"There are hooks in the PSP story that I actually wrote from one of my first stories for God of War 2."
Is it just me or is it unfortunate that they're already referring to the PSP story as second rate, since they wrote it for #2 but instead opted for something else? I guess that assumes that they would opt for the best possible storyline for the last flag-carrying game on the PS2.
Not to poo all over the series. It took a Greatest Hits edition of God of War to get me to try it. As long as the same direction and spirit of the gameplay doesn't fizzle out, the story could just be anything they throw together.
Thankfully Greek mythology has enough starting-line inspiration for decades worth of those games.
What would happen if we found ourselves with some FPS Deathmatch type games where you're running around killing characters that look exactly like real people?
I can see the headlines now:
Boy murders schoolmate after practicing it in game
The audit blames agent error and shoddy record-keeping for the bulk of the problems and did not find any indication of criminal misconduct
So, the audit showed they abused the Patriot Act in a way that impacts the citizenry... how, exactly?
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure there have been, are, and will be abuses: such is human nature. But will an audit REALLY (I mean, REALLY) catch it? I think not. If you're going to rely on audits by the government on the government to catch government abuse resulting in any punishment than someone rubbing their fingers together with "shame-shame" language, you really ought to rethink it.
If you were waiting until seeing an article like this to know that the Patriot Act is ripe for abuses and cause for alarm, I guess that's a positive thing. But your feelers should have been out about this sort of thing for a while now.
...so we are expected to believe (by this wording) that they WILL keep the information relating to illegal installations, but not use it to identify the person using it. Why does that sound like a lie?
Of course THEY won't use the information to identify the person using it, just use the information to identify the computer. The generated signatures could argue that a computer could not have sent that data to Microsoft unless it ran whatever version of Windows.
The suspicious tone in this is because data they store in the packet doesn't relate to you, the activity of getting that data revealed your IP address which they could, like the RIAA, match YOU to the IP address. No, the data the installation called back home with won't identify you, the data about that transfer of that data will identify you. Then all they gotta prove is that you physically possessed the computer and did not possess a license to run Windows.
As I've said to people I'm setting up machines for: If you're going to resign yourself to using Windows, you should pay for it.
I think that, given the fact that this is a developers' conference, they were more interested in showing new technologies, platforms, and tools, as opposed to actual games. Content at a developers' conference is usually geared more toward the developers, and not the consumer.
If I were a developer, I'd be worried about where the games are since, while those new technologies are neat and all, my company wouldn't be able to use them if I'm not convinced of a solid userbase and console saturation. No killer games to help move PS3's off the shelf = I'm not going to be so interested in building on PS3 technology. No matter how neat it is: it just doesn't make sense from a business perspective.
Because, all cynicism aside, at the end of the day it's the US's job to protect the US. And a global catastrophie would definitely run counter to that credo. No other space agency is stepping up to the plate. Some people are going to get a free ride, but that's the way it is when you lead.
Not to say that United States of America is a leader, but a leader would definitely take on the challenge, or at least a nation that wants to bill itself as a "world leader".
Well, I'm sure many people would have liked to pay $11 more for a Ford Pinto that didn't pose as big a risk of a fiery death, but hey, apparently, you can't please everyone.
Wow, I'm going to pretend you didn't just compare not being able to play an old version of Madden on your new PS3 to people burning to death in a firey inferno. Instead, I'll pretend your post is about a Genesis that you could buy an adaptor for that would let it play Master System games.
Actually, that's a big problem for schools and charities. People donate obsolete equipment that either simply cannot be upgraded or would be prohibitively expensive to upgrade.
"Imagine a Beowulf cluster" aside, then they get stuck with the costs of having to recycle them. Your average joe might be able to get away with just chucking them in a dumpster, but higher profile institutions have to do things by the book.
If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, there's an opinion piece over at Next-Gen that completely agrees with Harrison's statement.
Of course they would agree. It's called "Next-Gen" after all, why bother looking back on the past?
The lesson that the big console makers are going to learn, if they haven't noticed it yet, is that backwards compatibility doesn't really help them (as a business) in the long run. BC represents older titles that will run on a new machine, but it also promotes the sale of used games which nets them nothing as far as income. If you had $60 in your pocket and could pick up 3 or 4 really solid older games used versus one new game that hasn't exactly been tested against the trials of time, what would you pick? I know what I would, and have. I remember picking up more PS1 games after I got my PS2 than when I had the old gray soldier.
BC also represents games that you might be able to get on the cheap on the used market instead of a half-hearted port or remake later on. Plus, with downloadable vintage games that could net the co's extra cash, why should they help you play older games that they might be able to charge for upwards of $10 on the sly?
