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Comment No point ... (Score 1) 271

There's simply one thing that turns me off from local TV news: That it's dominated by tales of assorted criminal doings, corruption, irrelevant stupid on-goings, or worthless weather forecasting. In one era it was perhaps useful; I don't see "local news" doing anything useful for years to come.

Comment Not a bad idea in theory ... (Score 1) 418

As we're talking about superstars here it's probably not going to affect them much either way. Self-starters generally know how to teach themselves anyway. Would would be better is if there was a tight bond between the grant and the school they're dropping out of and, perhaps, instead of dropping out for a period of time the University in question could give them credit or grant a different form of degree.

Comment Remember Guitar Hero ... Just Say No (Score 1) 56

Games like this tend to go gold/platinum merely because gamers (or more likely, their parents) "buy the game on spec" sheerly on the brand name. The game industry gets it and uses that to their advantage. The trick is to discourage people from buying games like this so if you're a gamer and see someone who's making this decision and "just say no". Harder than it looks really ...

Comment And why not? (Score 1) 366

I've recently had a great discussion with a representative from my Cable company about reducing my bill. Paraphrasing, cutting the TV part of my service actually ends up costing me MORE. Makes sense when you just want to keep bilking customers for crap. With Netflix, Hulu Plus, and other services there's no real need for hundreds of channels of garbage.

Comment They Keep Changing Their Tune (Score 1) 73

After watching OnLive struggle with gaining market acceptance, this is probably their best bet but people who want quality gaming experiences will stay away. They dropped the subscription fee probably out of sheer terror that they'd fail miserably. Now Android and TVs? Ultimately it looks to be headed to hotels to replace that crappy system you often find to entertain the kids. Sadly, no matter what they do there's the TANSTAAFL principle. Someone has to pay for all that computing power in carrier hotels throughout the US, plus you have crackdowns on bandwidth at the end-user level. Give it a couple more years and we won't hear any more from OnLive.

Comment Failure is Perlman's Business Model (Score 1) 87

Looking back at Perlman's other ventures, it seems that he hypes a technology in an area and then ultimately makes money elsewhere. WebTV, for example ... that ended up getting picked up by other companies and was in one form turned into Moxi via Charter. Once this fails, it'll probably be picked up for a dime by some other company. No gamer is going to care if they have a patent ... and honestly does anyone? Read the forums and responses throughout the Internet and you'll find that gamers really have no use for OnLive. It is a novelty ... a "gee whiz, I can play Crysis on a crappy laptop" kind of thing. In the United States we already have huge issues with broadband and the recent wins by various companies to throttle traffic is already hurting them. Why "stream" video of a game being played (by you, and elsewhere) when you offload all that onto your own machine? They missed many targets and dropped prices already means that they're not reaching the market. "Cloud Gaming" is complete BS.
Classic Games (Games)

Duke Nukem Forever Back In Development 356

An anonymous reader writes "'Always bet on Duke.' It seems he was right about himself, at least. The longest, most storied in-development game in history seems like it's finally going to be released by Gearbox Software sometime within the next year. 'According to Pitchford, Gearbox began finishing Duke Nukem Forever in late 2009. "Clearly the game hadn't been finished at 3D Realms but a lot of content had been created," he says. "The approach and investment and process at 3D Realms didn't quite make it, and it cracked at the end. With Gearbox Software we brought all those pieces together. It's the game it was meant to be." The game is currently expected to ship in 2010 although given its history Pitchford is understandably reluctant to be more specific.'"
Games

Submission + - 50 Hour Gaming World Record (nytimes.com) 1

NNUfergs writes: Six Dutch gamers play Red Dead Redemption for 50 solid hours (minus breaks) to break the previous world record for longest time playing a video game of 40 hours 20 minutes.
Games

Submission + - Video Game Legends Inducted to Hall of Fame (ivghof.com)

killdashnine writes: Last year Kotaku reported the creation of the International Video Game Hall of Fame and Museum in Ottumwa, Iowa and a first event in 2009 which brought 3,500 people to witness it. Since then, there's been much progress towards creation of the museum with the "Big Bang 2010". Their first event kicks off with formal induction ceremonies, tournaments, record-setting attempts, and an array of concerts from 8-bit music to modern rock. This serves as the first official fundraiser for this new Non-Profit.

Iowa is positioning itself as the Video Game Capitol of the World. While some sneer and scoff at this, pointing to LA or Seattle as gaming giants and rightful heirs to the title, the real goal is not to glorify software developers but rather to memorialize the "heroes of video games", from the iconic Pac Man to pioneers such as Ralph Baer. There's a lot of history in this small town on the banks of the Des Moines River, and when an entire town turns up to support something new and bold it's worth a look!

Comment Anything that alters consciousness is a narcotic? (Score 5, Insightful) 561

This kind of insanity is just plain stupid. Binaural beats have a documented psycho-dynamic effect ... programs like Hemi-Sync are intriguing. I don't think people are going to get "high" off of them though. But what if they do? If binaural beats are made illegal and deemed "narcotic", then the "drug war" is more about denying people access to their own minds.
Idle

Sound As the New Illegal Narcotic? 561

ehrichweiss writes "The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics is warning parents and teachers of a new threat to our children: sounds. Apparently kids are now discovering binaural beats and using them to get 'physiological effects.' The report goes on with everyone suggesting that such aural experiences will act as a gateway to drug usage and even has one student claiming there are 'demons' involved. Anyone who has used one of those light/sound machines knows all about the effects that these sounds will give and to state that they will lead kids to do drugs is nonsense at best. It seems the trend in scaring the citizens with a made-up problem has gone to the next level."

Comment We don't need OnLive (Score 1) 115

I've tried to get my head around this, but even if it works uniformly for everyone I'd have a really hard time seeing it be any more than a niche market. Between GameStop for consoles, Steam for the PC (and now Mac), and increasing options for DLC, it's going to be a really hard-sell to gamers who are used to owning something physical that they can trade in (even for horrible rates). I bet broadband will kill them. Net neutrality is going to fail, unfortunately, so people are going to get capped and have overage fees. Better to invest in a nice used XBOX 360 ($150 or less sometimes).

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