the PS2 is out selling the PS3. Though, even with a $100 trade-in credit, I still wouldn't buy a PS3 for $500. Sure, it's not a price cut, but the PS3 does have some backwards compatibility with PS2, so it might be the kicker for some.
Then again, I'm that guy who only bought a used PS2 last November (pretty much because of Guitar Hero). Now that X360 has GH2 and (overly expensive) download tracks of GH1 songs, I'm more inclined for a x360 (and a larger game catalog). Plus they have some games I kind of want to play (Dead Rising).
I'll wait for the x720 to be released and pick-up a cheap x360 in 3-4 years. I've got a Wii and I'm happy playing the occasional super fun game and filling in-between with PC gaming.
Obviously you didn't see the sesame street where Cookie Monster called Big Bird a "nappy headed ho"
The worst part is that they didn't fire Cookie Monster him until the letter Q and the number 4 pulled their sponsorship. Of course, I think he didn't need to go on Bert and Ernie's talk radio program either because they're hypocrites themselves.
Of course, it would even be better if I could actually run that stuff fullscreen.
Yes, that's a problem. With a 20' widescreen, the image can be kind of small with my resolution. I usually turn the resolution down. Though, it's good to know it can be accessed outside the US. I wonder how long that will last, I know plenty of places that will block that kind of access for license/legal reasons.
Unfortunately, it is farmed out as a pay-per-address email server (which should be serviced by.name now).
I hear you. My family names.com is like this too. I have the.net (I use to have the.org, but gave it up and it's since been snapped up). Sadly, I was like a month or two too late to get the.com. Well, if I ever wanted it as an email address, I know where to go. hehe.
I respectfully disagree, It's an optional feature. Nothing is being stated that it will be used by masses of people. However, I can see that you're trying to go for the 'obtrusive' part as being a big downside, which is true.
Who really wants to wait through a 3 minute ad for tampons...
First, even TV commercials only last 15-30 seconds. They just play 5-6 different commercials in a row. The online advertisers are often doing something different. Checkout ABC's website. You can watch Lost, Grey's Anatomy, Desperate House Wives, and other shows, which include 2-3 30's commercials. I've watched these from time to time, and to tell you the truth, they're anything but bothering. The commercial MUST play through the full 30 seconds to access the next segment of the show. But the commercial stops and you must click a button to continue. So, like TV commercials, you can getup and take a break (of course, you can pause the video and do it anyways). From what I've already seen, these commercials are not that bad.
Of course, that doesn't mean there won't be bad commercials out there. The internet is a different media that attracts people differently and advertisement agencies will have to make sure they design their ads to be attractive and programmers will have to make sure they don't slam the user with too many.
...to watch a 2 minute rambing of a camwhore?
Good point, which is why they probably won't have ads on things that are not worth it. Also, it could probably also be designed like some popular sites that give you a full page 'ad' and make you click a link to go to the content, but do not show you another full page ad until 'x' minutes or you enter a different popular microsite. I would doubt video ads are going to be placed on most of YouTube videos. They'll probably stick to the unobtrusive text ads.
Cheers, Fozzy
Re:if you don't want Linux to see or interact with
on
The End is Nigh for XP
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· Score: 1
I found that I didn't have to dual boot, I don't do heavy gaming, so running VMware Server and a Windows VM handled my Windows needs. My guess is that you do and that's why you're running a dual-drive RAID config, so this solution probably doesn't fit your needs.
First, thanks for your(and everyones) support/suggestions. Much obliged. Second, you are correct sir. This rig, was purchased and originally designed for gaming. Hench, the RAID.
I think I'll have to tryout unplugging the RAID drives and installing Ubuntu alone and then plug them back in and go from there. I actually stopped gaming so I want to focus on getting experience using Linux and I would like this PC to boot into Ubuntu by default but be able to switch to Windows easily if need (for the fiancee who's the typical non-tech user). Eventually, I'd like to work with other distros than Ubuntu, but from what I hear, Ubuntu is a good stepping stone.
but because there are thousands of people moving to Linux because Ubuntu exists (Ubuntu is what got me to switch)
Ubuntu is nice, but not without issues. I spent 4 hours 'fixing' my computer after trying to install Ubuntu. It only took 10 mins to break my computer with the Ubuntu installer. As it where, I have a Dell XPS with 2 160GB HD's raided (stripping) and 1 250GB with nothing on it. I wanted to simply install Linux on the 250GB and leave windows on my Raid drive. However, allowing the Ubuntu auto installer from the LiveCD go, it screwed up my MBR, in which after installation and reboot you get a GRUB error 21 (unknown error) or "Could not load operating system" if I change the raid/standard hd drive over in my bios.
I've not found a lot of support for this specific situation, but it has gotten me thinking about MBR's boot loaders and duel-booting once again (it's been probably 7 years since I played around with doing this) and I'm starting to refresh my memory and learn the new stuff. My issue appears to deal with GRUB and partitioning and the fact that my MBR doesn't appear to be properly linking to the right partitions once they're made (thus, not finding the proper OS to load).
Maybe I'd have less of an issue if I wasn't running a raid drive or if I simply knew more about linux but Ubuntu is still not easy to install for everyone. I'll be giving it a go again next Saturday when I have 4 hours to burn if it doesn't work and continue until I do get it to work, but it's simply one of the difficult joys of trying to duel-boot a system.
