Thanks for the advice but as I said before I'm already running HDMI at those lengths without any problems (or "sparkle" as most people describe digital interference) just not with the 360 (because mine doesn't have an HDMI port). FWIW I'm using Monoprice cables and I can't imagine I'd be able to build my own much better, particularly when you consider I'm using a VGA connection (because that's what the projector accepts), not Component. Also of course none of the wires are running anywhere near powerlines.
A lot of TVs and monitors don't support 1080p over component. I know mine doesn't. HDMI is certainly better than VGA on a decent TV, and let's face it, if you actually have HDMI, you probably have a TV that you'll notice the difference with.
I can stand behind that. I think anyone that's chosen to use DVI over VGA for their PC monitor doesn't have any right to claim there is no difference between Component and HDMI.
DRM aside HDMI offers two benefits in my eyes, 1. the image construction is pure, that is to say if I set my Xbox 360 to output at 1280x768 my 1280x768 projector will reconstruct every last pixel in the appropriate location without playing marco-polo with the image construction, this is also do in part because the scaler chip has been upgraded from an analog chip to a digital one (ANA to HANA) to support HDMI output. And 2. Being that I use my 360 in my home theater room I close to 60ft of cable between the console and the projector, the stock cable is about 10' going into the switch box (unavoidable) then the switch box output routed through the floor around the back of the room up the wall and up over the ceiling... really it's only about 30'-35' needed by they only sell cables in 25' and 50' lengths. Even spending for the high gauge 4x shielded cables with some massive ferrite cores I got interference in the picture. Most of it was cleared up with about $80 worth of power conditioning equipment but some still remains. HDMI based components I'm using now don't have a lick of interference in the picture and it'd be worth the extra cash to get rid of it completely when using the 360.
$480 is a hard pill to swallow when you already own one of these things. They don't even mention the fact that any content you've purchased from the Marketplace is tied to the original console it was downloaded to. meaning the account that purchased it will have to be logged into Xbox Live if you want to use it on your new console.
Not to mention that since it doesn't include the rumored 65nm chip nor the rumored quieter DVD drive HDMI aside you can upgrade your current box with an off the shelf hard drive and a rattle can. Personally I'll wait for some others to buy one, if it's got the 65nm chip and quite drive I'll pick one up, else I'll wait for those to come out as I assume all future Xbox 360 consoles will include the HDMI port.
I realize this is a joke but as someone who like to tinker with my cars as much as my computers I know that this is a VERY common problem in the automotive world as well.
Depending on the manufacturer many will completely deny service if they thing you've made any modifications, even stuff as simple as bolt on aftermarket parts. I had a friend who bought a Chevy something or other and put an aftermarket exhaust on it... nothing else just the exhaust. a few months later he had a vibration took it in to the dealer, they said he had mud in his wheel and that they cleared it out and it was all good. Leaving the lot the passengers side front wheel fell off. It would seem that somehow a few lugs had been mangled. The dealership refused to cover it under warranty saying that that the warranty was invalid due to the aftermarket exhaust.
Similarly a Mitsubishi dealership out in the north west (USA) was going around tuner forums and creating a list of license plate number for any Mitsubishi owner who had in the forums shown scans of track times in their car or lists of modifications that the dealership deemed warranty voiding.
As someone who tunes my own cars I'm more then happy to take responsibility for my own actions. if I put an exhaust on my car and the motor blows up, ok maybe it was the exhaust. if I put a tighter suspension on it and the frame cracks... ok it probably wasn't made for that kind of stress. if I put on aftermarket headlights and the electrical system blows... my fault. But IMO the only way an aftermarket exhaust could cause damage to your wheels is if the thing fell off and you ran it over. Similarly installing Linux on your PC would be difficult to pin as the culprit of a sticky keyboard.
IANAL but in the automotive realm it's generally understood that dealerships cannot void your warranty for installing aftermarket parts, they can only legally refuse service if it can be shown that an aftermarket part directly or indirectly resulted in the damage, as opposed to manufacturing defects. I've even seen legal text to that effect. I would imagine it's not all too different in the PC realm.
