Despite the massive amount of bashing going back and forth here, I feel compelled to point out that I've swapped back and forth between both AMD/ATI and NVidia over the years and I've run into problems with brand new games having glitches with one or the other on both sides. Even having said that, I'm talking two or three times in over a decade. Aside from that I've had fans go out on one card, and it still lasted long enough after that that I didn't feel bad when it came time to buy a new one.

For most people it really doesn't matter what card you get as long as it isn't ancient. For enthusiasts, compare specs and get what you need. If the specs look like they're in Klingon to you, take the time to learn what's what. If you can't be arsed to do that, then you aren't an enthusiast in the first place.

This isn't like rooting for your home sports team. There is no justifiable reason to give complete loyalty to any company when weighing your purchases.

Given how ridiculously elitist people already get when playing MMOs, that picture-in-picture demo horrifies me. I'm sure it could be useful in some games, but please keep that as far from MMOs as possible.

Why would you need a second PC? There are plenty of ways to use your television to display without putting your PC right next to it. I have a 25 ft HDMI cable, with my computer desk in the back of the living room. The cable sits coiled by the TV when I'm not using it.

Also, if you DO get a 2nd computer for that function, it doesn't have to be a massive gaming powerhouse. You can hook up a cheap laptop and push video from your main PC to it.

He was restating the parent post, only from the view of years earlier. The point is that at one time, the connection speeds we have now would have been considered excessive in much the same manner. Somehow some of us still manage to use all of the bandwidth we can get without sharing movies and other media. Maybe not always, but sometimes. (How 'bout that summer Steam sale? My ISP must've hated that...)

Having better internet access available universally can at worst have no effect on some people that really don't use it that much. For the rest of us, it's a bonus. To even imply that it should be seen as a negative thing is ridiculous.

Because he obviously has never thought about this issue before now, right? It didn't affect or influence him in any way prior to this story being posted.

When you have a mental condition and people tell you they just don't believe that you have it, it makes you question your own sanity. Your post makes a rather large assumption about someone you have never met and could be detrimental to the person it's aimed at. Apparently he's not the only one that has problems with emathy and filtering his output...

You say he should just be careful what he discloses... You are failing to see the problem. Until he's had a lot of experience with a new social situation, he doesn't know what is acceptable and what isn't. And even then, that doesn't mean he understands WHY. Combined with the fact that he can't fully erase any actions or statements he makes online after making them, that leaves avoiding that media altogether or remaining anonymous. You are telling him to do the thing he has problems doing to begin with.

Also, hindsight is 20/20, etc.

Yeah, can't be having noteworthy information presented to us for *free*. That would be ludicrous.

That reminds me, time to pay my /. subscription fees.

If this is true, I highly doubt that MS will work with stores like Gamestop for this. They simply have no reason to. Even if they do, the small local game stores have MUCH better prices on nearly any game, and they are going to be SOL in this matter either way simply because they aren't big companies.

I have a locked XBox Live account with +half a year or so paid on it. Being a yearly subscription, I forgot to update it when I canceled my bank account (due to another bank that I dislike buying out my bank). Instead of cancelling my account, MS left it running for another 4 or 5 months, THEN closed and locked the account for nonpayment. I went out and bought a year prepaid card, entered it in my account. The next day I was locked out again. The response I got from MS? "We don't take time cards as payment for debt owed." I also couldn't get any prepaid credit cards to work with their system.

Their system was more than happy to eat the $50 subscription card and bring my account back into the positive, but still keep me from accessing my account. Customer service told me I was out of luck. My Live account has hundreds of dollars of DLC and games on it. I sold my XBox within a week and haven't looked back. I'm done with consoles.

And it wouldn't be possible to introduce that "safe harbor" under a new law because....?

Per person? They'll just cycle through people. Per company? Oh, look... we went out of business last night and...wouldn't you know it...reopened for business today under a new name.

There is no easy fix that does not involve pouring tons of man hours (money) into oversight, and no one is going to pony up the dough to do so. The real problem now is that starting from scratch with the law really is the best alternative available, but so many political people have so much invested up to this point that they'd never back down.

All anyone can do at this point is make sure stories like this get out in the open so that people are aware of just how twisted and unequal our laws are applied when money gets involved.

Several years ago if you tried running a server on one of the major ISPs in the US using a residential connect and your usage was spiking they'd contact you and point out that your 'agreement' with them prohibits hosting servers. I don't know if they still do that.

Us little guys are supposed to consume, not produce.

This just in - Steam offers 100 year video game rentals in Germany...

(Something tells me it isn't that simple)

I made the mistake of buying Diablo 3 without doing my homework. I didn't know about the always online requirement. Never again will I participate in a game that forces you to connect to a server to play by yourself. There is no benefit to the consumer, only headache and inconvenience. I'm sorry that they are having problems with piracy, but there are limits to how much I will inconvenience myself over someone else's problem. When a game causes more stress than it relieves it is no longer worth playing.

That's without even taking into account the fact that I will not buy an EA game any time soon, no matter what the title or how much I loved the franchise in years past. I have had nothing but had experiences with them for years now. I really don't want to boycott ANY game company. Even SOE has redeeming moments. EA though, has consistently screwed me over each and every time I've given them a chance.