Especially since Windows 2000 is possibly be the best and most-polished product Microsoft has ever released.
This "question" is just moronic for several reasons:
1) Nobody cares about accepting the EULA. I don't care, you don't care, Microsoft doesn't care. The only one who cares is some lawyer sitting in an office in Redmond writing up this crap. If you accept the EULA, then break one of the terms in it, you're not going to see jackbooted thugs at your door. Just install the damned updates. It's like that stupid FBI warning on DVDs... do you think the presence of that warning has EVER stopped an act of piracy? But some lawyer says it has to be there, so there's 20 seconds of my time wasted every time I put in a goddamned DVD.
2) You don't even tell us what specific parts of the changed EULA you disagree with. Frankly, I doubt anything changed at all, it's just been rewritten to include new features. (For instance, one of those Service Packs contained some wireless utilities; since wireless stuff wasn't in the original shipment, I bet it's just added to the EULA with no other changes.)
3) Apple also releases a EULA every time they update OS X. Blizzard has a new EULA every time they patch the application. So does almost every MMORPG, for that matter. Just cope with it, click "Accept" and move on with your life. (See step 1.)
4) As another post pointed out, the last Windows 2000 SP was released back in 2003. Why the hell is this coming up now? Did you just install Windows 2000 like yesterday or something? Were you using Windows 98 last week? WTF?
I've been saying this for years, but the Linux community needs to realize that the "distro" is the windowing environment.
Nobody gives a shit about "RPM vs. DEB vs. APT-GET" or any of that crud. What people care about, and what sets distros apart, is that KDE behaves very differently from GNOME.
Therefore, there should be about 5 distros:
KDE Home KDE Server GNOME Home GNOME Server "geek"-- Debian perhaps.
Any more than that is just a ridiculous amount of duplication of effort.
So you're saying, correct me if I'm wrong, that Connectix's OS/2 port of Virtual PC was raking in the dough in 2004, making TONS of money from the millions of OS/2 users everywhere, and the only possible reason Microsoft could have cancelled it is because they did some seedy things in their 20-year history?
Dude. I hate to break this to you, but nobody uses OS/2. Microsoft cancelled it because it wasn't worth the support costs to maintain it given it couldn't possibly have had more than a thousand users, and probably not even close to that amount. If Connectix had some financial sense and had cancelled it before, maybe they'd still own Virtual PC now.
Replying to myself, but I just noticed while trying out your tip that Finder's slideshow option is buggy; it doesn't seem to acknowledge the existence of my second monitor whatsoever. Another thing I didn't add on to the original rant: OS X Finder has a lot more bugs than the OS 9 Finder ever did.
I don't want to just view the files, I want to organize them. If I just wanted to view them, I'd rubber-band the whole set and drag it to Preview, which is about 10 times quicker than your tip. (And for the record, Finder's built-in Slideshow is a handy feature.) But with filmstrip view, the file icons are right there for me to drag&drop into nearby folders.
Come to think of it, your tip is really nothing like filmstrip view... not in appearance or functionality. But good try.
BTW I don't have any trouble connecting to the Samba fileservers at work
Look, everyone, CrazyJim is back in the games section... AND AS CRAZY AS EVER!
Hey Jim, how's the comic book with the rocket-katanas coming along? I want to read it so bad ever since I heard the idea! He can use the katana to fly like Superman, or shoot them like missiles! OMG!
I'm guessing he's probably talking about software application installers, not OS installers. The only software installer I saw in Linux when I used it was the one for ATI drivers, and it was not only terrible but it didn't work on my computer.
When my iBook is in target disk mode, the fans behave normally. Which is to say it's off 99% of the time unless the ambient temp. rises above about 80 degrees or so.
Interesting theory, though... I'll have to try it on my G5 when I get home. The desktops might be different than the laptops. (And, frankly, how often do you put a desktop in target disk mode?)
Yes, but because it's more confusing, that means hiring people who know it is much more expensive for companies. Which is why Linux isn't taking over the server room...
Say your a medium-sized company looking to implement a new database server. You can choose a Linux distro or Windows, but you need to hire a sysadmin for it. You hunt the job sites and you find a Linux sysadmin for $90k, or you find 48 Windows sysadmins for $50k. Who do you hire? (Considering that the performance of both platforms is similar-enough that, honestly, it really doesn't make much of a difference.)