Very true, I forgot about that game. Though it's not like MMO FPS/Racers/Mech games, or even those genres with MMO elements, are anywhere near the norm.
It's not a zeitgeist it's simple backlash over a ridiculous complaint. I don't care where you are, it's taboo to walk into a specialized community and complain that they're using appropriate language to describe something, instead of used dumbed down language and defining every technical term, simply because you're too lazy to look it up.
You might as well visit France and complain that the French aren't speaking English.
You could also dumb down any of the articles here on Slashdot for the lowest common denominator using only 6th grade vocabulary as to not confuse the masses... or you could just lookup words you don't understand the meaning to, learn to use it in a sentence and impress your friends with your New Brain(tm).
If you don't think that Pretexting or Social Engineering falls within the bounds of a geeks vocabulary I think you need to brush up on your nerd history; start with Kevin Mitnick.
Apparently he's never played Test Drive Unlimited (an MMO Racer), Chromehounds (an MMO Mech game)... or read any previews for the upcoming Huxley (an MMO FPS).
It's quite amazing how uninfected most people's computers are when they get rid of the crap they don't need and start using Firefox & a few extensions.
I've got an IBM Thinkpad T20... it's a P3 533MHz, 256MB RAM, 12GB hard drive, 4MB S3 Video.. it's a beast I know.
it had Win98 on it when I got it back in 2000, I put Win2000 on it, and later XP once SP1 came out... after installing XP the DVD drive died... I use it for browsing, streaming media from my desktop, car diagnostics on track days, as well as a navigation system via a USB GPS device. It's got image tuning software for adjusting and tuning the image on my home theater screen. I take it on vacations with me to dump my digital camera data to, as well as manage some of my websites. And I even do a bit of web development on it (Graphics too Pain.net/GIMP run great) when I feel like taking a break from the office and heading to the coffee shop or even just trading in the desk chair for a couch. Since the disc drive died I couldn't install a new OS on it if I wanted to... but I've never had the need. I've stripped out all the crap I don't need in XP, and I run the bare minimum of applications to do what I need to do. I can't remember the last time it locked up on me, nor any other problems, and IIRC it was probably back when I had Win98 or 2000 on there. It runs quick for it's age, it's reliable and consistent.
I'm sure you could get the same kind of reliability using IE but the user needs to be activity diligent in keeping out malware and other internet nasties. FF+Adblock+Flashblock+Noscript does more for most people's computers then even the most advanced AV software on the market. As for the garbage applications that come pre-installed. I swear most computer companies are throwing that crap on there just help bog the system down and make people think they need another upgrade every year. Windows is no better, and Vista pushes new heights on the front of OS's pre-loaded with useless resource wasting garbage.
The idea is neat and has been around for some time, but the article fails to answer some pretty basic questions. The most important question is if they can actually get these batteries to pump out enough juice to power anything of importance....
The other issue here is size....
What about having a water cooler sized charge station in your home... dump in your sugars and plug in your cell phone/mp3 player/laptop to charge their current rechargeable batteries. You don't have to worry about power and size because the current rechargeable available take care of that.
Sure, it's not as good/eco-friendly as buying sugar based AAs from Walmart directly but it might make a decent interim solution that would help the tech move forward until it is small enough to just buy an "Engergizer S".
Well my boss is in his 60s, he came up to me the other day and said how he played a Wii at his sons house, had a lot of fun and plans on buying one. This is a man who has never played video games before let alone owned a console.
I know a couple of grandparents who don't even own computers that have purchased a Wii as well... Nintendo has really done well with it.
I agree that a split in the console as great as the storage medium, with some games requiring an HD-DVD drive and not everyone having one, would be quite a problem. I think that's why MS essentially locks out access to the HD-DVD drive for game content. The Sega CD and subsequent 32X were horrible ideas IMO and any modern day repeat of that would be equally as bad and not learning from history.
