last I checked the average age of gamers were in the high 20s/low 30s... I'd have to imagine the parents who are complaining about this stuff are either getting up there in age or weren't the gaming type when they were younger. I know plenty of people who are parents in their 30s and 40s who play games and think all the hooplah about the ESRB, government regulations, jack Thompson, and GTA are all ridiculous.
I find it's not until you get into the late 40s and beyond that people start thinking games are just for kids etc.
While I don't agree with the GTA decision or the ES4 decision there is a distinct difference.
In GTA the content WAS ON THE DISC, it might not have been accessible but it was on there. In ES4 the content didn't even exist, some user created it and added it into the game themselves.
Imagine this, you buy a computer with a hidden and locked folder that contains vulgar content... You don't know it exists but someone finds it out and starts telling people how to hack their computers to get at it... THIS is GTA.
Now Imagine you buy a computer with NO hidden or locked content at all. Someone starts a porn site on the internet and starts telling people how to download it to their computers... THIS is ES4
You might as well not sell computers, cameras, or even pens and pencils to minors because they might be inclined, to download, take pictures of, or draw their own nudity.
I think the REAL kicker is the 360 version, not having it's rating upped for nudity but for violence and gore, which according to Bethesda they noted as the highest possible level when submitting the game for review. It just shows the ESRB's incompetence, and THAT is the sort of thing that starts to draw the attention from the political types.
I agree, never really liked the iPod the only thing it's got going for it is it's interface (hey, Apple is just good at UI). Past that I find the over dependence on iTunes a burden more then a blessing, no replaceable battery, and outside of music it doesn't do anything particularly well.
Just because something is trendy or popular doesn't mean it's not LAME. I think teenage girls who carry around small dogs is LAME despite that fact that it is popular and trendy.
Exactly, what's to stop an ID thief from walking down a busy street with an overcoat filled with equipment collecting everyone's tag that he bumps into.
TODAY this would be fine because not many people do this, it's sort of a bleeding edge geek thing. But years from now it's plausible.
For it to work correctly I think any secure transactions would have to be matched with some other element, say a fingerprint. So when you walk around your house the lights and your music follow you from room to room based on the tag with no security, if you want to open the door to your house, or get money from the bank you'll need a finger print to go along with your tag.
I was thinking about this last time I saw one of those articles championing games "of the future" that download on the fly as you play them.
Even now I wonder where my purchased copy of Geometry Wars will go after the Xbox 360 gives up the ghost or if MS ever closes shop on Xbox Live. I can't play any of those games without being connected to the MS servers. I know it probably wont happen to MS but what about down the road. I'm sure we'll see some downloadable only content come around for some system that eventually goes belly-up (phantom anyone?).
How would these games even be preserved?
Also If the National Archives are for the "benefit of the public" how can I get my hands on the archived games as a member of the benefited public? (Seriously though, how does it work for archived books and paper documents?)
There's a difference between gaming online and having an online community.
I think it's more a Venn diagram really, I can play Quake online all day against total strangers and I wouldn't really consider that a community. Then you have places like MySpace that have a community but that doesn't mean that those people want to bring that community interaction into their gaming (or game at all). Then of course there are places where they co-exist like EQ and WOW.
I think the point most miss is that An online community does not mean All online communities, and an online community does not fit for all online activities.
That's very true, But the console wont always be that expensive, Most consoles are too expensive for that type of person for the first year or two of it's life. But with those games there NOW it makes it easier to adopt into a household with a variety of different types of gamers.
I agree I do the same thing... I almost NEVER buy immediately like that.
I think a good measure of if the clicks were real or fraudulent is if the clicker hung around the page for any length of time, visited other areas etc. A fake click would simply load the linked page and exit immediately.
If someone browses around your page for 5 minutes after following a google link and still doesn't buy... it's probably NOT Google's fault.
I think the point is, even with the "surprisingly complex and mature story" Why wouldn't someone just go play a game with a complex and mature story AND good game play... say Oblivion? Even still without compelling gameplay it's just a movie with mindless interaction, so why not cut out the mindless interaction and watch through an anime series or something?
Honestly I'm of the opinion that anyone who bashes the lack of variety in the 360's current line up probably hasn't been paying attention. It seriously has quality titles in nearly every category. It's certainly more diverse then the line up that was available for most other consoles a few months after their launch.