I have lots of gripes about the Dock, also... mostly that it's not nearly as flexible as the Windows taskbar. But that's neither here nor there.
I think the problem with tabbed folders/pop-up folders/whatever the hell it was called is that it was too new and most Mac users weren't used to it by the time OS X came out. I'm sure Apple did studies, when they were deciding what features of the old Finder to port to the new, and found that not enough people used tabbed folders to justify adding that. Oh well.
Ars Technica had a long article entitled "About The Finder" which explains in simple and practical terms how Apple could keep a spatial Finder, *and* add a NeXT-style file browser, *and* add back pop-up folders without causing any usability issues whatsoever. Unfortunately, it seems nobody at Apple has read it.
Stupidly, if you prefer a spatial file browser, your best experience is actually GNOME in Linux now. It's still not 100%, but it's a lot closer than Finder.
I figure if gaming sites can pull it off (see www.worldofwarcraft.com or www.bungie.com) it can't be THAT hard to do for other sites. Both of those sites use tons of advanced features, have gobs of precisely-positioned graphics and DHTML, and work in any browser I've thrown at them. (At least IE, Firefox, and Safari.) If, for instance, some big bank can't hire web developers at least as good as a VIDEO GAME company, that's just pathetic.
The "Express" versions of the.net programming tools are free, and they are complete-enough to write full applications with. As far as I'm aware, there are no restrictions whatsoever on applications you write with (say) VB.net Express.
Now, the "Express" versions are missing some things, so you're correct in that developing with them would be harder than with the commercial versions, but it is certainly possible and a ton easier than Notepad.exe.
Basically, if you drug a window to the bottom side of the screen, the title bar would turn into a tab. Then clicking the tab would pop-up the entire window, which behaved exactly like a normal Finder window. The tabs persisted across reboots (mostly, it was a bit buggy, especially with resolution changes.)
I kept all my applications in one tab and my documents in another. If I wanted to open a jpeg in Photoshop instead of GraphicConverter (the default), I could pop-open my documents folder, grab the icon, drag the icon away from the tabbed window (which disappears), hover the icon over the tab for the applications window (which opens), then drop it on the Photoshop icon. When you describe it in text, it sounds awkward... but believe me, it's brilliant.
I based my entire computer workflow around tabbed windows, and I miss it a lot. Why Apple would bring back *Labels!* of all things and not tabbed windows, I'll never know. (My guess: Finder coders are lazy, and labels were easier.)
1)Get rid of spatial and give me an Explorer hierarchy!
The current OS X Finder isn't spatial. At all. If you turn off the toolbar, it kind of pretends to be spatial a little bit, but it's still not. The easiest way to tell is the following: Will Finder show the same folder in two different windows? If so, it's not spatial. (And, yes, Finder will... even in the psuedo-spatial mode.)
In addition to that, if you *do* set Finder to psuedo-spatial mode, it'll get turned off the next time you download and open a disk image that wasn't set as psuedo-spatial. Sometimes it'll just randomly get turned off for no reason at all, or at least no reason I can tell, even if you set "open all windows like this". At best, it's buggy, and at worst, it's so poorly designed that it's almost impossible to tell if a given window will open spatial or not when you double-click the folder.
Am I the only person here who loves the Mac's Finder for what it is? Clean. Spatial. Mouse-driven,
I'm presuming that you've never used Classic MacOS. The Finder in system 8.5 and later was brilliant... seriously brilliant. I still long for pop-up folders, a feature which has never been replaced after being removed. (And no, Apple, context-clicking folders in the Dock is NOT the same.) It was fast, it was clean, it was beautiful, and it worked. It was also 100% spatial, in a way no other OS has ever been.
The reason most Mac users say the Finder sucks ass is, because compared to the Finder in system 9.2.2, it *does* suck ass. Finder has gone WAY downhill while everything else in the OS has been progressing at record speed, and it's almost ridiculously stupid at this point.
Oh, I should mention that the Spotlight interface on Finder windows is terrible.