In fact, other than Microsoft and Nintendo playing "me too" against the PS2's backward compatibility, I was really surprised the PS3 would have any BC at all. Especially when a well known expoit for the PS2 exists specificly through the mechanism by which PS1 games are checked against a memory card can let you run arbitrary code. Although, when the price tags were announced, I remember thinking "at that price, it better play PS2 and PS1 games. And do my taxes, while we're at it."
What happens for instance if tomorrow all of us wonderful Slashdot readers co-developed a magical format that not only was open and cross platform but inexplicably worked with all currently available office suites without modification......but it wasn't XML
Easy. That law would be amended to this new wonderful format... in 2017.
I'd say Nintendo's marketing directed to non-gamers for the system is a brilliant move, and the motion sensing is innovative enough to get conventional gamers interested.
That said, my nephew isn't interested in one. Which is good since that's at least one person who won't potentially get their hands on it from the shelf before I do.;)
My forum comparison is probably a stinker in retrospect, but will you deny that one can learn a lot about you from the way you spend your free time? Not to say that downtime web surfing should be the say-all-end-all, just to judge intangible characteristics of a person.
Ever gone to someone's house only to see a bunch of braindead gossip magazines on the coffee table? If they are your friend obviously it's not going to be a dealbreaker, but still gives you fuel for the type of person they are. What if you saw a bunch of engineering journals? Girlie mags?
I think this point is often unfairly ignored: the existance of DRM is a fantastic chance for new distribution to reveal new bands. Unfortunately this music is difficult to find because there is simply [too] much of it.
And therein we have the function of big record companies. In an age where duplication is almost trivial, it's the last function they do. They have scouts and management and all that so they could find gems.
I find is absurd that the industry hasn't made a push like that. "Gems" to them has been what sells, but maybe "gems" could grow to things that are just legitimately good music. I can see the potential slogan now: "We sit through garbage so you don't have to."
You hear about producers and artists using fame and fortune to make their own record labels to promote the types of music they like. It's not too far-fetched that good stuff that gets filtered out by one company would get picked up by another.
Of course, if the big labels in the RIAA had their way, they'd snuff out unsigned bands and their commie-free-distribution tactics so that every person in the world pulls exclusively from them. I mean, sheesh, Clearchannel has succeeded in making radio sound pretty much the same everywhere in the US.
As much as I'd hate to carry a banner in this direction, I think leaving the doors open and clandestinely monitoring your employees' habits is far more illuminating on the quality of people you hire than just blocking it off.
If I were in charge of that sort of thing, one who spends more downtime in the office on myspace versus, say, wikipedia is someone I might be less inclined to give a project with challenges and forces one to learn and aquire skills. Likewise, I would be suspicious of giving high sensitivity projects to employees to frequent lots of forum sites, as they might be more inclined to share things.
Don't judge a book by its cover, judge a book by the qualities of books that are around it.
I have a nephew that's 10 years old. Last time I saw him he was a toddler. His family flies into town and I ask if he likes video games and he says yes and figure a bonding moment is afoot.
At the time I was playing Megaman X 8. He thought it was kind of neat, but declined to play it. He pretty much declined to play anything in my library. I said a few things about the titles I had and what makes soandso a playable and good game, and the answer I got back was:
"It doesn't look real enough."
The industry has been favoring these amazingly realistic graphics and sound and marching upwards faster and faster with budgets but not taken such a big priority with gameplay. Ultimately it comes down to a lot of developers not caring much about it. You can't quantify gameplay in a screenshot or a one-liner on the back of a box. When video games started to be "cool" (let's be honest with ourselves: the cool kids weren't playing NES) was when graphics were starting to look "pretty good". The industry focus on eye candy has resulted in them painting themselves into a corner.
Literally. The diffused-reflection bump-mapped floor looks really really great. Too bad it's not any more fun to run across it.
If the DVD playing abilities of the PS2 are any indication, that PS3-priced BluRay player is going to be a much better experience than the PS3 provides.
We need a system that protects and promotes innovation.
That's pretty interesting. Protection and promotion was the idea behind patents in the first place. Protecting innovation from getting swept up into wars of attrition against big entities with deep pockets that will see you go under while stealing your ideas, while promoting innovation by financial gains on that innovation afforded by the protection.
Until leading software geniuses get fame akin to talentless superficial bulimics in celebritydom, I'd think that financial benefits provided by patents are the only way to promote innovation.
At the risk of sounding like the geezer I am - you kids today are fucking lazy!
