killer_roach wrote on Jan 14, 2013, 23:20:

Cutter wrote on Jan 14, 2013, 22:06:
OR is going to be like 64 bit gaming, nothing will materialize for it.

And MS' worst mistake? Steve Ballmer, period.

Ballmer's not so much the issue - it's Microsoft's corporate culture that has devolved into tribalism over the past couple of decades. Nothing gets done of any consequence because nobody wants to step on another division's turf. Ballmer's a numbers guy, but he's not a manager of any sense.

Whoever ultimately replaces him will likely start with a bloodletting of most of the mid-upper-level management.

The Half Elf wrote on Jan 14, 2013, 19:29:

Yosemite Sam wrote on Jan 14, 2013, 15:17:

avianflu wrote on Jan 14, 2013, 14:15:
Have to agree with Verno; current gen consoles XBOX360 have already become glossy advertisement-machines with kludgy interfaces. I really dont want another console at this point.

There fixed that for ya... never did understand the fanboism from the 360 crowd. The 360 was a cheap poorly made POS, you had to PAY to play and they apparently also shove ads down your throat. I'm using my original fatPS3, upgraded my HD with a standered laptop drive, havent paid a dime to play online and get no ads whatsoever... As for the next gen, meh I'll happily enjoy my PS3 for quite a few more years and look into the next gen consoles a few years after release and make an informed decision based on the product and services offered.

And the PS3 is any better? Granted the 'improved' the online store, it's still a mess to find things. And what about Home? It's a virtual environment/store for items as well. And lets talk about online, rampant cheating and hacking of games, voice chat is a mess, downloading anything from Sony takes TEN times longer then Xbox Live. Not to mention the whole system being taken offline due to data theft.

But I will give Sony 1 thing, the free games if your a PLUS member.

But PLEASE do not post all this hate towards the 360 when the PS3 has had it's fair share of issues and Microsoft has never had to send out 70 MILLION emails informing it's customers of data theft.

jdreyer wrote on Jan 14, 2013, 15:33:
This is exactly what I was talking about the other day with Anon petitioning the WH for use of DDoS as a protest tool:
- Chain yourself to the door of Walmart and block people from shopping for a few hours = arrest and a day or so in jail.
- DDOS a site and block people from shopping for a few hours = arrest and FIVE YEARS in jail.

My general feeling is that we've become too much of a prison-oriented society in the US. When the laws for classic crimes (burglary, theft, etc.) were revised 50-100 years ago, they were harsh but reasonable: you can get 10 years for manslaughter or 5 years for assault, etc. But when cyber crime laws were written 10-15 years ago, we were so much about throwing people into jail (3 strikes laws, etc.) that the laws don't really fit the crimes. Lobbyists were able to push through much stricter penalties than should have been necessary to deter aberrant behavior: $5000 per illegal song downloaded, 5 years jail for a DDoS attack, 35 years jail for DL-ing JSTOR and throwing it on the web.

These laws really out of balance and need to be challenged under the eight amendment of the Constitution:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

jdreyer wrote on Jan 14, 2013, 15:06:

Creston wrote on Jan 14, 2013, 11:06:

I guess on the flipside, they can't give Nintendo too much of a headstart.

Creston

Does Nintendo even compete with MS/Sony? I thought they kind of went after different markets with not much overlap.

Prez wrote on Jan 14, 2013, 14:05:
I had to google "Platinum Games" since I had no idea what games they made. Now that I did I have even less of a clue why they were even included in the list at all, much less in the #4 spot.

eRe4s3r wrote on Jan 14, 2013, 11:44:

and I agree with Beamer, I think I am positively 100% tired of the entire HL2 universe. I hope HL3 won't even feature Gordon Freeman or those god annoying zombies. After Ravenholm I was absolutely done with these zombies. totally, utterly, done.

RollinThundr wrote on Jan 14, 2013, 11:42:

HorrorScope wrote on Jan 14, 2013, 10:34:

Rossafur wrote on Jan 13, 2013, 19:07:

HorrorScope wrote on Jan 13, 2013, 14:43:
This week in CA a person goes in with a shotgun, only shot one and they are are in critical but stable. That is the difference between handgun/rifle/shotgun vs spray and pray guns. Not that someone won't die, but it does limit it. Hence... doing a little better.

Can't believe I still hear people on a daily basis saying they believe that machine-guns are legal, and that's what's being used in these shootings. Full-auto has been illegal for quite awhile for the average citizen to own. The AR-15's and AK-47's you can legally buy in the US are semi-auto, meaning one bullet per pull of the trigger. Most all handguns (for quite a long time now) are semi-auto too (and handguns kill farrrr more people in the US any other type of firearm), and there are semi-auto shotguns as well (though even a pump-action can be fired quickly enough with practice).

Oh, and a shotgun at close range is generally going to be more deadly than an AR-15 (5.56mm/.223 caliber) or many handguns, but of course it depends on where you get hit.