I can't keep my file organized on a Windows machine. Windows' file organization makes me feel chlostrophobic and I lose stuff.
Yes, but Windows Explorer can connect to file servers without spacing out (most of the time.) It has Filmstrip view, which I find extremely handy... to the point that I'll use Windows File Sharing so I can connect to my Mac's photo directory and use Filmstrip view to organize things. Explorer doesn't completely clog your CPU up while creating image previews, and it creates all the previews instead of just giving up halfway through the window like Finder does. Explorer doesn't randomly forget your window settings, like Finder does. Explorer gives you more options on which application should be used to open files. Explorer handles printers much nicer, IMO. (Except it still doesn't allow dragging a print job from one printer to another, but neither does any OS.) When Explorer creates invisible files, it doesn't show them to other OSes when file-sharing.
Sure, Explorer has quirks... personally I hate "Explorer.exe" mode, and I hate how Control Panel windows don't have entries in the task bar... but it's actually pretty good.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Even if you disagree with everything I've just typed, you have to admit that Finder's handling of network folders is broken.
And then they'll make a law that the police can torture anybody who gets pulled over for speeding! Then they'll make a law that all video games must be about either Strawberry Shortcake or Barney the Purple Dinosaur! Then they'll pass a law that only Vespa scooters can use freeways!
Seriously, how about we design a GPL for the real world instead of your paranoid fantasies?
Then again, this site is full of people who think RFID tags, glorified bar-codes, are going to let the government track their underwear when they go through metal detectors.
"Trusted Computing" already exists in the form of video game consoles, and I never really seen the Slashdot FSF followers saying anything against those.
Sure, the Wii isn't out yet, but Nintendo's on-line service was up and running months ago. How do you think Nintendo DS players go against each others online? Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection, of course (and I'm not talking about their hotspots/McDonald's venture either).
So the system for the DS is the same as the system for the Wii? If so, this is the first I've heard that little gem of news. In any case, Live is still the best service available because it has tons more features than the DS service. When the Wii comes out, that might change, but for now I stand by what I said.
"Xbox Live!" functions indeed. If you have an "online system" for a gaming console, I'd like to assume it's to play the damn games, you know, "online". Paying 50$US/year on top of your internet connection to really have an "online service" for a game console is just stupid.
That's an opinion, of course. Like I said, I think the Live service is worth the money. If you don't, Microsoft doesn't force you to buy it-- but you still get all the free demos, updates and Live Arcade availability as anybody else.
Is this better or worse than the DS system? Well, you can't download demos on the DS system, so there's a strike against it. You can't download game updates, either. Nor can you download casual games from it. Look! Live is still the best online service right now!
If I'm not mistaken there's only two online games for the Gamecube. And one of them (MMORPG) had a monthly fee. Add to that the fact that you had to buy the network add-on, and Nintendo really dropped the ball on that one.
So Live is doing far better than the GameCube's "online system", which probably had closer to 0.7% of owners than 7%.
As for the PS2 players, well.... if I'm not mistaken, there's no central network for the PlayStation 2 (apart for games such as FF XI), so keeping track of PS2 on-line usage is near impossible.... and you have no clue if it's better or worse than PS2. That's not very convincing.
I think what the OP meant was that Microsoft can say "1 million Xbox 360 users go online" when the actual number of people really "playing online" (as in, paying for the gold membership at 50$US/month just so they can play against other players) could be as low as 5000.
And?
If people are too stupid to recognize the difference between "1 million users can go online" and "1 million users are online" then that's their own problem. The fact is, the article doesn't mention it simply because it doesn't. It's not some conspiracy theory.
MS has the worst online system of the three by a huge margin.
Uh. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Microsoft, at this exact moment in time, have the *only* online system of the three? Sure, Wii has a online system announced, as does Sony, but they don't exist right now... correct?
So it might be accurate to say that MS has the worst online system, by definition. They also have the best online system, but definition.
Only a tiny percentage of 360 owners even play online due to the ridiculous 50 dollar a year charge - that adds up to two to three hundred bucks players have to waste over the life of the console.
Actually, 360 owners can access the vast majority of Xbox Live functions without paying a single cent. Whether or not you think the $50/year fee is a waste or not, that kind of comes down to opinion more than anything else... personally I think the service is worth it.
