First of all, I'm willing to bet there are very few "Vista-capable" computers among the "middle class" there in the first place. Second, Windows Vista is expensive as heck for someone over there -- it'd be like buying a car I reckon. Third, pirated copies are available for $1. That's one dollar!
What kind of IDIOT would you have to be to pay for a "genuine" Vista in China when you can buy a "non-genuine" one for a dollar?!
Marketing it in China was a huge waste of money. But whatever, Microsoft has money to burn.
Ah, that may be. I haven't seen the latest pirated stuff and I pay zero attention to most installs haha... but in any case I don't see folks getting too *bothered* by Adobe over pirated products. Perhaps the luxury of a monopoly kept them only mildly interested in the whole affair... I am curious to see if their policies become more anti-piracy now.
I've been using Photoshop since 1997, and I'm glad there's a possibility that a new graphics tool will push Adobe to improve their product further rather than just add marginally useful functionality every couple of years. Competition can be a good thing.
It will take an awful lot to get designers to leave Adobe in favor of Microsoft. Hardly any will, as they don't personally have to pay for it and if they can state a business case to their employers to keep paying for Adobe (which will be easy) then the price difference won't matter.
Though, if I'm wrong, all it means is Adobe might lower their prices a bit.:-)
Plus, and this is a different topic, Adobe doesn't get on kids' cases about having pirated copies of their software, since it's only affordable by industry (who pays for it) anyway. I expect Microsoft to go the other route, as they have with Windows (and all of their software). Which is in my opinion a mistake.
I guess it's only fair to mod me as "flamebait" considering how much I got flamed by folks confusing "needless censorship" with "prudent censorship." Oh yeah, there's no such thing as the latter to uneducated idealists.
Feel free to mod this flamebait, cause I suppose it is. Not that it warrants a reply.
Do you seriously think that "countering racist propaganda" (wait why racist? o.O) "with reasoned debate and counter-evidence" is the alternative? That if those DVDs aren't taken out of circulation they're going to alternately inspire reasoned debate? What planet's history are YOU basing your logic on?
Terrorist ideology is ALREADY spreading underground unchallenged and unopposed. It's not like they will stop doing that if we let them circulate DVDs all over the place.
Reducing how much exposure such DVDs get may reduce how many are produced, which is hard to argue as a bad thing. On the other hand, giving them the kind of exposure that, say, Slashdotting something does, kinda nullifies that view in the short run ~_^
I'm sure everyone will feel much safer once you have a gun strapped to your belt 24/7.
There ARE places for people like you -- the armed forces. I would think highly of you if you were to join one. No student is doing anyone a favor walking around with a handgun on a university campus.
I don't know, but I can tell you for sure what one student armed with a firearm DID -- kill 31 people.
The more guns there are in the public the more guns will be fired.
Well, you said that Madden is one of the best-selling 3rd party titles because "it breaks new ground" but maybe you put a typo there and accidentally typed "Madden" instead of some other Wii title? Because Madden NFL games are some of the best-selling 3rd party titles, period (if not *the* best) across ALL consoles. And that includes PS and Xbox. By the way, more copies of Madden sold on PS and Xbox than on Cube. I imagine this would also be true of 360 vs Wii?
Well it looks like they're accomplishing this using basic pattern recognition. You shouldn't be able to patent something they teach every Comp Sci MPhil in Cambridge.
I've concluded that his site is probably biased -- that is, he has a specific mindset already when looking at climate data, etc. However, I do find the numbers he's working with somewhat convincing (assuming they're correct, and even RealClimate hasn't gone so far as to say they're not (RealClimate does however criticize his "conclusions," some of which I agree are quite unscientific)). I try to determine my own conclusions from all of the data I can gather, and after seeing how the IPCC and its critics all arrived at their final numbers, I don't find the IPCC's (and RealClimate's) arguments any more convincing than those of [some of] the opposition.
It does seem to me that dwelling on reducing CO2 emissions is causing a lot of money and resources to be spent with little gain... It seems there is no argument for a reduction in CO2 emissions stopping the current warming trend according to how it functions in the greenhouse effect.