Things that designated weapons as "assault weapons" were basically cosmetic (they "look" scary!) and had nothing to do with the lethality... Pistol grip, bayonet lug (because you hear about all those bayonet attacks going on), flash suppressor (just prevents the shooter from being blinded when firing in the dark), and collapsible/telescoping butt stocks.

Oh and if that guy in Aurora had used the explosives he had set up in his apartment in the theater instead, he probably would have killed a whole lot more people than he did. The worst school killing in American history occurred in 1927, where 44 people were killed by a suicidal farmer with his dynamite-filled car.

We know all of that, yes the style of gun is being attacked. The rifle is more powerful than the handgun. The semi-auto can shoot blistering fast even one pull at a time, many also are mod'd for full auto. Yes it is a "perception" thing on top of it's way overboard, not needed for protection or hunting.

A handgun can fire blistering fast as well. A vehicle can be used as a one ton projectile of death, and was I believe the leading cause of death last year, so should we ban cars? Maybe just the fast vroom vroom red ones? And again the 2nd amendment is not there for "hunting" But you know that.

Creston wrote on Jan 14, 2013, 11:28:
Speaking of Valve...

.. what?

Creston

Creston wrote on Jan 14, 2013, 10:29:
This year? That seems an awfully short time for either company to get the hype machine going.

I guess they could do big reveals at E3 and release in time for Xmas, but it still seems a very short lead time.

Creston

wtf_man wrote on Jan 14, 2013, 10:01:

Beamer wrote on Jan 14, 2013, 09:50:
Can you articulate what advantages it has that you're missing?

I pretty much already said it. IF they are limiting it to DX 9.0c (and I said IF (which is the way I'm reading the announcement)), that pretty much SCREAMS that it is a console port, in this day and age.

As for any graphic enhancements... DX 9 is fine, like I said... I'm not a graphics whore (even though Tavil disagrees), although I do like tessellation usage on modern DX 11 games... but it's not necessary.

wtf_man wrote on Jan 14, 2013, 09:26:
No DX11 pretty much makes this "wait for bargain bin"... even if it is good.

Not that I'm a graphics whore, but DX11 has been out too long to ignore it... which makes this most likely a crappy console port, hence bargain bin only.

Jerykk wrote on Jan 14, 2013, 02:30:
I'd love to know how well Skyrim has sold on PC compared to consoles. At this point, I have to imagine that the console versions are barely selling anymore so stores aren't ordering new copies.

s1mon75 wrote on Jan 14, 2013, 06:27:
"HBO isn't in the content business, they're in the subscriber business."

Business changes, consumers change. If they dont, they go out of business.

Or they lobby governments to continue to support an archaic business model.

Their business model is dead, they just dont know it yet.

Parallax Abstraction wrote on Jan 13, 2013, 22:04:

Beamer wrote on Jan 13, 2013, 20:06:

Parallax Abstraction wrote on Jan 13, 2013, 15:04:

Beelzebud wrote on Jan 13, 2013, 13:54:
Funny how much can change in 2 years. 2 years ago many supposedly wise people were predicting that Zynga was "the future of PC gaming", and were proclaiming that gaming on a PC would forever be the domain of grandma playing Farmville on Facebook.

Shows you just how useless the majority of "analysts" are. Most of the time, they're just getting paid large sums of money to talk out of their asses. Pachter and Dent are prime examples of this.

It wasn't just analysts. Were you at GDC 2009? Or was it 2010? Whichever the case, every single panel talked about Zynga. Every single one. Developers, not analysts, were falling all over themselves to figure out how to be more like Zynga, or how to go to Zynga (look at all the amazing PC developers that flocked there. Half the Civ 2-4 teams!)

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not saying only analysts were pumping the Kool-Aid. They may have started the ball rolling and much like the financial collapse, continued to pimp the company as a sure bet until reality made it impossible but a lot of other people drank the Kool-Aid wholesale. The same reckoning's coming to the mobile space soon in my opinion. Not in the same way since mobile still has a bunch of nimble indie developers in it but the Rovios and ngmocos of the world are going to get a similar reality gut check before too long, I'm certain of it. Gold rushes always run dry eventually.

Rigs wrote on Jan 13, 2013, 16:09:

Dades wrote on Jan 12, 2013, 17:30:
$50 from 20 years ago is not $50 today though. Your $50 from 20 years ago buys a lot more than it does now. Videogames cost up to $100 in the SNES days, it doesn't mean anything now and that's why your point falls flat.

- DADES - This is a signature of my name, enjoy!

See, you did it again. You're comparing the '$50' of today to the the $50 of the past in regards to buying other things and it's 'value' between then and now. My argument is not about $50 compared to what it was. But I'm not going to argue it any further. You guys just don't get what I'm trying to say and no matter how I try to explain it, you just fall back to the whole 'economies of scale' and inflation facts when they have nothing to do with what I'm trying to convey. But whatever...