I look forward to using Ubuntu. The live CD is quite interesting. But I would prefer not having to spend such time just getting the thing to work.
I don't know if I would say I'm bored, but that might be true. I really haven't played it much in the last couple months. I play the Virtual Console games a lot. I played Zelda a lot. I just played that Marble Game, which was a lot of fun but took about 2 hours to play all the courses. I'm waiting for a chance to rent Blazing Angles (I hear the reviews suck, but I want to fly around London and Paris for nostalgic reasons to see how well they mapped out the cities).
They released Techmo Bowl, but it's Techmo Super Bowl I'm really interested in. If that's released, I'd probably be playing a heck of a lot more often. Heck, I hope Techmo gets in gear and releases it on the DS as well, with wireless multiplayer. That would be all too sweet. Though, I have a feeling I'll never see that game due to the NFL probably pissing over wanting truck loads of money for another license.
however I soon found that lack of decent single player games and no online
yes, so I guess I'm saying that the games have been quite lack-luster. But I kind of expected that. First, I've not been very excited about gaming, in general, like I was when I was kid during the 80's and 90's. Second, when you're on the cutting edge of a system, you'll grow out of games quickly. Games take a long time to develop and release. As a lot of developers passed over Nintendo, it'll take a year before games start coming out regularly. Until then, it'll just feel like the Gamecube again. Though, Paper Mario should keep you plenty busy for a while. That's a traditionally good RPG game.
If Nintendo hammered down the Online support better and before release, the system would be much more popular and people probably wouldn't feel as board with it. But I agree. Most of what I now own, is dependent on having a 'party' to play a game. Otherwise, I have little interest in actually playing Raymond over and over again to just score points to unlock a few extra things. I'm playing New Super Mario on my DS instead (I just finished FFIII which was fun).
So, I can agree with you. The Wii is getting a little stale, but I'll be picking up Paper Mario and all should be better until something I'm looking for comes out (Mario Party and then Metroid).
No offense to Broken Sword, but it's all about Day of the Tentacle for me.
I'm not familiar with scumm, this emulator can allow you to play Day of the Tentacle on the Wii? I cannot RTFA at work. I'll make sure to check this out when I get home and try it right away. This also reminds me that I hope the Wii VM will get "Maniac Mansion" ported sooner than later! That's worth the nostalgia value alone.
What's at stake here is a software company telling you what you can do with your computer. The grey area that's causing a problem is the fact that what you're doing with your computer is transmitted back to the WoW server.
The best analogy I can think of is, you buy a car, you add some components to the car to make the car run more efficient, and the gas companies sue you because they're loosing revenue because you're not filling up as often as you use to. Of course, that would best fit if the Gas companies also sold you the car and you signed a contract stating that you wouldn't improve your car to make it more efficient.
IANAL, but I think the issue here is, once you buy a product, and that product is yours, are you free to do what you want with it? Are contracts that say you have to use a product as the company wishes legal or do they fit under some sort of antitrust? Of course, it's perfectly legal for a company to stop providing you their (non-critical) service, just as a restaurant does not have to serve you nor does a department store have to sell you their good. Just as the above example, the gas station could stop selling you gas, where you will have to find gas elsewhere or create your own (hypothetically saying it wouldn't be entirely too difficult, but as a non-programmer, programming your own game might be as difficult as refining your own gas).
I would hope that this case sheds some new light on consumer/business protection with regards to software.
Once software is purchased, does the consumer have the right to modify the files in anyway they like? (Does deleting files fall under modification? If I deleted a UI file that Blizzard installed, did I just modify the program?)
Does the owner of their computer have the right to modify their computer to perform in any respect they like?
Who owns the digital information that is stored in RAM? You purchased the code, but everything that operates the code is owned by the consumer. The code simply will not work without the consumers hard-ware. The software company is not supplying computers to everyone who wants to use their software (like those old Tiger electronic hand-held games). Unless a software company starts suppling their own hardware to the client, do they have to give up some rights to let their software run on someone else's computer?
Does a MMO software company, who's real service is the allowance to send and receive information from their servers, to your computer after the software is purchased, in a specific proprietary data format, have any copyright standing if the format was never changed but the data inside the format was changed by a 3rd party program, instead of their 1st party program?
Does a software company have the right to ban people form communicating with their servers if they so choose?
Does the consumer still have the right to use the software code he purchased, anyway he wants, if his connection to the companies servers has been terminated?
One thing I find interesting, is that last bit. If you purchased the software and reverse engineer your own WoW server, such that the code on your server does not resemble the official Blizzard servers, except for how the data packets are generally formatted, does that break trademark and/or copyright law? Some interesting questions.
I know from a business standpoint, it would be, "we own everything and you're only renting our software. You MUST supply your own hardware but we have the right to tell you how to use it as well, if we feel it interferes with our product and our ability to make money on that product."
As a consumer, I know I would say to the extreme; "I purchased the product. I now own it. I have the right to do whatever I want with this product because I purchased it. If I want to modify the data, then I have that right, as long as I do not e
Don't WoW players have the option of "soulbinding" their gold and other items, so that only their own character can use them? This would seem to be the easiest fix for the problem of account hacking.
