Les • Comments
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- 27 Posts
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The quest for Shadow of the Colossus' last secret
Introducing the secret seekers and their eight-year quest
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Sid Meier's cultural victory
"If there's anything in reality that's not fun, we will change it."
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Microsoft won't let indies self-publish on Xbox One
From an economic perspective I can understand a move away from hardcore gaming: unless you're a graphics card manufacturer, it's not really a profitable market.
But you would think that a less hardcore-centric model would be one that fosters indie game development. Look at the success that iOS and Android have as gaming platforms. Much of that is through indie games. Reply 0
Xbox One shows flickers of visionary promise but misses an opportunity to prove it with games
Microsoft is heading in the opposite direction: showing the hardware and talking about services while hardly mentioning games.
While the success of smartphones/tablets and the recent decline of the console game market may indicate that there's more money to be made with a versatile system that can be the foundation of an entertainment platform, I'm not sure if another box for underneath the telly is the way to go.
It just seems like a step back in time to essentially create a set-top box for a set-top box, now that we have iPhones and iPads with Airplay (and there's probably an Android equivalent). Sure, that technology has shortcomings when it comes to video and audio quality. But: 1) quality isn't a very dependable indicator of future success; and 2) those downsides will likely grow smaller or disappear during Xbox One's lifecyle as technology marches forward.
And then there's the fact that Xbox One's services appear to be aimed very much at the US market. Reply 0
Xbox One second-hand games will charge a fee to play
Microsoft always wanted to create a set-top box (or at least make sure that set-top boxes ran Windows). They saw consoles as a threat and bought their way into the market. It turned out to be a wrong bet in the sense that the threat to OS hegemony didn't end up coming in the form of consoles but in the form of smartphones and tablets (technically iPads and similar hardware: tablets are things that you write on with a pen and failed to gain traction).
Given that consoles appear to be losing significance, MS's direction appears smart. However, their solution is the same solution that didn't work in the late '90s: a set-top box. Will it work this time?
Sony's PS3 wasn't successful (didn't make money). Initially it was positioned as a multi-media hub because it was kind of expensive for 'just' a games console. Sony's now all about the games again. Which seems smart if you want to attract some of Xbox's core audience. But is that enough to regain PS2-like success? Or has the market moved forward and decided that smartphones and tablets can cover the majority of gaming needs? Reply +1
Nintendo shutting down Wii channels and online services
One of the reasons I prefer a Mac Pro right now is I will use the machine primarily for photo and video editing where I think a new Mac Pro would still edge the iMac.
I'm also anticipating a move to retina desktop displays at some point and the Mac Pro in theory would be able to support those while the iMac screen can't be upgraded. Reply 0
For me backwards compatibility is a big deal and as the console generations march forward, it only becomes a bigger deal.
However, my point was not about games compatibility per se but more about the networks and social features that console makers add to their consoles, urging buyers to invest time them, only to discard them when the next generation of hardware comes around. In that sense, a service like Steam is much more dependable. Reply 0
Thinking of going Mac-only going forward (and run older Windows titles in VM and/or use bootcamp), if Apple ever releases a new Mac Pro. Reply -1
See Unreal Engine 4 on PlayStation 4
Edit:
And the Elemental story doesn't make any sense. Why is fire-dude living in a house that starts to crumble whenever he wakes up? And he hadn't even cleaned up from his previous outing... His roof is full of holes so the cold wind didn't really need to blow open the doors in order to reach him. I understand that story is not the point of a tech demo. But if you decide to have a narrative, make it a proper one. Reply +2
BioShock Infinite review
I agree with most of the points you made.
But the fact remains that for me personally, the art style doesn't work. That's not a criticism of the game however. And I guess it's ultimately my loss. Reply -3
Maybe I should just give Bioshock a try again. Though I should note that I'm not a huge FPS player in general.
I did play the Bioshock demo back in the day and I was seriously put off by its looks. I've never been a fan of UE3 in general (its lighting is quite artificial looking in general, compared to for example the Source engine).
But back to the art style: I really applaud that they're not going for the standard sci fi looks, definitely. But the part-cartoon/part-realistic look that they've chosen, just doesn't sit well with me. I much prefer all out cartoony such as Borderlands or realistic, such as Half-Life. Reply 0
Shame, because the game sounds intriguing. Reply -2
Thoughts from New York: PlayStation 4 feels less visionary than its predecessor
Microsoft unveils new logo for the first time in 25 years
Or they've just upgraded to a colour printer and wanted to show it off."
The latter seems more likely. I think they do recognise they need to be more unified but they still have a long ways to go. Right now it's pretty much superficial. Better than nothing I guess. Just a shame that for some reason they always seem to gravitate towards blandness.