Even being generous and taking the Xbox marketing numbers at face value, the first Xbox had less than seven percent of owners playing online.
Ok; and how does that convince me that Xbox Live is bad again? What percentage of PS2 players played online games using their console? What about Gamecube players? Without comparing your "7%" number to anything, it means nothing.
And the latest press release from Microsoft about their online service didn't even mention the number of people currently paying the 50 dollar charge - so the numbers can't be very good.
Or maybe it didn't mention it just because it, uh, didn't happen to mention it.
And even if you are willing to stomach the online charge, 360 games have much less players than the better looking pc versions of games.
Cite, please? Additionally, "pc versions of games" doesn't imply "pc versions of the same game"... so that's pretty meaningless.
Even something as simple as Street Fighter was just talked about a couple days ago of having tremendous lag.
1) The article was talking about needing something like 13ms timing to fulfill his expectations. That's not possible over the Internet whether you're playing on a Xbox or on a super-buff PC.
2) At least Xbox Live Arcade *has* Street Fighter 2 available for purchase. Where's my downloadable version for GameCube and PS2?
Microsoft better get their act together on the online front or they are going to be completely irrelevant in the console market.
So then the question becomes... what the hell did he expect? That the 360 version would magically transport both players to the same 1988 arcade when you hit "join game?"
I mean, if the game's doing the best it possibly can to compensate for lag, then without re-wiring the entire Internet, it's a little stupid to hold that against it when you're reviewing it.
Slashdot Mirror
Just FYI, OS X also pops up updated EULAs with almost every single software update.
Especially since Windows 2000 is possibly be the best and most-polished product Microsoft has ever released.
This "question" is just moronic for several reasons:
1) Nobody cares about accepting the EULA. I don't care, you don't care, Microsoft doesn't care. The only one who cares is some lawyer sitting in an office in Redmond writing up this crap. If you accept the EULA, then break one of the terms in it, you're not going to see jackbooted thugs at your door. Just install the damned updates. It's like that stupid FBI warning on DVDs... do you think the presence of that warning has EVER stopped an act of piracy? But some lawyer says it has to be there, so there's 20 seconds of my time wasted every time I put in a goddamned DVD.
2) You don't even tell us what specific parts of the changed EULA you disagree with. Frankly, I doubt anything changed at all, it's just been rewritten to include new features. (For instance, one of those Service Packs contained some wireless utilities; since wireless stuff wasn't in the original shipment, I bet it's just added to the EULA with no other changes.)
3) Apple also releases a EULA every time they update OS X. Blizzard has a new EULA every time they patch the application. So does almost every MMORPG, for that matter. Just cope with it, click "Accept" and move on with your life. (See step 1.)
4) As another post pointed out, the last Windows 2000 SP was released back in 2003. Why the hell is this coming up now? Did you just install Windows 2000 like yesterday or something? Were you using Windows 98 last week? WTF?
Christ, does it wash your car and give you blowjobs also? It's just webmail.
I've been saying this for years, but the Linux community needs to realize that the "distro" is the windowing environment.
Nobody gives a shit about "RPM vs. DEB vs. APT-GET" or any of that crud. What people care about, and what sets distros apart, is that KDE behaves very differently from GNOME.
Therefore, there should be about 5 distros:
KDE Home
KDE Server
GNOME Home
GNOME Server
"geek"-- Debian perhaps.
Any more than that is just a ridiculous amount of duplication of effort.
So you're saying, correct me if I'm wrong, that Connectix's OS/2 port of Virtual PC was raking in the dough in 2004, making TONS of money from the millions of OS/2 users everywhere, and the only possible reason Microsoft could have cancelled it is because they did some seedy things in their 20-year history?
Dude. I hate to break this to you, but nobody uses OS/2. Microsoft cancelled it because it wasn't worth the support costs to maintain it given it couldn't possibly have had more than a thousand users, and probably not even close to that amount. If Connectix had some financial sense and had cancelled it before, maybe they'd still own Virtual PC now.