Soulbinding is for items only, which can still be (rare cases, not withstanding) sold to the vendor for gold. Gold cannot be soulbound. Which is why, on hacked accounts, the person is left naked and pennyless. Everything in liquidated into gold and the gold is transferred to another.
However, that is really a interesting idea. How would a game economy handle the idea of no inter -player trade? I would find that an interesting concept to test out. The game would have to be designed where 'all players are equal' in a sort. Everyone could craft any item (or require that you can only get crafted items from NPC vendors). Killing a monster and looting would give full value of money and items to everyone. (A monster drops 10 gold and all 5 players who killed it get 10 gold each. as well as a copy of the weapon or armour it dropped). Heck, a monster would no longer even NEED to drop items. They can just drop money and (as WoW is turning too) special tokens which can be exchanged for items at the high-end.
It would remove an 'economy', for whatever a virtual economy is worth (as technically, everything is limitless). Though I know a lot of people like the idea of 'trade' (I'm one of them), the real question is, does a 'game' really need it? I guess this is close to how Guild Wars works when you only play with NPCs. All items dropped are given to you and gold is reduced by the number of NPC party members. While some items can be dropped from monsters that you use, often find that armour is crafted for you by NPCs who require crafting materials you salvage from item drops and some gold. In essence, it's kind of like only getting gold from monsters.
Do so, does take something away from the 'feel' of the game, but it also can add to the 'work' of the game and I often find this adds to my own 'burning out'. Tough choice, but I like the idea and would like to see how people reacted to a game once they've played it fully.
The lack of monthly fees got me into it, but I stayed for the sheer casual aspect of the game.
I picked up GW from Gamestop because of a special promotion at the time ($15 off the discounted price or something). I only picked up the original, but I was close to picking up the other 2.
I must say, I really like GW for 2 reasons... the no monthly fees and Henchmen!! WoW's expansion came and and I stopped playing and I really do enjoy playing WoW... at least leveling, because that's something I can do myself. That's probably also the reason I quite WoW how many months ago.
I hit level 60 back then, sat around going "hmmm.. what should I do? I cannot find a group or I've done instance X a million times and I've already maxed out all my skills, even the pointless ones and I do not feel like rolling another character only to kill all the spiders, rats, and bats all over again." In The Burning Crusade" (TBC) expansion, it was fun until I hit level 70. I'm not spending hours looking for a group to finish some quest lines or get into an instance I've not done. 2 Hours looking, 3 hours in an instance and I'm about ready to shoot myself for spending so much time on a video game, even when it IS my hobby!
I've canceled WoW again. Primarily due to financial reasons and I look forward to going back to GW, which will cost me nothing. It does the one thing I really enjoy, I log on, pick-up some Henchmen and run off to explore, level, and experience the game story. Yes, I do not like the AI of the henchmen or the Monk abilities so much. More than 8 spell slots would be nice, but it's also an interesting aspect that forces you to plan ahead. Oh, I also love how you can jump from one city to another instantly. That's SO much better than waisting 5-20 mins traveling. I look forward more details on this expansion. Oh, and also how I can re-spec my skill points at anytime with no punishment. I guess I like a lot of things about this game. =) However, I'm more of a PvE person, though I always end up enjoying PvP I've a bit skeptical on playing it yet. I've got a lot left to experience, but I look forward to going back to it (and it won't cost me anything to do it)
1) Free Press. "Wii Shortages Continue", "Wii still high demand!", etc 2) Viral Marketing. "Did you hear, Johnny and Sally both just got a Wii! I've been looking for 2 months and I haven't found one! They must be the most popular and coolest thing on the planet! I'm so excited now, I really want one! Mooooom! I really want to get a Wii! Everyone else is getting them!" 3) Japanese business culture. Well, I'm not expert here, but from the random information I've learned over the years about this culture, it feels like it makes sense to me. If they hit their quota, they're going to hold over sales for the next quarter to make sure they hit it again. Two outstanding quarters are better than one, in the eyes of shareholders. I would guess it's about make sure percentages don't drop. Nintendo of Japan does pull the strings for Nintendo of America (just ask them how many games where not allowed to be release in America because NOJ said no to NOA)
If GameStop has to make a press release about this, they're probably doing so to try and blow a whistle on them to put some pressure on them and take it off themselves. Consumers would be the first to blame GameStop, not Nintendo for not getting the product they want. Most would quickly complain that GameStop didn't "order enough units" instead of realizing they asked for 100 but only got 3.
Which, after talking to some employees at GameStop for the last couple of weeks, they said 3 is about all they got and were told that it would be 3 weeks before they could get more from Corporate. Also, I just have this strange feeling that this isn't the first time Nintendo has done this. There's something nagging me in the back of my head about this. Of course, I'm something of a Nintendo fan, but I do know they had and would likely continue to do 'less popular' business practices.
Nintendo was a Monopoly and did a lot of the same things Microsoft is known for back in the mid 1980's with the NES. I think it might have been in the book "Game Over", regarding Nintendo and the video game industry. I also just read the latest version of GameInformer with small snip-its of 'rumors' that Nintendo is being dicks to 3rd parties again with extra costs and delays getting them development kits.