I've yet to see a game with that much content that didn't have enough of a linear progression that it couldn't be split up across multiple discs. Blue-Dragon has been released in Japan and spans 3 DVDs. I'm sure Lost Odyssey will arrive on multiple discs as well and if FFXIII does indeed hit the 360 I suspect multiple discs as well.
Looking at games like Oblivion and Enchanted Arms both have massive worlds to explore and massive amounts of audio dialog and both don't even fill a single DVD. I suspect that without pre-rendered Video Blue Dragon would have fit on a single disc. To be honest swapping discs never bothered me. I was ok with it on the SegaCD, the Playstation, the Saturn, the PS2, and the Gamecube. I'll be ok with it on the 360 as well. To me not having to get up to switch discs every 10 to 30 hours of gameplay isn't worth the added price to the console nor the added wait for it's release.
As for the PS3 games out now IIRC Resistance is the only game that actually uses more then a DVDs worth of space, it does contain a lot of extra content and it does contain a lot of pre-rendered video. There's even question if it was done intentionally to help prove the value of Blu-Ray for gaming uses; sort of a "SEE! Everyones favorite PS3 title wouldn't have been possible without it!". Though on a whole it hasn't proven all too useful yet, as least not when you consider the costs involved. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a game or two that really utilizes it, that's non linear, doesn't have much or any pre-rendered video and couldn't have been split across discs, but I suspect such games would be genuinely rare.
Nice way to gloss over the problem for developers - do we or do we not require a hard drive. That's a choice that could have been hard to make if the gimped system sold just as well or even a large percentage of the better system. Then you have to make the choice of whether it's better to make a more technically impressive game by caching to the hard drive and locking out a good chunk of users or making a less technical game with higher sales.
Where not arguing the quality of the games here (you'll get no argument from me over that). We're arguing the difficulty of developer decisions. The Xbox 360 for all intents and purposes does not have a hard drive availble for caching... my point is that It's an OPTIONAL accessory, so developers have the easy decision of building the game to run without it. If they want to build in optional functionality to make use of it they can. The "CORE" is an Xbox 360 and the premium is just a core with a few accessories in the box. Just because a high number of Xbox 360 owners have the Hard Drive accessory doesn't make it any less of an optional component.
If we are going to argue the quality of games, then I agree that a required and build in hard drive across all models would have been better then what we have now, so that a higher percentage of Xbox 360 games made use of it for caching and other tasks. However it's rumored that the decision was made to make the hard drive optional when they bumped the system memory up from 256MB to 512MB. they wanted a console at the $300 price point and with the extra ram they couldn't do that unless they dropped something else... as much as caching helps to improve a game... that extra 256MB of memory helps a lot more then caching ever could.
When the games grow to the size of multiple DVDs (isn't Blue Dragon 3 DVD's on the 360?), you'll probably enjoy the capacity of the Blu-Ray disc.
Let me put it this way: the extra $200-$300 cost added to the console, the reduced read speed leading to longer load times, and having to wait nearly a whole year for it to arrive... I'd much rather just switch discs on a few select games... that's just me though. If this were a feature on a car it'd be a heated cup holder, nice to have but not exactly worth it if you have to pay twice as much for the car and wait a whole extra year before you can drive it.
As for windows I don't really have anything against MS personally. Sony's grudge started with the Playstation 1 as I watched it completely erode the hobby I loved Nintendo and Sega became a shadow of their formers selves and all the fun and creative games I loved fell subject to dumbing down and mass market appeal. Then with the PS2 it was worse by 10 fold Sega was driven right out of the console market and my Beloved Dreamcast basically shriveled up and died (to this day I still consider it one of the most innovative consoles ever made). After that I began to take pleasure in anything Sony did wrong... like root kit and exploding batteries.