Though, there are plenty of OTHER, GREAT reasons for alternate fuel, reduction in pollution, etc. Global warming seems to be the current "hip" thing to publicize in order to fight polluting industry, but really those industries do plenty of things besides warm our planet (by the way is this a bad thing for our species in the long run? though that's a whole other topic altogether, and is irrelevant of WHY there's warming and HOW much there will be in the future) that make it less hospitable.
I'm aware of the corresponding probabilities; indeed they are mentioned in the footnotes of the IPCC report ^_^ however, there is still something to be said for mentioning 55% (or some more precise range) rather than saying "more likely than not" in the body of the paper, as using vague language like this in place of exact numbers tends to only arouse suspicion in skeptics and add undue subjectivity (readers and listeners each have their own conception of what it means for something to be "very likely," for instance).
For some reason I got modded troll in my earlier comment... wasn't meaning to bother anyone. People that criticize MS and such don't get modded troll; must be someone who really hates the global warming debate trolling ME:-(
I've done way too much reading on the topic, going so far as to look at the actual mathematics and stats behind it, and in conclusion am no longer as alarmed as I used to be. The average warming that we've experienced over the time period that the IPCC uses in its findings is rather inconsistent with the extrapolation (i.e. predictions) that they make as far as future warming is concerned. People can scream "conspiracy" or "personal agenda" all the want, but I'm not sure if it isn't just lazy science that arrives at what they're hoping to find. Let me find a link to something detailed... it may help... (sadly I find lots of bias in the *wording* of EVERY SINGLE PAPER on the topic, certainly including the IPCC reports that are in the habit of replacing probabilities with terms like "more likely than not" and "very likely" which serve to only make a statistician suspicious): ahref=http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/rel=ur l2html-24023http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/ > (my issue with the essay I'm linking to is that even if it's an unbiased look at the topic, it certainly doesn't seem like it. Still, I have looked at the IPCC reports themselves and find them missing the sort of information that could be used to defend those reports against criticisms brought forth by the essay...)
That's a great point and I agree, but I wanted some sort of excuse to say what I wanted to say in that regard, because it's still true:-P
Anyway, it's still consistent with something I tend to see on Nintendo platforms more than on others. Games being slightly re-tooled and released for a stab at easy profit. I'm sure it brings a good return on investment, but I feel Nintendo needs to cut down on it a bit (I don't see Mario Party ## being any less deserving of ridicule than EA's annual sports titles in this regard). Re-releasing a game on a system that can already play the original disk isn't exactly a step in the right direction, and I'm sure Nintendo had a say in it. Though, of course I'd have been far more surprised if they said 'no' because that would indeed have made no sense... meh this is ranty and probably self-contradictory I suppose in honesty I'd just have liked something *new* rather than RE4... after all, I've been waiting for RE5 on my 360 ^_^
For all of its innovation, Nintendo is ironically the biggest culprit when it comes to making tons of money off the same content as many times as it can (Team Ninja of DOA/NG fame being a close second in that respect)...
That having been said, I don't mind point-and-shoot controls for RE... that's great to hear. Though, since the Wii is backwards-compatible with Cube games, I don't really see this as all that exciting nor worth $30. I suppose this is similar to what Team Ninja did with Ninja Gaiden Black, hahaha (which I bought cause I'm a NG whore...).
When I get a Wii I'll probably pick up RE4 for it as well because that game rules. Except for the terrible mobility. It would have made more sense to me if Leon had a peg leg. Actually that would've been totaly awesome. They should've made him a peg legged pirate. Nothing about the controls or pacing would've needed to change, and it would've felt more natural, too.
Is there some sort of big warning popup in WoW for players as they start the game up? (prior to entering a username/password)? I know that Guild Wars has special "news items" alongside the login form that you can read without having to actually log into your account. It would be cool if Blizzard (heck, and ArenaNet) had a giant warning that came up for the next few days informing people of this issue and of the upcoming fix from MS (or am I confusing my vulnerabilities/fixes here?...). That might help folks out perhaps.
You haven't thought about that answer then... there's a wedding, a funeral, some random battle strategy discussion, and a number of other things that you simply don't want to bore a player with having to "play through." Being an attendee at a wedding, or playing the part of the prince in it, or whatever, is at best not worth the time it takes compared to seeing a 15-second clip of its high point. I didn't pick that cinematic randomly... there *are* ones out there you can replace with fun, immersive gameplay. This is definitely not one of them, and I think demonstrates how directing, music, and cinematography can tell a story just as well as an interactive game does (better actually, as I've yet to see a game that is as emotionally involving as some films out there).