So, yes, we all love the Wii, but don't have such a rosey picture of Nintendo. Though, I'd still take that over root kits any day!
Also, look at Wal-Mart. They've already tried to make a "MySpace" and... well, have you heard of it? No? That's because it's not 'Cool'. Sure, 14 year old girls could go there and add Wal-Mart clothes to their avatar and show off their styles and 'where' (see Wal-Mart) they could buy those cool clothes.
Heck, I think they might have even paid employee's kids to use it to get it kick-started.
MySpace and Facebook 'grew' into cool. Trying to break into it with a big promotion and throwing money at it, rarely works. It goes out with a bang. Sure, you hear and see it at first, but after the dust settles, it will be gone.
If something is 'cool' and you buy it, yes, you bought cool. Of course, it could become 'un-cool' but you still bought 'cool' at that time.
Microsoft has teams of people QAing non-Microsoft games to meet minimum established standards of quality.
Indeed, this was around back with the NES. They called it the "Nintendo Seal of Quality". Basically, back then (as I remember it), the developers had to pay for this seal or the game was not allowed to be published on the NES.
That's the skinny on it anyways. Nintendo would claim that it means their 'standards of quality' but that certainly wasn't the came for many, many games at the end of the NES' life. The NES, like the modern-day PS2, had/has such a market penetration and pop.culture frenzy that making any game, no-matter how crappy, would guarentee trucks with off-white bags and black '$' on them to pull into your driveway. Back then, releasing a NES game would mean each video store would buy 2-3 copies and some customers would pick it up if it had something of interest (like a brand name such as a popular cartoon/comic/movie of the time).
It was a 'if you build it, they will come' sort of thing. It tends to happen on the mass marketed console. It happened on NES, PS1 and PS2 to some extent (though the later generations are harder due to massive up-front development costs). It appears to be moving to the Nintendo DS and might be on it's way to the Wii next. Though, like I said for the PS2, it's not as easy to see since the market is expensive to develop for these days, so this phenomenon is shrinking. That's partly why we only see "Zelda ##: do it again!", "Metroid XXX: The bad guy isn't really dead!", "God of War 2: We know, we said you where a God, but now you're not!", "Grand Theft Auto: 70's music!", "Madden Football: Yet another season!"
Sometimes I wonder what is worse? Playing it safe and copy/paste a design, add a gimmick and call it new? Or letting a mass of 'original' games flood your system, no matter how 'quality' they are? Anyway, back to the point. Yes, if you want to develop a game on "system X" you have to pay "company X" some money. Think of it as a license fee.
I just watched the EBay demo video. What "Apollo" appears to be is a development platform that allows you to integrate HTML, Flash/Flex, and JavaScript to build internet connectable Desktop Applications. Flash, Javascript, and HTML are all technologies that rely on the mostly rely on a browser, while Apollo is a runtime that will allow you to build an application that does not need an internet connection, but is enabled to use the internet.
In that sense, think of it as every Apollo application you build is like building your own browser, that only displays your specific website, which you built. But a browser that can view your website, online or offline (though, without updates when offline).
It sounds like a replacement for C/C++, VB.NET, Java GUIs and programming. Instead you program with JavaScript/Flash, do your GUI in Flash/Flex/(X)HTML.
What's the real significance? It appears that the big buzz word is that it's cross-platform. You won't have to distribute and code based on one's OS. Though, I have some reservations about this, it's very probably given the web-based environment.
Some questions I would have is, if it renders HTML... what rendering engine does it use? Webkit? IE's renderer (I forget it's name) or is it Gecko based (Firefox/Netscape). I guess it will just have to be something to try and and see how CSS/HTML layout can be designed with it. how good is it's CSS support? Does it support CSS?
What this does not appear to be is simply just another plug-in for your browser. It seems like it might be able to be a web-based plug in but mainly it's to be a stand-alone application. Though, this is the first I've heard of it and I do not know much about it yet.
Heck, if we didn't have MS, Sony, AND Nintendo, the only changes to the console industry would be a yearly upgrade to processing power so that the latest driving and football sims could have marginally better graphics.
Sounds like most MS office or XP -> Vista upgrades. =)
Sure, they might not be in stock, but they don't seem to be that hard to come by?
I guess that's all one's opinion of what 'hard' is. Though, you are lucky to get the opportunity to leave your info and have them call you back. Most places in the U.S. won't do that. At least, not the big box or small speciality chains. They've gotten into more trouble than it was worth. It's possible to find a new employee or one who's just very nice and not care about policy or not know about said policy.
While the Wii can be found on shelves (if lucky), it's mostly past the point of people waiting outside or overnight for them... except in a city in Wisconsin that just had a BestBuy open up on Feb. 23rd and had a line of 'young adults' waiting outside for the Wii and promptly sold out of them.
My sister has been looking for a Wii for about 4 weeks now, since she got her Tax money back. While she's too lazy to call all the local stores every day (like I advised her), I'm sure she could have gotten a Wii if she did that. It's just that they're usually gone within a day or two... usually less. I've been keeping my eye out for one for her when I go to a store, but I'm not nice enough to do her job and call all the stores for her. hehe
i understand the wishful thinking on everyone's part, but god of war is first party sony; wholely developed internally. it will always be exclusive unless sony sells its entire gaming division.