And what would you consider to be a "casual gamer title"? Because by my definition there are plenty of those as well. I personally don't even like shooters, and I loathe the Halo series. Even still I own both an Xbox 1 and an Xbox 360 because they offer a strong showing of other games that I like to play. I wouldn't have bought a 360 if it didn't have the games I wanted to play, I didn't buy an Xbox 1 or a PS2 until they did, and I wont buy a PS3 or a Wii until they did.
As someone who owns almost every console made in the last 15 years, I can honestly say that the Xbox 360 is the only console I've ever purchased at launch, and ONLY because it offered the games I wanted... AT LAUNCH.
If you're wondering what titles prompted me to buy the console at launch: PGR3 and Condemned, with the promise of DOA4 and Oblivion soon after launch.
Exactly... Plain and simple "Revolution" was just too bad-ass for Nintendo (no I'm being serious here). Just look at the N64, originally codenamed the "Ultra 64". Ultra 64 was a way cooler name but Nintendo64 eventually was it.
And in all honesty when I first read it I wasn't sure how it was supposedly pronounced; at first glance I read it as WWII, as in World War Two.
Wii is a lot more approachable name then Revolution, it's not overtly pretentious, it's not hard to say, it doesn't need abbreviation. Heck people hated the Xbox 360's name when it was announced. I'm sure the initial impression will subside and Wii will become as perfectly as acceptable as the names of other consoles.
At the end of the day the name HAS changed my image of the console, the little poem attached to the name's announcement provided insight into the meaning of the name and a vision as to where Nintendo intends to take the console (something I don't get from either MS or Sony). The name itself is iconic in nature and has actual meaning behind it, something you can't say for very many products today... I'll probably buy one, they've already sold me on the Classic gaming angle, and with the obvious strong direction towards bringing people together (read: multiplayer), I can't wait to see what Nintendo does with this thing.
I'm with you... I've got a PS2, GC, Xbox 1 and now an Xbox 360 sitting in my AV rack along with lots of other classic consoles. For me the consoles don't matter one iota, it's about the games you can play on them. I wouldn't have bought the 360 if it didn't have games I wanted to play, and I wont by the Wii or the PS3 until they show me some games that pique my interest. There are consoles I DON'T own but that doesn't mean I HATE them, simply that they didn't offer any games I was interested in. Honestly anyone who "HATES" a console simply because they own a different console is just a moron particularly if they've never even owned or spent any significant amount of time with the console they "hate". I can understand not liking a console based on it's merits, and I can understand preferring one console over another. But saying you HATE Xbox simply because you own a Playstation...
...sorry I just can't wrap my head around that level of zombie-like ignorance.
yes, because hardware never gets cheaper... When the Xbox 1 launched at $299 in '01 it was a steal for what you got, I can pick up a PIII machine today for about the price of a used Xbox1. I suspect they will be able to mach the PS3's (they could care less about the Wii) price points quite easily, especially considering it has far more expensive hardware inside. Considering the PS3 price to manufacture is speculated to be up around $800, Sony would EAT IT if they tried to undercut 360's price point at $400. They'll want to stay at their launch price for as long as they can, all the while MS can stay at their current price point and continue to undercut them.
My favorite is easily the audio isolation... They have some audio clip from a car accident near a train station: "Ok now take out the train noise... now take out car noise..." two clicks and they auto-magically have a crystal clear sound byte of their victim before they dyed... isn't technology grand!
My friends used to do a CSI drinking game with 1 rules. Take a drink whenever they do something impossible or use a tool that doesn't exist in real life. Let me tell you, you'd get drunk right quick.
Worse then that.... is the person will log into the "mainframe" and instantly get a fully detailed 3D model of the building they're in (because every government complex has that on hand), then they'll pull up someone's profile, and it will take a second or two for the picture to fully render (huh, I thought this beast could do real time 3D? it can't render a picture instantly)... then they download all that info to a disc... and it takes an hour...
Don't even get me started on automotive inaccuracies, I honestly threw-up a little the first time I saw the Fast and the Furious.
Re:Nintendo's Wii akin to Chevrolet's Nova?
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They have come a long way since the power glove but there are recentfailures as well.
I own both of the above devices, I have an unhealthy fetish with unique control mechanisms, and seeing what interesting things I can do program wise with their APIs, despite that both of them are crap and share dusty shelf space next to my VFX1 Headset (with puck), Mixman Pro, and the far more useful (at least for solid modeling) 3D space mouse.
Leading up to their announcement of the controller design I was CONVINCED this wouldn't be it because of all the past failures. It's one of those things that looks really good on paper but is just poor in practice, due to inherent flaws like users trying to find their home position, quickly tiring their arms out trying to keep them afloat while using it and very difficult to interpret sensor outputs. Past that gaming that requires lots of movement past the thumbs is usually reserved for occasional play as opposed to the only mode of play. It's nice to hit the arcades on the weekend but for a relaxing game after work most still prefer the minimal movements required by a keyboard and mouse or gamepad.