I was going to read your post, but it was too long.;)
All kidding aside, is there really something wrong with convenience? I remember being told things when I was a kid like "I had to walk 10 miles to school. In the snow. Uphill. Both ways." and my answer was usually along the lines of "Well, if you had let me get a car I would have driven you."
After which I would usually get a pop to the mouth and not had dinner that evening.
Toys R Us does that every so often, just not with software only. I remember they used to get exclusive versions of Nintendo hardware. There was an exclusive N64 package that included Pokemon Stadium as I recall. More recently (and more fresh in my memory) they had an exclusive color of the GameBoy Advance, before the SP came out.
How'd it work out for them? These exclusives are few and far between so seems like not so well.
Unless the games are actually published by Gamestop/EB or a subsidiary, the only way they could have gotten an exclusive deal is if they pledged to buy a whole lot more games than the publisher would have expected to sell from normal distribution channels. Which suggests the game won't sell very well. Which ALSO suggests that quirky games don't sell well. Whether or not that's true I won't contest but that's an unfortunate suggestion because anything that isn't the same old same old in gaming is something I most certainly welcome.
There's lots of manipulation of nature by the human animal that hasn't spelt doom and gloom. The history of the species is pretty much a showcase of manipulating nature as we evolved away from nomadic lives. Agriculture, housing, infrastructure: all of it is about pushing selected external organisms away while favoring others. Sometimes it's the elimination of all other life like in building a mall or a power plant, sometimes it's the selected cultivation of certain organisms like wheat and beer yeast.
The fact that humans happen to manipulate nature to our needs is as much a consequence of what we do as beavers building dams, mice digging holes, spiders lashing webbing between trees.
Of course there have been a lot of problems with solutions that end up causing problems. But they seem to stand out apart from the millions of successes over millenia of mankind. I mean, "build somewhere else" is easy to say when there's lots of land to be spared, but tell that to Japan (for just one example) with some of the highest population to land area ratios in the world. Attempts to make vulnerable areas less so are simply a matter of intelligent mitigation rather than just throwing your arms up when a whole city could be potentially levelled.
Slashdot Mirror
"There are hooks in the PSP story that I actually wrote from one of my first stories for God of War 2."
Is it just me or is it unfortunate that they're already referring to the PSP story as second rate, since they wrote it for #2 but instead opted for something else? I guess that assumes that they would opt for the best possible storyline for the last flag-carrying game on the PS2.
Not to poo all over the series. It took a Greatest Hits edition of God of War to get me to try it. As long as the same direction and spirit of the gameplay doesn't fizzle out, the story could just be anything they throw together.
Thankfully Greek mythology has enough starting-line inspiration for decades worth of those games.
What would happen if we found ourselves with some FPS Deathmatch type games where you're running around killing characters that look exactly like real people?
I can see the headlines now:
Boy murders schoolmate after practicing it in game
The audit blames agent error and shoddy record-keeping for the bulk of the problems and did not find any indication of criminal misconduct
So, the audit showed they abused the Patriot Act in a way that impacts the citizenry... how, exactly?
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure there have been, are, and will be abuses: such is human nature. But will an audit REALLY (I mean, REALLY) catch it? I think not. If you're going to rely on audits by the government on the government to catch government abuse resulting in any punishment than someone rubbing their fingers together with "shame-shame" language, you really ought to rethink it.
If you were waiting until seeing an article like this to know that the Patriot Act is ripe for abuses and cause for alarm, I guess that's a positive thing. But your feelers should have been out about this sort of thing for a while now.
...so we are expected to believe (by this wording) that they WILL keep the information relating to illegal installations, but not use it to identify the person using it. Why does that sound like a lie?
Of course THEY won't use the information to identify the person using it, just use the information to identify the computer. The generated signatures could argue that a computer could not have sent that data to Microsoft unless it ran whatever version of Windows.
The suspicious tone in this is because data they store in the packet doesn't relate to you, the activity of getting that data revealed your IP address which they could, like the RIAA, match YOU to the IP address. No, the data the installation called back home with won't identify you, the data about that transfer of that data will identify you. Then all they gotta prove is that you physically possessed the computer and did not possess a license to run Windows.
As I've said to people I'm setting up machines for: If you're going to resign yourself to using Windows, you should pay for it.
Get your lice off me, you damn dirty ape!
I think that, given the fact that this is a developers' conference, they were more interested in showing new technologies, platforms, and tools, as opposed to actual games. Content at a developers' conference is usually geared more toward the developers, and not the consumer.
If I were a developer, I'd be worried about where the games are since, while those new technologies are neat and all, my company wouldn't be able to use them if I'm not convinced of a solid userbase and console saturation. No killer games to help move PS3's off the shelf = I'm not going to be so interested in building on PS3 technology. No matter how neat it is: it just doesn't make sense from a business perspective.