I had no plans to buy an Xbox 1 I considered windows to just be a bloated generic piece of software and I figured the Xbox would be the same, nothing against it but nothing that really interested me. I visited a friend who had one and saw that they were basically picking up where Sega left off, they had a built in network adapter and were planing on launching an online service soon, 4 controller ports for lots of local multiplayer, Analog triggers on the controllers, which as a racing fan was one of my favorite features on the Saturn and Dreamcast. They even seemed to be inheriting most of the Dreamcast's franchise that I loved: Project Gotham Racing (a remake of the DC's Metropolis Street Racer), Jet Set Radio Future, Dead or Alive, Panzier Dragoon, GunValkrye, Sega GT, etc. etc. etc. I've been a fan of the Xbox brand since. I mean heck they even took Peter Moore from Sega to sail the ship forward. Always one with good ideas for the game industry but now he had the financial backing to actually make an impact rather being tied down by a Foreign company that was more interested in keeping sales in the home country stronger then abroad for pride issues then actuall moving the company forward as a whole.
I think what most people are seeing in the Wii now, a fresh console that offers some innovation, and a good plan moving forward that's more gamer oriented then corporate greed oriented is how I felt about the Xbox 1. I'm just really happy that the Xbox 360 and Wii are giving Sony's "we know whats best for the gamer" attitude what they've deserved since the PS1.
Interesting? They just gave away a 42" TV. Even without cables, just go buy your own HDMI cable for like $10 off Monoprice or similar sites. You know the fanboys have mod points when...
well I was going for ironc/funny... Even after buying/receiving thousands of dollars worth of equipment you'd still need to go and buy an HD cable before you can use it at it's full potential.
The lack of an included HD cable (component or HDMI) is just another small bullet item on the long list of things Sony has done wrong this generation.
The differences offered in the hardware shouldn't make a difference in the game programing.
On the PS3... the differences are:
-20GB of hard drive space or 60GB of hard drive space
---Doesn't make a difference how much space you have as long as you have enough free.
-The inclusion or exclusion of a WiFi adapter
---Doesn't make a difference since you're just piping data through whatever connection is set in the dashboard
-The inclusion or exclusion of legacy PS controller ports
---Only used for Backwards compatibility so it Doesn't make a difference
-The inclusion or exclusion of flash media slots
---Only used on the dashboard for picture and media viewing features, so it doesn't make a difference
Maybe you could explain to me where the problem is for developers?
Maybe you were talking about the Xbox 360? lets look at that
-One includes a hard drive the other doesn't
---The hard drive is removable and games are required to run with or without it... so there really is no difference to developers.
I'm all out of differences... I really don't see where the problem is.
The bad rap is not because of the hardware itself. It's about Sony's behaviour as a whole: rootkit-infected CDs, exploding laptop batteries, general arrogance, all that crap. Also, some fanboys^W hardcore gamers may be resentful regarding the Dreamcast (destroyed by the PS2's bullshit-filled hype) and Working Designs (ruined by SCEA's retarded anti-2D policies).
Yup... that's pretty much why I hate them (particularly the Dreamcast part). The PS3 isn't a bad machine, perhaps a bit overpriced, due to the inclusion of IMO unnecessary features (like blue-ray). I'm avoiding the platform mostly out of distaste for Sony products in general.
Unless I'm reading it wrong, it is 2x2, and that's the joke. Vertical and horizontal lines delineate the cell borders.
The GP is correct... each "cell" would only contain a 1 or a 0... when to be a Sudoku puzzle each cell would need to contain a 1 AND a 0.
A good rule of thumb is that you cannot have a sodoku puzzle unless you can take the square root of the number of elements in a cell and come out with a whole number: 2x2 (1-4) is the smallest valid possibility (though you could argue a 1 cell Sodoku is valid also). followed by traditional puzzles of 3x3 (1-9). What would be fun and interesting is a hexadecimal puzzle 4x4 (0-F). IIRC they call those "Super Sodokus". Binary doesn't work because you want 2 elements in each cell a 2x2 implies that there are 4 elements... but that's not binary.