Replying to myself, but I just noticed while trying out your tip that Finder's slideshow option is buggy; it doesn't seem to acknowledge the existence of my second monitor whatsoever. Another thing I didn't add on to the original rant: OS X Finder has a lot more bugs than the OS 9 Finder ever did.
I don't want to just view the files, I want to organize them. If I just wanted to view them, I'd rubber-band the whole set and drag it to Preview, which is about 10 times quicker than your tip. (And for the record, Finder's built-in Slideshow is a handy feature.) But with filmstrip view, the file icons are right there for me to drag&drop into nearby folders.
Come to think of it, your tip is really nothing like filmstrip view... not in appearance or functionality. But good try.
BTW I don't have any trouble connecting to the Samba fileservers at work
Good for you?
Look, everyone, CrazyJim is back in the games section... AND AS CRAZY AS EVER!
Hey Jim, how's the comic book with the rocket-katanas coming along? I want to read it so bad ever since I heard the idea! He can use the katana to fly like Superman, or shoot them like missiles! OMG!
I'm sure all 3 of Connectix's OS/2 customers were heartbroken.
It's *impossible* that Microsoft would have cancelled a niche product for a dead OS for financial reasons, it must be a conspiracy!
I'm guessing he's probably talking about software application installers, not OS installers. The only software installer I saw in Linux when I used it was the one for ATI drivers, and it was not only terrible but it didn't work on my computer.
When my iBook is in target disk mode, the fans behave normally. Which is to say it's off 99% of the time unless the ambient temp. rises above about 80 degrees or so.
Interesting theory, though... I'll have to try it on my G5 when I get home. The desktops might be different than the laptops. (And, frankly, how often do you put a desktop in target disk mode?)
Yes, but because it's more confusing, that means hiring people who know it is much more expensive for companies. Which is why Linux isn't taking over the server room...
Say your a medium-sized company looking to implement a new database server. You can choose a Linux distro or Windows, but you need to hire a sysadmin for it. You hunt the job sites and you find a Linux sysadmin for $90k, or you find 48 Windows sysadmins for $50k. Who do you hire? (Considering that the performance of both platforms is similar-enough that, honestly, it really doesn't make much of a difference.)
I have lots of gripes about the Dock, also... mostly that it's not nearly as flexible as the Windows taskbar. But that's neither here nor there.
I think the problem with tabbed folders/pop-up folders/whatever the hell it was called is that it was too new and most Mac users weren't used to it by the time OS X came out. I'm sure Apple did studies, when they were deciding what features of the old Finder to port to the new, and found that not enough people used tabbed folders to justify adding that. Oh well.
Ars Technica had a long article entitled "About The Finder" which explains in simple and practical terms how Apple could keep a spatial Finder, *and* add a NeXT-style file browser, *and* add back pop-up folders without causing any usability issues whatsoever. Unfortunately, it seems nobody at Apple has read it.
Stupidly, if you prefer a spatial file browser, your best experience is actually GNOME in Linux now. It's still not 100%, but it's a lot closer than Finder.
I figure if gaming sites can pull it off (see www.worldofwarcraft.com or www.bungie.com) it can't be THAT hard to do for other sites. Both of those sites use tons of advanced features, have gobs of precisely-positioned graphics and DHTML, and work in any browser I've thrown at them. (At least IE, Firefox, and Safari.) If, for instance, some big bank can't hire web developers at least as good as a VIDEO GAME company, that's just pathetic.
The "Express" versions of the .net programming tools are free, and they are complete-enough to write full applications with. As far as I'm aware, there are no restrictions whatsoever on applications you write with (say) VB.net Express.
Now, the "Express" versions are missing some things, so you're correct in that developing with them would be harder than with the commercial versions, but it is certainly possible and a ton easier than Notepad.exe.
I guess the more correct term (from Googling) is "tabbed windows." Here's a screenshot of them: http://homepage.mac.com/bgreen5/.Pictures/tabs.jpg
Basically, if you drug a window to the bottom side of the screen, the title bar would turn into a tab. Then clicking the tab would pop-up the entire window, which behaved exactly like a normal Finder window. The tabs persisted across reboots (mostly, it was a bit buggy, especially with resolution changes.)