As long as this doesn't interfere with the introduction of pleasure models I'll be ok.
Because, all cynicism aside, at the end of the day it's the US's job to protect the US. And a global catastrophie would definitely run counter to that credo. No other space agency is stepping up to the plate. Some people are going to get a free ride, but that's the way it is when you lead.
Not to say that United States of America is a leader, but a leader would definitely take on the challenge, or at least a nation that wants to bill itself as a "world leader".
Well, I'm sure many people would have liked to pay $11 more for a Ford Pinto that didn't pose as big a risk of a fiery death, but hey, apparently, you can't please everyone.
Wow, I'm going to pretend you didn't just compare not being able to play an old version of Madden on your new PS3 to people burning to death in a firey inferno. Instead, I'll pretend your post is about a Genesis that you could buy an adaptor for that would let it play Master System games.
Actually, that's a big problem for schools and charities. People donate obsolete equipment that either simply cannot be upgraded or would be prohibitively expensive to upgrade.
"Imagine a Beowulf cluster" aside, then they get stuck with the costs of having to recycle them. Your average joe might be able to get away with just chucking them in a dumpster, but higher profile institutions have to do things by the book.
If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, there's an opinion piece over at Next-Gen that completely agrees with Harrison's statement.
Of course they would agree. It's called "Next-Gen" after all, why bother looking back on the past?
The lesson that the big console makers are going to learn, if they haven't noticed it yet, is that backwards compatibility doesn't really help them (as a business) in the long run. BC represents older titles that will run on a new machine, but it also promotes the sale of used games which nets them nothing as far as income. If you had $60 in your pocket and could pick up 3 or 4 really solid older games used versus one new game that hasn't exactly been tested against the trials of time, what would you pick? I know what I would, and have. I remember picking up more PS1 games after I got my PS2 than when I had the old gray soldier.
BC also represents games that you might be able to get on the cheap on the used market instead of a half-hearted port or remake later on. Plus, with downloadable vintage games that could net the co's extra cash, why should they help you play older games that they might be able to charge for upwards of $10 on the sly?
In fact, other than Microsoft and Nintendo playing "me too" against the PS2's backward compatibility, I was really surprised the PS3 would have any BC at all. Especially when a well known expoit for the PS2 exists specificly through the mechanism by which PS1 games are checked against a memory card can let you run arbitrary code. Although, when the price tags were announced, I remember thinking "at that price, it better play PS2 and PS1 games. And do my taxes, while we're at it."
What happens for instance if tomorrow all of us wonderful Slashdot readers co-developed a magical format that not only was open and cross platform but inexplicably worked with all currently available office suites without modification... ...but it wasn't XML
Easy. That law would be amended to this new wonderful format... in 2017.
I'd say Nintendo's marketing directed to non-gamers for the system is a brilliant move, and the motion sensing is innovative enough to get conventional gamers interested.
;)
That said, my nephew isn't interested in one. Which is good since that's at least one person who won't potentially get their hands on it from the shelf before I do.
My forum comparison is probably a stinker in retrospect, but will you deny that one can learn a lot about you from the way you spend your free time? Not to say that downtime web surfing should be the say-all-end-all, just to judge intangible characteristics of a person.
Ever gone to someone's house only to see a bunch of braindead gossip magazines on the coffee table? If they are your friend obviously it's not going to be a dealbreaker, but still gives you fuel for the type of person they are. What if you saw a bunch of engineering journals? Girlie mags?
I think this point is often unfairly ignored: the existance of DRM is a fantastic chance for new distribution to reveal new bands. Unfortunately this music is difficult to find because there is simply [too] much of it.
And therein we have the function of big record companies. In an age where duplication is almost trivial, it's the last function they do. They have scouts and management and all that so they could find gems.
I find is absurd that the industry hasn't made a push like that. "Gems" to them has been what sells, but maybe "gems" could grow to things that are just legitimately good music. I can see the potential slogan now: "We sit through garbage so you don't have to."
You hear about producers and artists using fame and fortune to make their own record labels to promote the types of music they like. It's not too far-fetched that good stuff that gets filtered out by one company would get picked up by another.
Of course, if the big labels in the RIAA had their way, they'd snuff out unsigned bands and their commie-free-distribution tactics so that every person in the world pulls exclusively from them. I mean, sheesh, Clearchannel has succeeded in making radio sound pretty much the same everywhere in the US.
As much as I'd hate to carry a banner in this direction, I think leaving the doors open and clandestinely monitoring your employees' habits is far more illuminating on the quality of people you hire than just blocking it off.