And while I'm pretty sure they used the colours before Google, I think the average user is more likely to associate them with Google/Chrome than with Microsoft/Windows. As the former are services/products that people choose while the latter are typically services/products that 'happen' to people and thus they pay little attention to the branding.
But it's definitely a huge and long overdue improvement over the previous logo. Reply 0
Spec Analysis: Microsoft Surface
Shame though that they have reverted to their usual tactic of showing something that's not finished, without price or release date. I guess they felt they had to, to try to prevent people from moving over to iPad. Might work with corporate IT departments but I don't think consumers (incl. the people who are supposed to get an MS tablet because it might work better in a corporate environment) are going to wait.
I'm also curious to see how this will work out long term vs. their hardware partners with whom they're now entering into direct competition. Didn't work all that well for Play-for-Sure of whatever it was called. If I were HP or Lenovo, I would not be happy. Ultimately, this might speed up the demise of Windows' dominant position as an OS. Reply -1
Metal Gear Solid HD Collection trailer
PlayStation 4 codenamed Orbis, has anti-pre-owned system - report
I don't ever get pre-owned games (I buy the new ones once they go platinum or are discounted as I don't play that much anymore) but I think it's a silly, petty strategy, if the rumor is true.
As for the lack of backwards compatibility: don't think it's much of a factor as the new system will be just as HD as the PS3, vs. the PS2 that was SD and you needed a PS3 to get those games properly upscaled on your HDTV.
Would have been nice though to be able to get rid of an extra box as my 4 HDMI slots are full. Reply -1
Fable: The Journey Kinect criticism "unfair", say Fable's creators
It appears to be just another cynical Kinect game that tries to generate sales through name instead of gameplay. Reply +1
Kinect Star Wars Review
New iPad Review
The new screen is breathtaking and makes my iPad 1 screen seem pixelated. It also is much, much smoother in pretty much any operation. Have not really used an iPad 2 so do not know how it compares performance-wise with that.
Will not play too much with it, otherwise it will be too difficult going back to my 1. Because I'm not going to upgrade that one yet. It cost me over Euro 800 when I bought it a year and a half ago (as soon as it was released in Europe back in 2010) and no matter how nice the 3rd gen iPad is, it's not the type of gadget for me that warrants regular upgrading. And to be honest, I don't think anyone, except for gadget reviewers, will view it as such.
The iPad 3 is not meant to convert large portions of the iPad 1 and iPad 2 userbase. It is meant to solidify the iPad's position as the tablet to get for first time tablet buyers. Reply +2
Sega announces new mobile Total War Battles series
PS Vita: Sony defends Uncharted, FIFA price, explains expensive third-party digital games, reveals larger memory cards are coming
Why Apple doesn't do more to improve Foxconn working conditions - report
I care about people too. I also care about products.
The world is a complex mechanism and while human emotions often point to simple solutions ("just do this", "just stop doing that" ) they're generally quite hard to implement or simply just don't work.
Might be a bit fatalistic but I don't believe in change being forced from the outside. As standards of living will continue to improve in China, at some point workers will no longer put up with it. And they won't have to because there will be nobody else desperate enough to do so.
Edit: why the hell is there a smiley in my text?!
Edit 2: fixed, at the cost of ugly layout... Reply +1
It doesn't, no. But fair trade coffee is quite different from this.
The problem with the coffee is that there's being so much produced that the commodity price is so low that it can't really sustain small farmers. Fair trade affiliated companies pay a premium, more than the stuff is worth on the market, basically to subsidize those small farmers. Quite noble but you could argue that it would be better if there was less coffee being produced in the first place.
In the case of Chinese workers, it's the companies that they work for that 'exploit' them, within the system as set by the Chinese government. But the fact that they are 'exploitable' is also the reason they have their jobs in the first place.
The Times article was a follow-up to one last weekend that explained why iPhones etc. are not being made in the US but in China. Labor costs are only a minor factor. It's primarily about the flexibility and scale of the Chinese manufacturing infrastructure. If you need thousands of skilled engineers on short notice to manufacture a new, advanced tech product, China is the only place to go. And constant technological progress is what's being demanded by Western consumers.
No company operates in a vacuum and it's not as simple to just say that Apple should demand better working conditions at the cost of lower profit margins. Their shareholders will not be happy and their customers won't be either if it slows down time-to-market for new products.
Unless consumers get more vocal about this issue and factor it in in their buying decision, not much will change. But given how little pressure consumers have put so far on the big oil companies, who besides exploiting workers, also destroy the environments of poor countries, count me skeptical. Reply +6