I get that it was a joke, though they tend to loose their humor if the reader is required reduce their level of understanding to get it.
you should pop your code over into Microsoft's Visual Studio express and get it published on Xbox Live Arcade. I'd love a Sudoku game on XBLA.
I tried making one myself but I'm not really a programmer (it's just a hobby) and while I got a really basic brute force solver done it was ugly and not optimized very well.
Just because you don't find a joke funny doesn't make it any less of a joke. It just means that the person is bad at telling jokes. The question isn't whether or not the parody is funny but whether or not it was intentionally made as a parody, and as far as I can tell, it was.
maybe not the most popular of all time but look at that VG chart again and filter out portable systems and anything made before the N64/PS/Saturn generation and you'll find that DQ and FF filter right to the top. making the top 10 look like this:
Dragon Quest VII
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VIII
Dragon Quest VIII
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy IX
Gran Turismo
Final Fantasy XII
Final Fantasy X-2
Resident Evil 2
While portables are still video games it's pretty much a different market... in terms of games that have sold well in the past and STILL sell well enough to reach the top of the charts today DQ an FF are it. Mario on the NES might be near the top but where is the GC's Mario on that list? The tubby plumber doesn't move consoles like he used to, certainly not as well as effeminate males with large swords. Not to mention FFXII was released just a few short months ago and it's already sold half as many copies as Mario on the NES has in over 20 years... I'd say that's some drawing power.
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Thanks for the advice but as I said before I'm already running HDMI at those lengths without any problems (or "sparkle" as most people describe digital interference) just not with the 360 (because mine doesn't have an HDMI port). FWIW I'm using Monoprice cables and I can't imagine I'd be able to build my own much better, particularly when you consider I'm using a VGA connection (because that's what the projector accepts), not Component. Also of course none of the wires are running anywhere near powerlines.
DRM aside HDMI offers two benefits in my eyes, 1. the image construction is pure, that is to say if I set my Xbox 360 to output at 1280x768 my 1280x768 projector will reconstruct every last pixel in the appropriate location without playing marco-polo with the image construction, this is also do in part because the scaler chip has been upgraded from an analog chip to a digital one (ANA to HANA) to support HDMI output. And 2. Being that I use my 360 in my home theater room I close to 60ft of cable between the console and the projector, the stock cable is about 10' going into the switch box (unavoidable) then the switch box output routed through the floor around the back of the room up the wall and up over the ceiling... really it's only about 30'-35' needed by they only sell cables in 25' and 50' lengths. Even spending for the high gauge 4x shielded cables with some massive ferrite cores I got interference in the picture. Most of it was cleared up with about $80 worth of power conditioning equipment but some still remains. HDMI based components I'm using now don't have a lick of interference in the picture and it'd be worth the extra cash to get rid of it completely when using the 360.
$480 is a hard pill to swallow when you already own one of these things. They don't even mention the fact that any content you've purchased from the Marketplace is tied to the original console it was downloaded to. meaning the account that purchased it will have to be logged into Xbox Live if you want to use it on your new console.
Not to mention that since it doesn't include the rumored 65nm chip nor the rumored quieter DVD drive HDMI aside you can upgrade your current box with an off the shelf hard drive and a rattle can. Personally I'll wait for some others to buy one, if it's got the 65nm chip and quite drive I'll pick one up, else I'll wait for those to come out as I assume all future Xbox 360 consoles will include the HDMI port.
I believe there is a lawsuit in the works, yes.
I realize this is a joke but as someone who like to tinker with my cars as much as my computers I know that this is a VERY common problem in the automotive world as well.
Depending on the manufacturer many will completely deny service if they thing you've made any modifications, even stuff as simple as bolt on aftermarket parts. I had a friend who bought a Chevy something or other and put an aftermarket exhaust on it... nothing else just the exhaust. a few months later he had a vibration took it in to the dealer, they said he had mud in his wheel and that they cleared it out and it was all good. Leaving the lot the passengers side front wheel fell off. It would seem that somehow a few lugs had been mangled. The dealership refused to cover it under warranty saying that that the warranty was invalid due to the aftermarket exhaust.