If I were in charge of that sort of thing, one who spends more downtime in the office on myspace versus, say, wikipedia is someone I might be less inclined to give a project with challenges and forces one to learn and aquire skills. Likewise, I would be suspicious of giving high sensitivity projects to employees to frequent lots of forum sites, as they might be more inclined to share things.
Don't judge a book by its cover, judge a book by the qualities of books that are around it.
All of these people are going to be doing something else soon.
So, you're admitting that piracy costs people's jobs?
Not that I'm agreeing, just want to confirm what I took from your post is what you intended to send.
Besides, what is the point of "making available" if not to distribute? You don't make something available if you don't intend to distribute it
Exactly. Why'd that hot secretary have to get so mad at me?
It's the culture that they've cultivated.
I have a nephew that's 10 years old. Last time I saw him he was a toddler. His family flies into town and I ask if he likes video games and he says yes and figure a bonding moment is afoot.
At the time I was playing Megaman X 8. He thought it was kind of neat, but declined to play it. He pretty much declined to play anything in my library. I said a few things about the titles I had and what makes soandso a playable and good game, and the answer I got back was:
"It doesn't look real enough."
The industry has been favoring these amazingly realistic graphics and sound and marching upwards faster and faster with budgets but not taken such a big priority with gameplay. Ultimately it comes down to a lot of developers not caring much about it. You can't quantify gameplay in a screenshot or a one-liner on the back of a box. When video games started to be "cool" (let's be honest with ourselves: the cool kids weren't playing NES) was when graphics were starting to look "pretty good". The industry focus on eye candy has resulted in them painting themselves into a corner.
Literally. The diffused-reflection bump-mapped floor looks really really great. Too bad it's not any more fun to run across it.
If the DVD playing abilities of the PS2 are any indication, that PS3-priced BluRay player is going to be a much better experience than the PS3 provides.
We need a system that protects and promotes innovation.
That's pretty interesting. Protection and promotion was the idea behind patents in the first place. Protecting innovation from getting swept up into wars of attrition against big entities with deep pockets that will see you go under while stealing your ideas, while promoting innovation by financial gains on that innovation afforded by the protection.
Until leading software geniuses get fame akin to talentless superficial bulimics in celebritydom, I'd think that financial benefits provided by patents are the only way to promote innovation.
So what we have is a financial arms race for political influence, huh? Good thing companies aren't merging and pooling interests... oh wait.
At the risk of sounding like the geezer I am - you kids today are fucking lazy!
;)
I was going to read your post, but it was too long.
All kidding aside, is there really something wrong with convenience? I remember being told things when I was a kid like "I had to walk 10 miles to school. In the snow. Uphill. Both ways." and my answer was usually along the lines of "Well, if you had let me get a car I would have driven you."
After which I would usually get a pop to the mouth and not had dinner that evening.
Toys R Us does that every so often, just not with software only. I remember they used to get exclusive versions of Nintendo hardware. There was an exclusive N64 package that included Pokemon Stadium as I recall. More recently (and more fresh in my memory) they had an exclusive color of the GameBoy Advance, before the SP came out.
How'd it work out for them? These exclusives are few and far between so seems like not so well.
Unless the games are actually published by Gamestop/EB or a subsidiary, the only way they could have gotten an exclusive deal is if they pledged to buy a whole lot more games than the publisher would have expected to sell from normal distribution channels. Which suggests the game won't sell very well. Which ALSO suggests that quirky games don't sell well. Whether or not that's true I won't contest but that's an unfortunate suggestion because anything that isn't the same old same old in gaming is something I most certainly welcome.
There's lots of manipulation of nature by the human animal that hasn't spelt doom and gloom. The history of the species is pretty much a showcase of manipulating nature as we evolved away from nomadic lives. Agriculture, housing, infrastructure: all of it is about pushing selected external organisms away while favoring others. Sometimes it's the elimination of all other life like in building a mall or a power plant, sometimes it's the selected cultivation of certain organisms like wheat and beer yeast.
The fact that humans happen to manipulate nature to our needs is as much a consequence of what we do as beavers building dams, mice digging holes, spiders lashing webbing between trees.
Of course there have been a lot of problems with solutions that end up causing problems. But they seem to stand out apart from the millions of successes over millenia of mankind. I mean, "build somewhere else" is easy to say when there's lots of land to be spared, but tell that to Japan (for just one example) with some of the highest population to land area ratios in the world. Attempts to make vulnerable areas less so are simply a matter of intelligent mitigation rather than just throwing your arms up when a whole city could be potentially levelled.