You're absolutely right. For some odd reason, I thought it was a 3rd party title, but it's not. So, it looks like God of War is definitely going to help sell some PS3's should GOW3 be as good as the original (and potentially the 2nd).
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for clarifying Odiumjunkie, I appreciate it. I need some economics refreshers now and again. =D
Cheers,
Fozzy
It's around that time that those who exploited it start selling books and running infomercial on the how to exploit it and exploit those who are looking to exploit it and in turn make a few extra bucks before it collapses.
Cheers,
Fozzy
I am not an economist so forgive me this this question seems obvious, but wouldn't enforcing a 'cheaper' price on a product be destroying competition? If there is competition already, and said competitions greatest competitive advantage is it's price (in lots of cases free), wouldn't forcing MS to lower prices mean you're taking away the competitive advantage and be giving MS an edge?
There's one thing I recall from my Econ. 101 class. A businesses #1 goal is to maximize profits, independently of what kind of market they are in. The only difference the market makes is who has the most (but not all) sway in setting the price. A business who is not trying to maximize profits is not a business, but a charity. Non-profit charities still have to make money, they're just not trying to make more than they need.
The other thing I remember is that a product/service is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. If Windows had cost $1 million per unit, no matter what the monopoly they had, they wouldn't likely sell any.
Cheers,
Fozzy
I picked up a free Beta code this weekend (GameStop wasn't taking any more pre-orders, but the guys hooked me up. That was after Wal-Mart put the game on the shelf all weekend but put a 'sale not allowed' if you tried to buy it at the register). Here are my quick and dirty impressions:
Hey, why wait for a Sony price cut? EBgames/Gamestop is offering a $100 PS3 for the trade-in of a PS2 (an extra controller and a 8MB card). Probably because GS makes a killing on used systems/games and the PS2 is out selling the PS3. Though, even with a $100 trade-in credit, I still wouldn't buy a PS3 for $500. Sure, it's not a price cut, but the PS3 does have some backwards compatibility with PS2, so it might be the kicker for some.
Then again, I'm that guy who only bought a used PS2 last November (pretty much because of Guitar Hero). Now that X360 has GH2 and (overly expensive) download tracks of GH1 songs, I'm more inclined for a x360 (and a larger game catalog). Plus they have some games I kind of want to play (Dead Rising).
I'll wait for the x720 to be released and pick-up a cheap x360 in 3-4 years. I've got a Wii and I'm happy playing the occasional super fun game and filling in-between with PC gaming.
Cheers,
Fozzy
The worst part is that they didn't fire Cookie Monster him until the letter Q and the number 4 pulled their sponsorship. Of course, I think he didn't need to go on Bert and Ernie's talk radio program either because they're hypocrites themselves.
Yes, that's a problem. With a 20' widescreen, the image can be kind of small with my resolution. I usually turn the resolution down. Though, it's good to know it can be accessed outside the US. I wonder how long that will last, I know plenty of places that will block that kind of access for license/legal reasons.
Cheers,
Fozzy
I hear you. My family names .com is like this too. I have the .net (I use to have the .org, but gave it up and it's since been snapped up). Sadly, I was like a month or two too late to get the .com. Well, if I ever wanted it as an email address, I know where to go. hehe.
I respectfully disagree, It's an optional feature. Nothing is being stated that it will be used by masses of people. However, I can see that you're trying to go for the 'obtrusive' part as being a big downside, which is true.
First, even TV commercials only last 15-30 seconds. They just play 5-6 different commercials in a row. The online advertisers are often doing something different. Checkout ABC's website. You can watch Lost, Grey's Anatomy, Desperate House Wives, and other shows, which include 2-3 30's commercials. I've watched these from time to time, and to tell you the truth, they're anything but bothering. The commercial MUST play through the full 30 seconds to access the next segment of the show. But the commercial stops and you must click a button to continue. So, like TV commercials, you can getup and take a break (of course, you can pause the video and do it anyways). From what I've already seen, these commercials are not that bad.
Of course, that doesn't mean there won't be bad commercials out there. The internet is a different media that attracts people differently and advertisement agencies will have to make sure they design their ads to be attractive and programmers will have to make sure they don't slam the user with too many.
Good point, which is why they probably won't have ads on things that are not worth it. Also, it could probably also be designed like some popular sites that give you a full page 'ad' and make you click a link to go to the content, but do not show you another full page ad until 'x' minutes or you enter a different popular microsite. I would doubt video ads are going to be placed on most of YouTube videos. They'll probably stick to the unobtrusive text ads.
Cheers,
Fozzy
First, thanks for your(and everyones) support/suggestions. Much obliged. Second, you are correct sir. This rig, was purchased and originally designed for gaming. Hench, the RAID.
I think I'll have to tryout unplugging the RAID drives and installing Ubuntu alone and then plug them back in and go from there. I actually stopped gaming so I want to focus on getting experience using Linux and I would like this PC to boot into Ubuntu by default but be able to switch to Windows easily if need (for the fiancee who's the typical non-tech user). Eventually, I'd like to work with other distros than Ubuntu, but from what I hear, Ubuntu is a good stepping stone.
Cheers,
Fozzy
Don't worry, I don't fit into that 'vast majority of people' either.