Similarly a Mitsubishi dealership out in the north west (USA) was going around tuner forums and creating a list of license plate number for any Mitsubishi owner who had in the forums shown scans of track times in their car or lists of modifications that the dealership deemed warranty voiding.
As someone who tunes my own cars I'm more then happy to take responsibility for my own actions. if I put an exhaust on my car and the motor blows up, ok maybe it was the exhaust. if I put a tighter suspension on it and the frame cracks... ok it probably wasn't made for that kind of stress. if I put on aftermarket headlights and the electrical system blows... my fault. But IMO the only way an aftermarket exhaust could cause damage to your wheels is if the thing fell off and you ran it over. Similarly installing Linux on your PC would be difficult to pin as the culprit of a sticky keyboard.
IANAL but in the automotive realm it's generally understood that dealerships cannot void your warranty for installing aftermarket parts, they can only legally refuse service if it can be shown that an aftermarket part directly or indirectly resulted in the damage, as opposed to manufacturing defects. I've even seen legal text to that effect. I would imagine it's not all too different in the PC realm.
Very true, I forgot about that game. Though it's not like MMO FPS/Racers/Mech games, or even those genres with MMO elements, are anywhere near the norm.
It's not a zeitgeist it's simple backlash over a ridiculous complaint. I don't care where you are, it's taboo to walk into a specialized community and complain that they're using appropriate language to describe something, instead of used dumbed down language and defining every technical term, simply because you're too lazy to look it up.
You might as well visit France and complain that the French aren't speaking English.
yet another? Please let me know where I can find any other MMO games in those genres.
You could also dumb down any of the articles here on Slashdot for the lowest common denominator using only 6th grade vocabulary as to not confuse the masses... or you could just lookup words you don't understand the meaning to, learn to use it in a sentence and impress your friends with your New Brain(tm).
If you don't think that Pretexting or Social Engineering falls within the bounds of a geeks vocabulary I think you need to brush up on your nerd history; start with Kevin Mitnick.
Apparently he's never played Test Drive Unlimited (an MMO Racer), Chromehounds (an MMO Mech game)... or read any previews for the upcoming Huxley (an MMO FPS).
It's quite amazing how uninfected most people's computers are when they get rid of the crap they don't need and start using Firefox & a few extensions. I've got an IBM Thinkpad T20... it's a P3 533MHz, 256MB RAM, 12GB hard drive, 4MB S3 Video.. it's a beast I know.
it had Win98 on it when I got it back in 2000, I put Win2000 on it, and later XP once SP1 came out... after installing XP the DVD drive died... I use it for browsing, streaming media from my desktop, car diagnostics on track days, as well as a navigation system via a USB GPS device. It's got image tuning software for adjusting and tuning the image on my home theater screen. I take it on vacations with me to dump my digital camera data to, as well as manage some of my websites. And I even do a bit of web development on it (Graphics too Pain.net/GIMP run great) when I feel like taking a break from the office and heading to the coffee shop or even just trading in the desk chair for a couch. Since the disc drive died I couldn't install a new OS on it if I wanted to... but I've never had the need. I've stripped out all the crap I don't need in XP, and I run the bare minimum of applications to do what I need to do. I can't remember the last time it locked up on me, nor any other problems, and IIRC it was probably back when I had Win98 or 2000 on there. It runs quick for it's age, it's reliable and consistent.
I'm sure you could get the same kind of reliability using IE but the user needs to be activity diligent in keeping out malware and other internet nasties. FF+Adblock+Flashblock+Noscript does more for most people's computers then even the most advanced AV software on the market. As for the garbage applications that come pre-installed. I swear most computer companies are throwing that crap on there just help bog the system down and make people think they need another upgrade every year. Windows is no better, and Vista pushes new heights on the front of OS's pre-loaded with useless resource wasting garbage.