Honestly if Nintendo pulls this off it will be a stroke of genius, and if anyone can it's them, even still I'm not holding my breath.
Imagine this in a TV, and video conferencing where you can actually see someone eye to eye. You whole family can sit and talk to Grandma on the big TV, and she can talk to you on her big TV. Just like looking through a window
THAT, I can actually see happening as a viable use for the tech. Video conferencing is great, we've got the bandwidth for it now but it's horrible when both people look like they're either cock-eyed or interested in something other then the conversation at hand. I think it would be more beneficial for business then home use though.
With this you can actually LOOK the person in the face. I don't really think mall displays and other tech would really benefit from this all that much, seeing as the same could be done today with a separate camera. (and the processing power to render pants to let you know if they fit is a lot more advanced then a monitor that doubles as a camera.
The Other major use case I can see is as a scanner. If you're working with documents you can pop open Photoshop hold your picture up against your monitor, take it away and your picture is right on the screen in front of you ready for modification. It would be similarly slick if done on a tablet pc.
Another interesting use case would be security. Where the monitor constantly scans the face of the user to verify they have access to the information being displayed on the screen. If it doesn't recognize the face, it blacks out until it sees someone it knows. While this could probably be accomplished with camera tech today, it'd be a lot more secure if it were built right into the monitor where no one could tamper with the camera feed to fool it.
Well they do plan on having an external HD-DVD drive for the 360 by the end of the year. As ugly as that might be, I wouldn't be terribly supprised if the cost of a 360 + HD-DVD drive is less then the cost of a PS3 alone.
Who knows, if PC drives are cheap enough it might be cost effective for people to start buying more Media Center PCs, as they'll do a heck of a lot more then any stand alone player, for about the same price.
Slashdot Mirror
last I checked the average age of gamers were in the high 20s/low 30s... I'd have to imagine the parents who are complaining about this stuff are either getting up there in age or weren't the gaming type when they were younger. I know plenty of people who are parents in their 30s and 40s who play games and think all the hooplah about the ESRB, government regulations, jack Thompson, and GTA are all ridiculous.
I find it's not until you get into the late 40s and beyond that people start thinking games are just for kids etc.
Probably, I'm just wondering if the Backwards compadability feature will be called the Wii-NES...
It depends on the Age of the children, we're allowed to see breasts for the first few months of our lives but then we're not allowed to until we're 18
While I don't agree with the GTA decision or the ES4 decision there is a distinct difference.
In GTA the content WAS ON THE DISC, it might not have been accessible but it was on there. In ES4 the content didn't even exist, some user created it and added it into the game themselves.
Imagine this, you buy a computer with a hidden and locked folder that contains vulgar content... You don't know it exists but someone finds it out and starts telling people how to hack their computers to get at it... THIS is GTA.
Now Imagine you buy a computer with NO hidden or locked content at all. Someone starts a porn site on the internet and starts telling people how to download it to their computers... THIS is ES4
You might as well not sell computers, cameras, or even pens and pencils to minors because they might be inclined, to download, take pictures of, or draw their own nudity.
I think the REAL kicker is the 360 version, not having it's rating upped for nudity but for violence and gore, which according to Bethesda they noted as the highest possible level when submitting the game for review. It just shows the ESRB's incompetence, and THAT is the sort of thing that starts to draw the attention from the political types.
I agree, never really liked the iPod the only thing it's got going for it is it's interface (hey, Apple is just good at UI). Past that I find the over dependence on iTunes a burden more then a blessing, no replaceable battery, and outside of music it doesn't do anything particularly well.
Just because something is trendy or popular doesn't mean it's not LAME. I think teenage girls who carry around small dogs is LAME despite that fact that it is popular and trendy.
Exactly, what's to stop an ID thief from walking down a busy street with an overcoat filled with equipment collecting everyone's tag that he bumps into.
TODAY this would be fine because not many people do this, it's sort of a bleeding edge geek thing. But years from now it's plausible.
For it to work correctly I think any secure transactions would have to be matched with some other element, say a fingerprint. So when you walk around your house the lights and your music follow you from room to room based on the tag with no security, if you want to open the door to your house, or get money from the bank you'll need a finger print to go along with your tag.
Good Question.
I was thinking about this last time I saw one of those articles championing games "of the future" that download on the fly as you play them.