I kept all my applications in one tab and my documents in another. If I wanted to open a jpeg in Photoshop instead of GraphicConverter (the default), I could pop-open my documents folder, grab the icon, drag the icon away from the tabbed window (which disappears), hover the icon over the tab for the applications window (which opens), then drop it on the Photoshop icon. When you describe it in text, it sounds awkward... but believe me, it's brilliant.
I based my entire computer workflow around tabbed windows, and I miss it a lot. Why Apple would bring back *Labels!* of all things and not tabbed windows, I'll never know. (My guess: Finder coders are lazy, and labels were easier.)
Uh, there's a few things wrong with your comment:
1)Get rid of spatial and give me an Explorer hierarchy!
The current OS X Finder isn't spatial. At all. If you turn off the toolbar, it kind of pretends to be spatial a little bit, but it's still not. The easiest way to tell is the following: Will Finder show the same folder in two different windows? If so, it's not spatial. (And, yes, Finder will... even in the psuedo-spatial mode.)
In addition to that, if you *do* set Finder to psuedo-spatial mode, it'll get turned off the next time you download and open a disk image that wasn't set as psuedo-spatial. Sometimes it'll just randomly get turned off for no reason at all, or at least no reason I can tell, even if you set "open all windows like this". At best, it's buggy, and at worst, it's so poorly designed that it's almost impossible to tell if a given window will open spatial or not when you double-click the folder.
Am I the only person here who loves the Mac's Finder for what it is? Clean. Spatial. Mouse-driven,
I'm presuming that you've never used Classic MacOS. The Finder in system 8.5 and later was brilliant... seriously brilliant. I still long for pop-up folders, a feature which has never been replaced after being removed. (And no, Apple, context-clicking folders in the Dock is NOT the same.) It was fast, it was clean, it was beautiful, and it worked. It was also 100% spatial, in a way no other OS has ever been.
The reason most Mac users say the Finder sucks ass is, because compared to the Finder in system 9.2.2, it *does* suck ass. Finder has gone WAY downhill while everything else in the OS has been progressing at record speed, and it's almost ridiculously stupid at this point.
Oh, I should mention that the Spotlight interface on Finder windows is terrible.
I can't keep my file organized on a Windows machine. Windows' file organization makes me feel chlostrophobic and I lose stuff.
Yes, but Windows Explorer can connect to file servers without spacing out (most of the time.)
It has Filmstrip view, which I find extremely handy... to the point that I'll use Windows File Sharing so I can connect to my Mac's photo directory and use Filmstrip view to organize things.
Explorer doesn't completely clog your CPU up while creating image previews, and it creates all the previews instead of just giving up halfway through the window like Finder does.
Explorer doesn't randomly forget your window settings, like Finder does.
Explorer gives you more options on which application should be used to open files.
Explorer handles printers much nicer, IMO. (Except it still doesn't allow dragging a print job from one printer to another, but neither does any OS.)
When Explorer creates invisible files, it doesn't show them to other OSes when file-sharing.
Sure, Explorer has quirks... personally I hate "Explorer.exe" mode, and I hate how Control Panel windows don't have entries in the task bar... but it's actually pretty good.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Even if you disagree with everything I've just typed, you have to admit that Finder's handling of network folders is broken.
It's crazy snake-man! RUN FROM CRAZY SNAKE-MAN!
(Lameness filter: The quote isn't THAT lame.)
And then they'll make a law that the police can torture anybody who gets pulled over for speeding! Then they'll make a law that all video games must be about either Strawberry Shortcake or Barney the Purple Dinosaur! Then they'll pass a law that only Vespa scooters can use freeways!
Seriously, how about we design a GPL for the real world instead of your paranoid fantasies?
Then again, this site is full of people who think RFID tags, glorified bar-codes, are going to let the government track their underwear when they go through metal detectors.
"Trusted Computing" already exists in the form of video game consoles, and I never really seen the Slashdot FSF followers saying anything against those.
The Commodore-64 version pretty much rocked-ass. I never tried the NES version, but I'm guessing the manual would have been a tremendous help.
Sure, the Wii isn't out yet, but Nintendo's on-line service was up and running months ago. How do you think Nintendo DS players go against each others online? Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection, of course (and I'm not talking about their hotspots/McDonald's venture either).