FWIW I use NOD32 for my AV needs
Sure, it's not as good/eco-friendly as buying sugar based AAs from Walmart directly but it might make a decent interim solution that would help the tech move forward until it is small enough to just buy an "Engergizer S".
Well my boss is in his 60s, he came up to me the other day and said how he played a Wii at his sons house, had a lot of fun and plans on buying one. This is a man who has never played video games before let alone owned a console.
I know a couple of grandparents who don't even own computers that have purchased a Wii as well... Nintendo has really done well with it.
I agree that a split in the console as great as the storage medium, with some games requiring an HD-DVD drive and not everyone having one, would be quite a problem. I think that's why MS essentially locks out access to the HD-DVD drive for game content. The Sega CD and subsequent 32X were horrible ideas IMO and any modern day repeat of that would be equally as bad and not learning from history.
I've yet to see a game with that much content that didn't have enough of a linear progression that it couldn't be split up across multiple discs. Blue-Dragon has been released in Japan and spans 3 DVDs. I'm sure Lost Odyssey will arrive on multiple discs as well and if FFXIII does indeed hit the 360 I suspect multiple discs as well.
Looking at games like Oblivion and Enchanted Arms both have massive worlds to explore and massive amounts of audio dialog and both don't even fill a single DVD. I suspect that without pre-rendered Video Blue Dragon would have fit on a single disc. To be honest swapping discs never bothered me. I was ok with it on the SegaCD, the Playstation, the Saturn, the PS2, and the Gamecube. I'll be ok with it on the 360 as well. To me not having to get up to switch discs every 10 to 30 hours of gameplay isn't worth the added price to the console nor the added wait for it's release.
As for the PS3 games out now IIRC Resistance is the only game that actually uses more then a DVDs worth of space, it does contain a lot of extra content and it does contain a lot of pre-rendered video. There's even question if it was done intentionally to help prove the value of Blu-Ray for gaming uses; sort of a "SEE! Everyones favorite PS3 title wouldn't have been possible without it!". Though on a whole it hasn't proven all too useful yet, as least not when you consider the costs involved. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a game or two that really utilizes it, that's non linear, doesn't have much or any pre-rendered video and couldn't have been split across discs, but I suspect such games would be genuinely rare.
If we are going to argue the quality of games, then I agree that a required and build in hard drive across all models would have been better then what we have now, so that a higher percentage of Xbox 360 games made use of it for caching and other tasks. However it's rumored that the decision was made to make the hard drive optional when they bumped the system memory up from 256MB to 512MB. they wanted a console at the $300 price point and with the extra ram they couldn't do that unless they dropped something else... as much as caching helps to improve a game... that extra 256MB of memory helps a lot more then caching ever could.
Blu-Ray isn't optional on the PS3... it's availble on every PS3 sold... no decision there
The HD-DVD drive cannot be used for games. code cannot be executed from the drive... no decision there ether all 360 games have to be on DVD.
As for windows I don't really have anything against MS personally. Sony's grudge started with the Playstation 1 as I watched it completely erode the hobby I loved Nintendo and Sega became a shadow of their formers selves and all the fun and creative games I loved fell subject to dumbing down and mass market appeal. Then with the PS2 it was worse by 10 fold Sega was driven right out of the console market and my Beloved Dreamcast basically shriveled up and died (to this day I still consider it one of the most innovative consoles ever made). After that I began to take pleasure in anything Sony did wrong... like root kit and exploding batteries.