Even now I wonder where my purchased copy of Geometry Wars will go after the Xbox 360 gives up the ghost or if MS ever closes shop on Xbox Live. I can't play any of those games without being connected to the MS servers. I know it probably wont happen to MS but what about down the road. I'm sure we'll see some downloadable only content come around for some system that eventually goes belly-up (phantom anyone?).
How would these games even be preserved?
Also If the National Archives are for the "benefit of the public" how can I get my hands on the archived games as a member of the benefited public? (Seriously though, how does it work for archived books and paper documents?)
There's a difference between gaming online and having an online community.
I think it's more a Venn diagram really, I can play Quake online all day against total strangers and I wouldn't really consider that a community. Then you have places like MySpace that have a community but that doesn't mean that those people want to bring that community interaction into their gaming (or game at all). Then of course there are places where they co-exist like EQ and WOW.
I think the point most miss is that An online community does not mean All online communities, and an online community does not fit for all online activities.
That's very true, But the console wont always be that expensive, Most consoles are too expensive for that type of person for the first year or two of it's life. But with those games there NOW it makes it easier to adopt into a household with a variety of different types of gamers.
...thats true
I agree I do the same thing... I almost NEVER buy immediately like that.
I think a good measure of if the clicks were real or fraudulent is if the clicker hung around the page for any length of time, visited other areas etc. A fake click would simply load the linked page and exit immediately.
If someone browses around your page for 5 minutes after following a google link and still doesn't buy... it's probably NOT Google's fault.
I think the point is, even with the "surprisingly complex and mature story" Why wouldn't someone just go play a game with a complex and mature story AND good game play... say Oblivion? Even still without compelling gameplay it's just a movie with mindless interaction, so why not cut out the mindless interaction and watch through an anime series or something?
Honestly I'm of the opinion that anyone who bashes the lack of variety in the 360's current line up probably hasn't been paying attention. It seriously has quality titles in nearly every category. It's certainly more diverse then the line up that was available for most other consoles a few months after their launch.
And what would you consider to be a "casual gamer title"? Because by my definition there are plenty of those as well. I personally don't even like shooters, and I loathe the Halo series. Even still I own both an Xbox 1 and an Xbox 360 because they offer a strong showing of other games that I like to play. I wouldn't have bought a 360 if it didn't have the games I wanted to play, I didn't buy an Xbox 1 or a PS2 until they did, and I wont buy a PS3 or a Wii until they did.
As someone who owns almost every console made in the last 15 years, I can honestly say that the Xbox 360 is the only console I've ever purchased at launch, and ONLY because it offered the games I wanted... AT LAUNCH.
If you're wondering what titles prompted me to buy the console at launch: PGR3 and Condemned, with the promise of DOA4 and Oblivion soon after launch.
If you're only counting console exclusive:
Amped, Bankshot Billiards, Bejeweled, Blazing Angles, Burnout, Condemned, Crystal Quest, DOA4, Fight Night, Feeding Frenzy, FF11, Gauntlet, Geometry Wars, Hardwood Backgammon, Hardwood Hearts, Hardwood Spades, Hexic, Jewel Quest, Joust, Kameo, Tomb Raider, Madden, MLB 2k6, Marble Blast Ultra, Need for Speed, Outpost Kaloki, PGR3, Ridge Racer, Oblivion, Tiger Woods, Tony Hawk, Top Spin 2, Wik, Zuma.
After which several members of the opposite sex try to nab you to see if the rumors are true...
Exactly... Plain and simple "Revolution" was just too bad-ass for Nintendo (no I'm being serious here). Just look at the N64, originally codenamed the "Ultra 64". Ultra 64 was a way cooler name but Nintendo64 eventually was it.
And in all honesty when I first read it I wasn't sure how it was supposedly pronounced; at first glance I read it as WWII, as in World War Two.
Wii is a lot more approachable name then Revolution, it's not overtly pretentious, it's not hard to say, it doesn't need abbreviation. Heck people hated the Xbox 360's name when it was announced. I'm sure the initial impression will subside and Wii will become as perfectly as acceptable as the names of other consoles.
At the end of the day the name HAS changed my image of the console, the little poem attached to the name's announcement provided insight into the meaning of the name and a vision as to where Nintendo intends to take the console (something I don't get from either MS or Sony). The name itself is iconic in nature and has actual meaning behind it, something you can't say for very many products today... I'll probably buy one, they've already sold me on the Classic gaming angle, and with the obvious strong direction towards bringing people together (read: multiplayer), I can't wait to see what Nintendo does with this thing.