Yeah, you're totally right about them not listening to alphas in terms of big design changes. Overall as an alpha I felt underappreciated:-)
I agree of course that GW is open-ended in terms of gameplay, and I better understand now what you meant by your first reply. I just wish the actual *plot progression* was less linear. That's where good writing comes in -- something that GW, for all its strengths, utterly lacks.
Elder Scrolls games are the standard by which I judge all other RPGs, and which all other RPGs for now have paled in comparison to. I'm looking forward to seeing what Mass Effect will bring to the table.
If you play GW you should look me up sometime -- IGN is Sciros Darkblade. You may have heard of me!:-P
The paragraph appears to imply that the interactive portions of video games are some sort of objective evolution from non-interactive film. Why would games need to wholly abandon the latter if we still enjoy the occasional trip to the movies or watching a DVD at home? Video games don't need to constantly engage your thumbs to be wholly immersive or compelling, and to abandon cutscenes on the basis of some arbitrary need to always be "in control" ignores the fact that these scenes can serve to communicate something that interactivity will not. A cut to the villain plotting your demise many miles away, a flashback to a prosperous city you now see before you in ruins -- these are scenes that you need to know, but you will lose nothing by not being "in control" of those scenes. Some games don't need cutscenes and do well without them, but others need them badly. Where would FFXII be without its FMVs and plot-progressing cutscenes? Can you really replace that game's opening movie with equally compelling gameplay that tells the same story?
I also think Gamestop's idea about Nintendo trying to purposefully withhold units is probably wrong... there's some logic there but it's weak given that a lot of people WANT TO BUY ONE right now and it won't really hurt Nintendo any to sell a console now rather than next week...
Slashdot Mirror
First of all, I'm willing to bet there are very few "Vista-capable" computers among the "middle class" there in the first place. Second, Windows Vista is expensive as heck for someone over there -- it'd be like buying a car I reckon. Third, pirated copies are available for $1. That's one dollar!
What kind of IDIOT would you have to be to pay for a "genuine" Vista in China when you can buy a "non-genuine" one for a dollar?!
Marketing it in China was a huge waste of money. But whatever, Microsoft has money to burn.
I expect to see your comment on "seen on slash" :)
Ah, that may be. I haven't seen the latest pirated stuff and I pay zero attention to most installs haha... but in any case I don't see folks getting too *bothered* by Adobe over pirated products. Perhaps the luxury of a monopoly kept them only mildly interested in the whole affair... I am curious to see if their policies become more anti-piracy now.
I've been using Photoshop since 1997, and I'm glad there's a possibility that a new graphics tool will push Adobe to improve their product further rather than just add marginally useful functionality every couple of years. Competition can be a good thing.
:-)
It will take an awful lot to get designers to leave Adobe in favor of Microsoft. Hardly any will, as they don't personally have to pay for it and if they can state a business case to their employers to keep paying for Adobe (which will be easy) then the price difference won't matter.
Though, if I'm wrong, all it means is Adobe might lower their prices a bit.
Plus, and this is a different topic, Adobe doesn't get on kids' cases about having pirated copies of their software, since it's only affordable by industry (who pays for it) anyway. I expect Microsoft to go the other route, as they have with Windows (and all of their software). Which is in my opinion a mistake.
I guess it's only fair to mod me as "flamebait" considering how much I got flamed by folks confusing "needless censorship" with "prudent censorship." Oh yeah, there's no such thing as the latter to uneducated idealists. Feel free to mod this flamebait, cause I suppose it is. Not that it warrants a reply.
Do you seriously think that "countering racist propaganda" (wait why racist? o.O) "with reasoned debate and counter-evidence" is the alternative? That if those DVDs aren't taken out of circulation they're going to alternately inspire reasoned debate? What planet's history are YOU basing your logic on?
Terrorist ideology is ALREADY spreading underground unchallenged and unopposed. It's not like they will stop doing that if we let them circulate DVDs all over the place.