Ubuntu is nice, but not without issues. I spent 4 hours 'fixing' my computer after trying to install Ubuntu. It only took 10 mins to break my computer with the Ubuntu installer. As it where, I have a Dell XPS with 2 160GB HD's raided (stripping) and 1 250GB with nothing on it. I wanted to simply install Linux on the 250GB and leave windows on my Raid drive. However, allowing the Ubuntu auto installer from the LiveCD go, it screwed up my MBR, in which after installation and reboot you get a GRUB error 21 (unknown error) or "Could not load operating system" if I change the raid/standard hd drive over in my bios.
I've not found a lot of support for this specific situation, but it has gotten me thinking about MBR's boot loaders and duel-booting once again (it's been probably 7 years since I played around with doing this) and I'm starting to refresh my memory and learn the new stuff. My issue appears to deal with GRUB and partitioning and the fact that my MBR doesn't appear to be properly linking to the right partitions once they're made (thus, not finding the proper OS to load).
Maybe I'd have less of an issue if I wasn't running a raid drive or if I simply knew more about linux but Ubuntu is still not easy to install for everyone. I'll be giving it a go again next Saturday when I have 4 hours to burn if it doesn't work and continue until I do get it to work, but it's simply one of the difficult joys of trying to duel-boot a system.
I look forward to using Ubuntu. The live CD is quite interesting. But I would prefer not having to spend such time just getting the thing to work.
Cheers,
Fozzy
I don't know if I would say I'm bored, but that might be true. I really haven't played it much in the last couple months. I play the Virtual Console games a lot. I played Zelda a lot. I just played that Marble Game, which was a lot of fun but took about 2 hours to play all the courses. I'm waiting for a chance to rent Blazing Angles (I hear the reviews suck, but I want to fly around London and Paris for nostalgic reasons to see how well they mapped out the cities).
They released Techmo Bowl, but it's Techmo Super Bowl I'm really interested in. If that's released, I'd probably be playing a heck of a lot more often. Heck, I hope Techmo gets in gear and releases it on the DS as well, with wireless multiplayer. That would be all too sweet. Though, I have a feeling I'll never see that game due to the NFL probably pissing over wanting truck loads of money for another license.
yes, so I guess I'm saying that the games have been quite lack-luster. But I kind of expected that. First, I've not been very excited about gaming, in general, like I was when I was kid during the 80's and 90's. Second, when you're on the cutting edge of a system, you'll grow out of games quickly. Games take a long time to develop and release. As a lot of developers passed over Nintendo, it'll take a year before games start coming out regularly. Until then, it'll just feel like the Gamecube again. Though, Paper Mario should keep you plenty busy for a while. That's a traditionally good RPG game.
If Nintendo hammered down the Online support better and before release, the system would be much more popular and people probably wouldn't feel as board with it. But I agree. Most of what I now own, is dependent on having a 'party' to play a game. Otherwise, I have little interest in actually playing Raymond over and over again to just score points to unlock a few extra things. I'm playing New Super Mario on my DS instead (I just finished FFIII which was fun).
So, I can agree with you. The Wii is getting a little stale, but I'll be picking up Paper Mario and all should be better until something I'm looking for comes out (Mario Party and then Metroid).
Cheers,
Fozzy
I'm not familiar with scumm, this emulator can allow you to play Day of the Tentacle on the Wii? I cannot RTFA at work. I'll make sure to check this out when I get home and try it right away. This also reminds me that I hope the Wii VM will get "Maniac Mansion" ported sooner than later! That's worth the nostalgia value alone.
Cheers,
Fozzy
What's at stake here is a software company telling you what you can do with your computer. The grey area that's causing a problem is the fact that what you're doing with your computer is transmitted back to the WoW server.
The best analogy I can think of is, you buy a car, you add some components to the car to make the car run more efficient, and the gas companies sue you because they're loosing revenue because you're not filling up as often as you use to. Of course, that would best fit if the Gas companies also sold you the car and you signed a contract stating that you wouldn't improve your car to make it more efficient.
IANAL, but I think the issue here is, once you buy a product, and that product is yours, are you free to do what you want with it? Are contracts that say you have to use a product as the company wishes legal or do they fit under some sort of antitrust? Of course, it's perfectly legal for a company to stop providing you their (non-critical) service, just as a restaurant does not have to serve you nor does a department store have to sell you their good. Just as the above example, the gas station could stop selling you gas, where you will have to find gas elsewhere or create your own (hypothetically saying it wouldn't be entirely too difficult, but as a non-programmer, programming your own game might be as difficult as refining your own gas).
I would hope that this case sheds some new light on consumer/business protection with regards to software.
One thing I find interesting, is that last bit. If you purchased the software and reverse engineer your own WoW server, such that the code on your server does not resemble the official Blizzard servers, except for how the data packets are generally formatted, does that break trademark and/or copyright law? Some interesting questions.
I know from a business standpoint, it would be, "we own everything and you're only renting our software. You MUST supply your own hardware but we have the right to tell you how to use it as well, if we feel it interferes with our product and our ability to make money on that product."