... and you have no clue if it's better or worse than PS2. That's not very convincing.
So the system for the DS is the same as the system for the Wii? If so, this is the first I've heard that little gem of news. In any case, Live is still the best service available because it has tons more features than the DS service. When the Wii comes out, that might change, but for now I stand by what I said.
"Xbox Live!" functions indeed. If you have an "online system" for a gaming console, I'd like to assume it's to play the damn games, you know, "online". Paying 50$US/year on top of your internet connection to really have an "online service" for a game console is just stupid.
That's an opinion, of course. Like I said, I think the Live service is worth the money. If you don't, Microsoft doesn't force you to buy it-- but you still get all the free demos, updates and Live Arcade availability as anybody else.
Is this better or worse than the DS system? Well, you can't download demos on the DS system, so there's a strike against it. You can't download game updates, either. Nor can you download casual games from it. Look! Live is still the best online service right now!
If I'm not mistaken there's only two online games for the Gamecube. And one of them (MMORPG) had a monthly fee. Add to that the fact that you had to buy the network add-on, and Nintendo really dropped the ball on that one.
So Live is doing far better than the GameCube's "online system", which probably had closer to 0.7% of owners than 7%.
As for the PS2 players, well.... if I'm not mistaken, there's no central network for the PlayStation 2 (apart for games such as FF XI), so keeping track of PS2 on-line usage is near impossible.
I think what the OP meant was that Microsoft can say "1 million Xbox 360 users go online" when the actual number of people really "playing online" (as in, paying for the gold membership at 50$US/month just so they can play against other players) could be as low as 5000.
And?
If people are too stupid to recognize the difference between "1 million users can go online" and "1 million users are online" then that's their own problem. The fact is, the article doesn't mention it simply because it doesn't. It's not some conspiracy theory.
Where to start...
MS has the worst online system of the three by a huge margin.
Uh. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Microsoft, at this exact moment in time, have the *only* online system of the three? Sure, Wii has a online system announced, as does Sony, but they don't exist right now... correct?
So it might be accurate to say that MS has the worst online system, by definition. They also have the best online system, but definition.
Only a tiny percentage of 360 owners even play online due to the ridiculous 50 dollar a year charge - that adds up to two to three hundred bucks players have to waste over the life of the console.
Actually, 360 owners can access the vast majority of Xbox Live functions without paying a single cent. Whether or not you think the $50/year fee is a waste or not, that kind of comes down to opinion more than anything else... personally I think the service is worth it.
Even being generous and taking the Xbox marketing numbers at face value, the first Xbox had less than seven percent of owners playing online.
Ok; and how does that convince me that Xbox Live is bad again? What percentage of PS2 players played online games using their console? What about Gamecube players? Without comparing your "7%" number to anything, it means nothing.
And the latest press release from Microsoft about their online service didn't even mention the number of people currently paying the 50 dollar charge - so the numbers can't be very good.
Or maybe it didn't mention it just because it, uh, didn't happen to mention it.
And even if you are willing to stomach the online charge, 360 games have much less players than the better looking pc versions of games.
Cite, please? Additionally, "pc versions of games" doesn't imply "pc versions of the same game"... so that's pretty meaningless.
Even something as simple as Street Fighter was just talked about a couple days ago of having tremendous lag.
1) The article was talking about needing something like 13ms timing to fulfill his expectations. That's not possible over the Internet whether you're playing on a Xbox or on a super-buff PC.
2) At least Xbox Live Arcade *has* Street Fighter 2 available for purchase. Where's my downloadable version for GameCube and PS2?
Microsoft better get their act together on the online front or they are going to be completely irrelevant in the console market.
Uh. Yah. Don't hold your breath.
So then the question becomes... what the hell did he expect? That the 360 version would magically transport both players to the same 1988 arcade when you hit "join game?"
I mean, if the game's doing the best it possibly can to compensate for lag, then without re-wiring the entire Internet, it's a little stupid to hold that against it when you're reviewing it.
I'm amazed that:
1) The file size of the save games is an issue whatsoever in your game review. (God forbid you play Morrowind or Oblivion!)
2) Based on your tanking, the size of the save game is *more important* than replay value.