I had no plans to buy an Xbox 1 I considered windows to just be a bloated generic piece of software and I figured the Xbox would be the same, nothing against it but nothing that really interested me. I visited a friend who had one and saw that they were basically picking up where Sega left off, they had a built in network adapter and were planing on launching an online service soon, 4 controller ports for lots of local multiplayer, Analog triggers on the controllers, which as a racing fan was one of my favorite features on the Saturn and Dreamcast. They even seemed to be inheriting most of the Dreamcast's franchise that I loved: Project Gotham Racing (a remake of the DC's Metropolis Street Racer), Jet Set Radio Future, Dead or Alive, Panzier Dragoon, GunValkrye, Sega GT, etc. etc. etc. I've been a fan of the Xbox brand since. I mean heck they even took Peter Moore from Sega to sail the ship forward. Always one with good ideas for the game industry but now he had the financial backing to actually make an impact rather being tied down by a Foreign company that was more interested in keeping sales in the home country stronger then abroad for pride issues then actuall moving the company forward as a whole.
I think what most people are seeing in the Wii now, a fresh console that offers some innovation, and a good plan moving forward that's more gamer oriented then corporate greed oriented is how I felt about the Xbox 1. I'm just really happy that the Xbox 360 and Wii are giving Sony's "we know whats best for the gamer" attitude what they've deserved since the PS1.
The lack of an included HD cable (component or HDMI) is just another small bullet item on the long list of things Sony has done wrong this generation.
The differences offered in the hardware shouldn't make a difference in the game programing.
On the PS3... the differences are:
-20GB of hard drive space or 60GB of hard drive space
---Doesn't make a difference how much space you have as long as you have enough free.
-The inclusion or exclusion of a WiFi adapter
---Doesn't make a difference since you're just piping data through whatever connection is set in the dashboard
-The inclusion or exclusion of legacy PS controller ports
---Only used for Backwards compatibility so it Doesn't make a difference
-The inclusion or exclusion of flash media slots
---Only used on the dashboard for picture and media viewing features, so it doesn't make a difference
Maybe you could explain to me where the problem is for developers?
Maybe you were talking about the Xbox 360? lets look at that
-One includes a hard drive the other doesn't
---The hard drive is removable and games are required to run with or without it... so there really is no difference to developers.
I'm all out of differences... I really don't see where the problem is.
The real question is: did they also provide the HD cables to connect the PS3 to those TVs? (since the PS3 doesn't come with them)
A good rule of thumb is that you cannot have a sodoku puzzle unless you can take the square root of the number of elements in a cell and come out with a whole number: 2x2 (1-4) is the smallest valid possibility (though you could argue a 1 cell Sodoku is valid also). followed by traditional puzzles of 3x3 (1-9). What would be fun and interesting is a hexadecimal puzzle 4x4 (0-F). IIRC they call those "Super Sodokus". Binary doesn't work because you want 2 elements in each cell a 2x2 implies that there are 4 elements... but that's not binary.
I get that it was a joke, though they tend to loose their humor if the reader is required reduce their level of understanding to get it.
holy freekin crap. I have a hard enough time warping my head around that stuff for basic mod rewrites in apache. ... scary ninjas indeed.
you should pop your code over into Microsoft's Visual Studio express and get it published on Xbox Live Arcade. I'd love a Sudoku game on XBLA.
I tried making one myself but I'm not really a programmer (it's just a hobby) and while I got a really basic brute force solver done it was ugly and not optimized very well.
Just because you don't find a joke funny doesn't make it any less of a joke. It just means that the person is bad at telling jokes. The question isn't whether or not the parody is funny but whether or not it was intentionally made as a parody, and as far as I can tell, it was.
- Dragon Quest VII
- Final Fantasy VII
- Final Fantasy VIII
- Dragon Quest VIII
- Final Fantasy X
- Final Fantasy IX
- Gran Turismo
- Final Fantasy XII
- Final Fantasy X-2
- Resident Evil 2
While portables are still video games it's pretty much a different market... in terms of games that have sold well in the past and STILL sell well enough to reach the top of the charts today DQ an FF are it. Mario on the NES might be near the top but where is the GC's Mario on that list? The tubby plumber doesn't move consoles like he used to, certainly not as well as effeminate males with large swords. Not to mention FFXII was released just a few short months ago and it's already sold half as many copies as Mario on the NES has in over 20 years... I'd say that's some drawing power.