As a consumer, I know I would say to the extreme; "I purchased the product. I now own it. I have the right to do whatever I want with this product because I purchased it. If I want to modify the data, then I have that right, as long as I do not e
Soulbinding is for items only, which can still be (rare cases, not withstanding) sold to the vendor for gold. Gold cannot be soulbound. Which is why, on hacked accounts, the person is left naked and pennyless. Everything in liquidated into gold and the gold is transferred to another.
However, that is really a interesting idea. How would a game economy handle the idea of no inter -player trade? I would find that an interesting concept to test out. The game would have to be designed where 'all players are equal' in a sort. Everyone could craft any item (or require that you can only get crafted items from NPC vendors). Killing a monster and looting would give full value of money and items to everyone. (A monster drops 10 gold and all 5 players who killed it get 10 gold each. as well as a copy of the weapon or armour it dropped). Heck, a monster would no longer even NEED to drop items. They can just drop money and (as WoW is turning too) special tokens which can be exchanged for items at the high-end.
It would remove an 'economy', for whatever a virtual economy is worth (as technically, everything is limitless). Though I know a lot of people like the idea of 'trade' (I'm one of them), the real question is, does a 'game' really need it? I guess this is close to how Guild Wars works when you only play with NPCs. All items dropped are given to you and gold is reduced by the number of NPC party members. While some items can be dropped from monsters that you use, often find that armour is crafted for you by NPCs who require crafting materials you salvage from item drops and some gold. In essence, it's kind of like only getting gold from monsters.
Do so, does take something away from the 'feel' of the game, but it also can add to the 'work' of the game and I often find this adds to my own 'burning out'. Tough choice, but I like the idea and would like to see how people reacted to a game once they've played it fully.
Cheers,
Fozzy
I picked up GW from Gamestop because of a special promotion at the time ($15 off the discounted price or something). I only picked up the original, but I was close to picking up the other 2.
I must say, I really like GW for 2 reasons... the no monthly fees and Henchmen!! WoW's expansion came and and I stopped playing and I really do enjoy playing WoW... at least leveling, because that's something I can do myself. That's probably also the reason I quite WoW how many months ago.
I hit level 60 back then, sat around going "hmmm.. what should I do? I cannot find a group or I've done instance X a million times and I've already maxed out all my skills, even the pointless ones and I do not feel like rolling another character only to kill all the spiders, rats, and bats all over again." In The Burning Crusade" (TBC) expansion, it was fun until I hit level 70. I'm not spending hours looking for a group to finish some quest lines or get into an instance I've not done. 2 Hours looking, 3 hours in an instance and I'm about ready to shoot myself for spending so much time on a video game, even when it IS my hobby!
I've canceled WoW again. Primarily due to financial reasons and I look forward to going back to GW, which will cost me nothing. It does the one thing I really enjoy, I log on, pick-up some Henchmen and run off to explore, level, and experience the game story. Yes, I do not like the AI of the henchmen or the Monk abilities so much. More than 8 spell slots would be nice, but it's also an interesting aspect that forces you to plan ahead. Oh, I also love how you can jump from one city to another instantly. That's SO much better than waisting 5-20 mins traveling. I look forward more details on this expansion. Oh, and also how I can re-spec my skill points at anytime with no punishment. I guess I like a lot of things about this game. =) However, I'm more of a PvE person, though I always end up enjoying PvP I've a bit skeptical on playing it yet. I've got a lot left to experience, but I look forward to going back to it (and it won't cost me anything to do it)
Cheers,
Fozzy
I respectfully disagree with you.
There are several reasons Nintendo would do this.
1) Free Press. "Wii Shortages Continue", "Wii still high demand!", etc
2) Viral Marketing. "Did you hear, Johnny and Sally both just got a Wii! I've been looking for 2 months and I haven't found one! They must be the most popular and coolest thing on the planet! I'm so excited now, I really want one! Mooooom! I really want to get a Wii! Everyone else is getting them!"
3) Japanese business culture. Well, I'm not expert here, but from the random information I've learned over the years about this culture, it feels like it makes sense to me. If they hit their quota, they're going to hold over sales for the next quarter to make sure they hit it again. Two outstanding quarters are better than one, in the eyes of shareholders. I would guess it's about make sure percentages don't drop. Nintendo of Japan does pull the strings for Nintendo of America (just ask them how many games where not allowed to be release in America because NOJ said no to NOA)
If GameStop has to make a press release about this, they're probably doing so to try and blow a whistle on them to put some pressure on them and take it off themselves. Consumers would be the first to blame GameStop, not Nintendo for not getting the product they want. Most would quickly complain that GameStop didn't "order enough units" instead of realizing they asked for 100 but only got 3.
Which, after talking to some employees at GameStop for the last couple of weeks, they said 3 is about all they got and were told that it would be 3 weeks before they could get more from Corporate. Also, I just have this strange feeling that this isn't the first time Nintendo has done this. There's something nagging me in the back of my head about this. Of course, I'm something of a Nintendo fan, but I do know they had and would likely continue to do 'less popular' business practices.
Nintendo was a Monopoly and did a lot of the same things Microsoft is known for back in the mid 1980's with the NES. I think it might have been in the book "Game Over", regarding Nintendo and the video game industry. I also just read the latest version of GameInformer with small snip-its of 'rumors' that Nintendo is being dicks to 3rd parties again with extra costs and delays getting them development kits.