Things work backwards when prefixed with "corporate"
I'm with you... I've got a PS2, GC, Xbox 1 and now an Xbox 360 sitting in my AV rack along with lots of other classic consoles. For me the consoles don't matter one iota, it's about the games you can play on them. I wouldn't have bought the 360 if it didn't have games I wanted to play, and I wont by the Wii or the PS3 until they show me some games that pique my interest. There are consoles I DON'T own but that doesn't mean I HATE them, simply that they didn't offer any games I was interested in. Honestly anyone who "HATES" a console simply because they own a different console is just a moron particularly if they've never even owned or spent any significant amount of time with the console they "hate". I can understand not liking a console based on it's merits, and I can understand preferring one console over another. But saying you HATE Xbox simply because you own a Playstation...
...sorry I just can't wrap my head around that level of zombie-like ignorance.
yes, because hardware never gets cheaper... When the Xbox 1 launched at $299 in '01 it was a steal for what you got, I can pick up a PIII machine today for about the price of a used Xbox1. I suspect they will be able to mach the PS3's (they could care less about the Wii) price points quite easily, especially considering it has far more expensive hardware inside. Considering the PS3 price to manufacture is speculated to be up around $800, Sony would EAT IT if they tried to undercut 360's price point at $400. They'll want to stay at their launch price for as long as they can, all the while MS can stay at their current price point and continue to undercut them.
My favorite is easily the audio isolation... They have some audio clip from a car accident near a train station: "Ok now take out the train noise... now take out car noise..." two clicks and they auto-magically have a crystal clear sound byte of their victim before they dyed... isn't technology grand!
My friends used to do a CSI drinking game with 1 rules. Take a drink whenever they do something impossible or use a tool that doesn't exist in real life. Let me tell you, you'd get drunk right quick.
Worse then that.... is the person will log into the "mainframe" and instantly get a fully detailed 3D model of the building they're in (because every government complex has that on hand), then they'll pull up someone's profile, and it will take a second or two for the picture to fully render (huh, I thought this beast could do real time 3D? it can't render a picture instantly)... then they download all that info to a disc... and it takes an hour...
Don't even get me started on automotive inaccuracies, I honestly threw-up a little the first time I saw the Fast and the Furious.
They have come a long way since the power glove but there are recent failures as well.
I own both of the above devices, I have an unhealthy fetish with unique control mechanisms, and seeing what interesting things I can do program wise with their APIs, despite that both of them are crap and share dusty shelf space next to my VFX1 Headset (with puck), Mixman Pro, and the far more useful (at least for solid modeling) 3D space mouse.
Leading up to their announcement of the controller design I was CONVINCED this wouldn't be it because of all the past failures. It's one of those things that looks really good on paper but is just poor in practice, due to inherent flaws like users trying to find their home position, quickly tiring their arms out trying to keep them afloat while using it and very difficult to interpret sensor outputs. Past that gaming that requires lots of movement past the thumbs is usually reserved for occasional play as opposed to the only mode of play. It's nice to hit the arcades on the weekend but for a relaxing game after work most still prefer the minimal movements required by a keyboard and mouse or gamepad.
Honestly if Nintendo pulls this off it will be a stroke of genius, and if anyone can it's them, even still I'm not holding my breath.
With this you can actually LOOK the person in the face. I don't really think mall displays and other tech would really benefit from this all that much, seeing as the same could be done today with a separate camera. (and the processing power to render pants to let you know if they fit is a lot more advanced then a monitor that doubles as a camera.
The Other major use case I can see is as a scanner. If you're working with documents you can pop open Photoshop hold your picture up against your monitor, take it away and your picture is right on the screen in front of you ready for modification. It would be similarly slick if done on a tablet pc.
Another interesting use case would be security. Where the monitor constantly scans the face of the user to verify they have access to the information being displayed on the screen. If it doesn't recognize the face, it blacks out until it sees someone it knows. While this could probably be accomplished with camera tech today, it'd be a lot more secure if it were built right into the monitor where no one could tamper with the camera feed to fool it.
Well they do plan on having an external HD-DVD drive for the 360 by the end of the year. As ugly as that might be, I wouldn't be terribly supprised if the cost of a 360 + HD-DVD drive is less then the cost of a PS3 alone.
Who knows, if PC drives are cheap enough it might be cost effective for people to start buying more Media Center PCs, as they'll do a heck of a lot more then any stand alone player, for about the same price.
And less then a week after it's release someone will create a keygen to unlock the whole damn thing...