=-Rigs-=

RollinThundr wrote on Jan 13, 2013, 13:38:

Beamer wrote on Jan 13, 2013, 12:38:

RollinThundr wrote on Jan 12, 2013, 19:45:

Beamer wrote on Jan 12, 2013, 18:45:

RollinThundr wrote on Jan 12, 2013, 16:19:
are other ways to treat mental health in a more positive manner, be it therapy, outreach programs, or devising better ways to keep those who are full on mental out of society in the first place. etc, rather than be pill subscription happy and sending these highly troubled people on their way to shooting up a school because they're not getting the proper help or diagnosis. Granted that might piss off the pharmaceutical companies however who have quite the lobbyists themselves however.

There's alot of other avenues to look at actually treating the symptoms rather than going after inanimate objects, in this case guns, or video games a a feel good band aid and something to lay the blame on.

But that isn't a solution. You still need to say who is going to come up with. Who will enforce it? What measures will there be? How will we know when pills are still right? How do you know pills aren't?

What you're doing is saying "the problem is some people are bad. If people decided not to be bad, we'd be ok." Great. Still not a solution.

I didn't say it was an outright solution but you have to start somewhere. And things like that would be a far better start than banning clip sizes or semi automatics because those two things won't affect anything at all.

What's your solution? What have the anti gun people offered up that will actually affect anything?

And really stop twisting my words to suit your stance that guns are the issue. As cliche as it is at this point inanimate objects don't decide for people. People still pull the trigger. As much as you hate it when I bring up personal responsibility it doesn't make it any less true.

You do this all the time Beamer, someone offers suggestions be it on spending cuts, or whatever else and your default answer is "That's not a solution" without ever offering up any realistic solutions of your own

YOU
HAVEN'T
GIVEN
US
ANYWHERE
TO
START

You've identified an issue: you feel we treat too much with pills. But you have YET to identify a solution for this. You dance around, dance around, dance around. Your solution is just "we shouldn't do that."

Fuck, man. You never address:
1) Why we do that
2) Who is responsible for doing that
3) How we can change the thinking of those responsible
4) How we can enforce this
5) How we can monitor the change

Again, should the FDA pass new regulations? Should the legislators pass new laws? Should medical schools change their curriculum (and who will make them?) What is to prevent current doctors from just doing what they do? And who are you, RollinThundr, to question the thinking of millions of doctors? On that note, shouldn't we commission some studies on pills vs other treatment? Who will pay for these studies? Who will do them? Who will review the results? Who will pay for alternative care, which will certainly be more costly and time consuming than pills? Who will do the training for this? Will we have facilities for these people? Will the government be involved?

Again, your solution is one step below "we shouldn't hurt other people, it's bad." Duh. You're offering NOTHING anyone can actually do.

However, saying that we should ban giant clips, so that anyone on a rampage has to reload, giving people time to flee, is something that people can actually do. Saying we should ban gun convention sales and private gun collector sales, where no background check is needed, is something that can easily be done. Saying we should have more of a detailed background check, one that perhaps looks for warning signs of certain medication, is something that can be done.

See how mentioning laws and regulations that are specific and doable, and showing the intended outcome, is different than saying "well, doctors should prescribe less pills."

Also, nice way to turn around what I keep saying to you. I've offered solutions here. The problem is that you don't. You put out pie in the sky stuff that isn't an actual plan. Things no one can actually do. Things not really thought through.

How do you enforce background checks on private gun sales? Last I checked it only takes 1 bullet to kill someone, the majority of gun crimes in the US are committed with handguns, how will banning certain clip sizes affect over all gun crime?

Sure the shit you're proposing is doable that's great, and aside from being a feel good and useless way to go about it it won't affect anything at all.

But hey keep on subscribing happy pills, rather than look at ways to help people with mental problems in other ways. It's working out so well for us!

Parallax Abstraction wrote on Jan 13, 2013, 15:04:

Beelzebud wrote on Jan 13, 2013, 13:54:
Funny how much can change in 2 years. 2 years ago many supposedly wise people were predicting that Zynga was "the future of PC gaming", and were proclaiming that gaming on a PC would forever be the domain of grandma playing Farmville on Facebook.

Shows you just how useless the majority of "analysts" are. Most of the time, they're just getting paid large sums of money to talk out of their asses. Pachter and Dent are prime examples of this.

Denthor wrote on Jan 13, 2013, 17:52:

Julio wrote on Jan 13, 2013, 16:14:
I completely agree that content owners seem to want to make it difficult for people to be legit, and buy that content outside of the US...but

Why not just import it from another country and use a region free player?

But that is entirely the point he's trying to make. Why does the customer have to jump through all these hoops to try and do the right thing. They're making it very difficult to pay for stuff and obtain it in a timely fashion.

When it's easier to make purchases at a reasonable price piracy will drop off as proven with netflix (see http://tinyurl.com/ahg7ed6 ).