So, yes, we all love the Wii, but don't have such a rosey picture of Nintendo. Though, I'd still take that over root kits any day!
Cheers,
Fozzy
True,
Also, look at Wal-Mart. They've already tried to make a "MySpace" and... well, have you heard of it? No? That's because it's not 'Cool'. Sure, 14 year old girls could go there and add Wal-Mart clothes to their avatar and show off their styles and 'where' (see Wal-Mart) they could buy those cool clothes.
Heck, I think they might have even paid employee's kids to use it to get it kick-started.
MySpace and Facebook 'grew' into cool. Trying to break into it with a big promotion and throwing money at it, rarely works. It goes out with a bang. Sure, you hear and see it at first, but after the dust settles, it will be gone.
If something is 'cool' and you buy it, yes, you bought cool. Of course, it could become 'un-cool' but you still bought 'cool' at that time.
Cheers,
Fozzy
I wish you told me that sooner!
Indeed, this was around back with the NES. They called it the "Nintendo Seal of Quality". Basically, back then (as I remember it), the developers had to pay for this seal or the game was not allowed to be published on the NES.
That's the skinny on it anyways. Nintendo would claim that it means their 'standards of quality' but that certainly wasn't the came for many, many games at the end of the NES' life. The NES, like the modern-day PS2, had/has such a market penetration and pop.culture frenzy that making any game, no-matter how crappy, would guarentee trucks with off-white bags and black '$' on them to pull into your driveway. Back then, releasing a NES game would mean each video store would buy 2-3 copies and some customers would pick it up if it had something of interest (like a brand name such as a popular cartoon/comic/movie of the time).
It was a 'if you build it, they will come' sort of thing. It tends to happen on the mass marketed console. It happened on NES, PS1 and PS2 to some extent (though the later generations are harder due to massive up-front development costs). It appears to be moving to the Nintendo DS and might be on it's way to the Wii next. Though, like I said for the PS2, it's not as easy to see since the market is expensive to develop for these days, so this phenomenon is shrinking. That's partly why we only see "Zelda ##: do it again!", "Metroid XXX: The bad guy isn't really dead!", "God of War 2: We know, we said you where a God, but now you're not!", "Grand Theft Auto: 70's music!", "Madden Football: Yet another season!"
Sometimes I wonder what is worse? Playing it safe and copy/paste a design, add a gimmick and call it new? Or letting a mass of 'original' games flood your system, no matter how 'quality' they are? Anyway, back to the point. Yes, if you want to develop a game on "system X" you have to pay "company X" some money. Think of it as a license fee.
Cheers,
Fozzy
I just watched the EBay demo video. What "Apollo" appears to be is a development platform that allows you to integrate HTML, Flash/Flex, and JavaScript to build internet connectable Desktop Applications. Flash, Javascript, and HTML are all technologies that rely on the mostly rely on a browser, while Apollo is a runtime that will allow you to build an application that does not need an internet connection, but is enabled to use the internet.
In that sense, think of it as every Apollo application you build is like building your own browser, that only displays your specific website, which you built. But a browser that can view your website, online or offline (though, without updates when offline).
It sounds like a replacement for C/C++, VB.NET, Java GUIs and programming. Instead you program with JavaScript/Flash, do your GUI in Flash/Flex/(X)HTML.
What's the real significance? It appears that the big buzz word is that it's cross-platform. You won't have to distribute and code based on one's OS. Though, I have some reservations about this, it's very probably given the web-based environment.
Some questions I would have is, if it renders HTML... what rendering engine does it use? Webkit? IE's renderer (I forget it's name) or is it Gecko based (Firefox/Netscape). I guess it will just have to be something to try and and see how CSS/HTML layout can be designed with it. how good is it's CSS support? Does it support CSS?
What this does not appear to be is simply just another plug-in for your browser. It seems like it might be able to be a web-based plug in but mainly it's to be a stand-alone application. Though, this is the first I've heard of it and I do not know much about it yet.
Cheers,
Fozzy
Sounds like most MS office or XP -> Vista upgrades. =)
Cheers,
Fozzy
I guess that's all one's opinion of what 'hard' is. Though, you are lucky to get the opportunity to leave your info and have them call you back. Most places in the U.S. won't do that. At least, not the big box or small speciality chains. They've gotten into more trouble than it was worth. It's possible to find a new employee or one who's just very nice and not care about policy or not know about said policy.
While the Wii can be found on shelves (if lucky), it's mostly past the point of people waiting outside or overnight for them... except in a city in Wisconsin that just had a BestBuy open up on Feb. 23rd and had a line of 'young adults' waiting outside for the Wii and promptly sold out of them.
My sister has been looking for a Wii for about 4 weeks now, since she got her Tax money back. While she's too lazy to call all the local stores every day (like I advised her), I'm sure she could have gotten a Wii if she did that. It's just that they're usually gone within a day or two... usually less. I've been keeping my eye out for one for her when I go to a store, but I'm not nice enough to do her job and call all the stores for her. hehe
Cheers,
Fozzy
You're absolutely right. For some odd reason, I thought it was a 3rd party title, but it's not. So, it looks like God of War is definitely going to help sell some PS3's should GOW3 be as good as the original (and potentially the 2nd).
Cheers,
Fozzy