Reducing how much exposure such DVDs get may reduce how many are produced, which is hard to argue as a bad thing. On the other hand, giving them the kind of exposure that, say, Slashdotting something does, kinda nullifies that view in the short run ~_^
I'm sure everyone will feel much safer once you have a gun strapped to your belt 24/7.
There ARE places for people like you -- the armed forces. I would think highly of you if you were to join one. No student is doing anyone a favor walking around with a handgun on a university campus.
I don't know, but I can tell you for sure what one student armed with a firearm DID -- kill 31 people. The more guns there are in the public the more guns will be fired.
Well, you said that Madden is one of the best-selling 3rd party titles because "it breaks new ground" but maybe you put a typo there and accidentally typed "Madden" instead of some other Wii title? Because Madden NFL games are some of the best-selling 3rd party titles, period (if not *the* best) across ALL consoles. And that includes PS and Xbox. By the way, more copies of Madden sold on PS and Xbox than on Cube. I imagine this would also be true of 360 vs Wii?
Well it looks like they're accomplishing this using basic pattern recognition. You shouldn't be able to patent something they teach every Comp Sci MPhil in Cambridge.
Ahem,
if we were all just reduce our individual green house gas emissions by being big f-ing hippies, then there would not be any global warming.
OMG I just got dumber writing that, and it was a joke...
More like a 1-degree change over a century.
Supposing a defect in this post-releast-modifiable hardware makes it impossible to connect to the internet? Good luck downloading a fix! :-P
This could make hardware manufacturers cut QA costs at our expense. Yay!
I've concluded that his site is probably biased -- that is, he has a specific mindset already when looking at climate data, etc. However, I do find the numbers he's working with somewhat convincing (assuming they're correct, and even RealClimate hasn't gone so far as to say they're not (RealClimate does however criticize his "conclusions," some of which I agree are quite unscientific)). I try to determine my own conclusions from all of the data I can gather, and after seeing how the IPCC and its critics all arrived at their final numbers, I don't find the IPCC's (and RealClimate's) arguments any more convincing than those of [some of] the opposition.
It does seem to me that dwelling on reducing CO2 emissions is causing a lot of money and resources to be spent with little gain... It seems there is no argument for a reduction in CO2 emissions stopping the current warming trend according to how it functions in the greenhouse effect.
Though, there are plenty of OTHER, GREAT reasons for alternate fuel, reduction in pollution, etc. Global warming seems to be the current "hip" thing to publicize in order to fight polluting industry, but really those industries do plenty of things besides warm our planet (by the way is this a bad thing for our species in the long run? though that's a whole other topic altogether, and is irrelevant of WHY there's warming and HOW much there will be in the future) that make it less hospitable.
I'm aware of the corresponding probabilities; indeed they are mentioned in the footnotes of the IPCC report ^_^ however, there is still something to be said for mentioning 55% (or some more precise range) rather than saying "more likely than not" in the body of the paper, as using vague language like this in place of exact numbers tends to only arouse suspicion in skeptics and add undue subjectivity (readers and listeners each have their own conception of what it means for something to be "very likely," for instance).
:-(
For some reason I got modded troll in my earlier comment... wasn't meaning to bother anyone. People that criticize MS and such don't get modded troll; must be someone who really hates the global warming debate trolling ME
I've done way too much reading on the topic, going so far as to look at the actual mathematics and stats behind it, and in conclusion am no longer as alarmed as I used to be. The average warming that we've experienced over the time period that the IPCC uses in its findings is rather inconsistent with the extrapolation (i.e. predictions) that they make as far as future warming is concerned. People can scream "conspiracy" or "personal agenda" all the want, but I'm not sure if it isn't just lazy science that arrives at what they're hoping to find. Let me find a link to something detailed... it may help... (sadly I find lots of bias in the *wording* of EVERY SINGLE PAPER on the topic, certainly including the IPCC reports that are in the habit of replacing probabilities with terms like "more likely than not" and "very likely" which serve to only make a statistician suspicious): ahref=http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/rel=ur l2html-24023http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/ > (my issue with the essay I'm linking to is that even if it's an unbiased look at the topic, it certainly doesn't seem like it. Still, I have looked at the IPCC reports themselves and find them missing the sort of information that could be used to defend those reports against criticisms brought forth by the essay...)
That's a great point and I agree, but I wanted some sort of excuse to say what I wanted to say in that regard, because it's still true :-P
Anyway, it's still consistent with something I tend to see on Nintendo platforms more than on others. Games being slightly re-tooled and released for a stab at easy profit. I'm sure it brings a good return on investment, but I feel Nintendo needs to cut down on it a bit (I don't see Mario Party ## being any less deserving of ridicule than EA's annual sports titles in this regard). Re-releasing a game on a system that can already play the original disk isn't exactly a step in the right direction, and I'm sure Nintendo had a say in it. Though, of course I'd have been far more surprised if they said 'no' because that would indeed have made no sense... meh this is ranty and probably self-contradictory I suppose in honesty I'd just have liked something *new* rather than RE4... after all, I've been waiting for RE5 on my 360 ^_^
For all of its innovation, Nintendo is ironically the biggest culprit when it comes to making tons of money off the same content as many times as it can (Team Ninja of DOA/NG fame being a close second in that respect)...
That having been said, I don't mind point-and-shoot controls for RE... that's great to hear. Though, since the Wii is backwards-compatible with Cube games, I don't really see this as all that exciting nor worth $30. I suppose this is similar to what Team Ninja did with Ninja Gaiden Black, hahaha (which I bought cause I'm a NG whore...).
When I get a Wii I'll probably pick up RE4 for it as well because that game rules. Except for the terrible mobility. It would have made more sense to me if Leon had a peg leg. Actually that would've been totaly awesome. They should've made him a peg legged pirate. Nothing about the controls or pacing would've needed to change, and it would've felt more natural, too.
Is there some sort of big warning popup in WoW for players as they start the game up? (prior to entering a username/password)? I know that Guild Wars has special "news items" alongside the login form that you can read without having to actually log into your account. It would be cool if Blizzard (heck, and ArenaNet) had a giant warning that came up for the next few days informing people of this issue and of the upcoming fix from MS (or am I confusing my vulnerabilities/fixes here?...). That might help folks out perhaps.
You haven't thought about that answer then... there's a wedding, a funeral, some random battle strategy discussion, and a number of other things that you simply don't want to bore a player with having to "play through." Being an attendee at a wedding, or playing the part of the prince in it, or whatever, is at best not worth the time it takes compared to seeing a 15-second clip of its high point. I didn't pick that cinematic randomly... there *are* ones out there you can replace with fun, immersive gameplay. This is definitely not one of them, and I think demonstrates how directing, music, and cinematography can tell a story just as well as an interactive game does (better actually, as I've yet to see a game that is as emotionally involving as some films out there).
LOL @ penis joke in comic. That never gets old!
Yeah, you're totally right about them not listening to alphas in terms of big design changes. Overall as an alpha I felt underappreciated :-)
:-P
I agree of course that GW is open-ended in terms of gameplay, and I better understand now what you meant by your first reply. I just wish the actual *plot progression* was less linear. That's where good writing comes in -- something that GW, for all its strengths, utterly lacks.
Elder Scrolls games are the standard by which I judge all other RPGs, and which all other RPGs for now have paled in comparison to. I'm looking forward to seeing what Mass Effect will bring to the table.
If you play GW you should look me up sometime -- IGN is Sciros Darkblade. You may have heard of me!
The paragraph appears to imply that the interactive portions of video games are some sort of objective evolution from non-interactive film. Why would games need to wholly abandon the latter if we still enjoy the occasional trip to the movies or watching a DVD at home? Video games don't need to constantly engage your thumbs to be wholly immersive or compelling, and to abandon cutscenes on the basis of some arbitrary need to always be "in control" ignores the fact that these scenes can serve to communicate something that interactivity will not. A cut to the villain plotting your demise many miles away, a flashback to a prosperous city you now see before you in ruins -- these are scenes that you need to know, but you will lose nothing by not being "in control" of those scenes. Some games don't need cutscenes and do well without them, but others need them badly. Where would FFXII be without its FMVs and plot-progressing cutscenes? Can you really replace that game's opening movie with equally compelling gameplay that tells the same story?
Hehehe that one never gets old.
I also think Gamestop's idea about Nintendo trying to purposefully withhold units is probably wrong... there's some logic there but it's weak given that a lot of people WANT TO BUY ONE right now and it won't really hurt Nintendo any to sell a console now rather than next week...