Comment Re:Focus (Score 1) 284
Hate to ensmallen your soul but, you are using a word made up by "The Simpsons" writers without any trace of irony.
Comment Re:The U.S. Depends on it (Score 1) 394
I quite like a lot of the shows, movies, video games and such that the US produces. I hope these businesses can work out a method to get recompensed for their considerable effort and investment so they can continue generating more.
I find older Xbox 360 games quite reasonably priced but since PC games have no secondary value, due to DRM, they should cost even less. Instead, they somehow cost more. So, I play less and less PC games despite the existence of non-evil DRM schemes like Steam. Netflix is quite a reasonable cost for entertainment.
Music is currently way overpriced for the investment required but piracy is helping publishers understand the true value of downloaded music.. Hint: it's close to free.
The 1 Terabyte SSD Arrives 237
An anonymous reader writes "Over recent years Solid State Drives (SSDs) have moved from luxury to affordable additions to one's PC, but mechanical hard drives are still king when it comes to capacity. That was until the revamped Colossus LT series Solid State Drive came along this week. With up to 1TB, the drive offers offers massive storage capacities of the level normally not seen in SSDs. While 1TB of SSD space hits right at the heart of the traditional hard disk market, it comes at a high price — at around $4,000 for the 1TB model, these drives are in the realm of aspirational rather than practical."
Comment Re:They don't like supporting it (Score 1) 619
I use handbrake to create videos for PSP. The PSP presets were broken in Handbrake 9.3 and they completely removed them in 9.4. I can't find any online posting indicating that anyone can create PSP-compatible vids using 9.4 so, on my new Windows 7 system, I need to run handbrake 9.3 in XP compatibility mode in order to create PSP-ready vids.
Handbrake devs cited the fact that none of the devs owned a PSP and that it was just too much work to ship presets for it in version 9.4.
You get what you pay for...
PlayStation Network Expanding To Involve Other Devices 63
At CES, Sony's Kaz Hirai confirmed that the company will build out its PlayStation Network for use with other devices, such as televisions, Blu-ray players, and PCs. Quoting:
"... the expansion starts next month with the availability of the PSN video store on these other devices, and Hirai explained they are constructing a mechanism to create a single user ID across the entire network (if you have a PSN account, it's good to go on any other applicable Sony device, and if you create one on another device, it'll work on PSN). And finally, Hirai also announced the formation of a new Sony division — called Sony Network Entertainment, Inc. — to drive this expansion of the PSN service into a Sony-wide network."
EA Shutting Down Video Game Servers Prematurely 341
Spacezilla writes "EA is dropping the bomb on a number of their video game servers, shutting down the online fun for many of their Xbox 360, PC and PlayStation 3 games. Not only is the inclusion of PS3 and Xbox 360 titles odd, the date the games were released is even more surprising. Yes, Madden 07 and 08 are included in the shutdown... but Madden 09 on all consoles as well?"
Comment God dammit... (Score 1) 274
Republicans don't drink coffee!
Comment Re:It's the anti-apple (Score 1) 234
Nice sig. One who complains about stupid people ought to know how to spell...
Super-Earths Discovered Orbiting Nearby, Sun-Like Star 242
likuidkewl writes "Two super-earths, 5 and 7.5 times the size of our home, were found to be orbiting 61 Virginis a mere 28 light years away. 'These detections indicate that low-mass planets are quite common around nearby stars. The discovery of potentially habitable nearby worlds may be just a few years away,' said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC. Among hundreds of our nearest stellar neighbors, 61 Vir stands out as being the most nearly similar to the Sun in terms of age, mass, and other essential properties."
Comment Re:Windows Media Center (Score 1) 536
I have Windows Media Center on Windows 7 Pro 64-bit connecting to Xbox360 and it does NOT just work.
It's constantly adding videos to the library and videos that are in my video library do not show up. Viewing my photo collection is painfully slow over 100mb wired ethernet. I do not understand how people can like that software! Of course, I must be doing something wrong but how does one troubleshoot MS software...?
EA Flip-Flops On Battlefield: Heroes Pricing, Fans Angry 221
An anonymous reader writes "Ben Kuchera from Ars Technica is reporting that EA/DICE has substantially changed the game model of Battlefield: Heroes, increasing the cost of weapons in Valor Points (the in-game currency that you earn by playing) to levels that even hardcore players cannot afford, and making them available in BattleFunds (the in-game currency that you buy with real money). Other consumables in the game, such as bandages to heal the players, suffered the same fate, turning the game into a subscription or pay-to-play model if players want to remain competitive. This goes against the creators' earlier stated objectives of not providing combat advantage to paying customers. Ben Cousins, from EA/DICE, argued, 'We also frankly wanted to make buying Battlefunds more appealing. We have wages to pay here in the Heroes team and in order to keep a team large enough to make new free content like maps and other game features we need to increase the amount of BF that people buy. Battlefield Heroes is a business at the end of the day and for a company like EA who recently laid off 16% of their workforce, we need to keep an eye on the accounts and make sure we are doing our bit for the company.' The official forums discussion thread is full of angry responses from upset users, who feel this change is a betrayal of the original stated objectives of the game."
US Air Force Buying Another 2,200 PS3s 144
bleedingpegasus sends word that the US Air Force will be grabbing up 2,200 new PlayStation 3 consoles for research into supercomputing. They already have a cluster made from 336 of the old-style (non-Slim) consoles, which they've used for a variety of purposes, including "processing multiple radar images into higher resolution composite images (known as synthetic aperture radar image formation), high-def video processing, and 'neuromorphic computing.'" According to the Justification Review Document (DOC), "Once the hardware configuration is implemented, software code will be developed in-house for cluster implementation utilizing a Linux-based operating software."
Comment Re:Try Supreme Commander (Score 1) 161
I've been playing other, less-fun games to attempt curb my addiction to SupCom: FA. But I don't know what I'm going to do when SupCom 2 comes out in 2010... hopefully...?
Comment Re:How did it turn out? (Score 1) 173
Your broken-recordness would not be so annoying if it weren't so misleading:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/oct/29/nintendo-profits-plunge-wii-sales
Yes, they've sold a lot of Wiis in the past. But while Wii sales have gone down lately (despite a $50 price drop), PS3 and 360 sales numbers are flat.
I used to own a Wii. I had such a hard time finding fun games for it I sold it for near what I paid for it and bought a cheaper, more powerful 360 and have been very happy with it since. Lots of great, cheap games for it.
A Look At How Far PC Gaming Has Come 427
Bit-tech is running a feature examining the progress PC games have made over the past couple decades. The article highlights aspects of modern games we often take for granted or nitpick, and compares them to earlier games in which such features were implemented poorly or not at all. Quoting:
"Doom's legacy is still being felt today in fact and it's a fair bet that you can take any shooter off a shelf, from America’s Army to Zeno Clash, examine it, and list a dozen things that those games owe to Doom. Things like the wobble of the guns and the on-screen feedback that tells you which direction you are being shot from — these were things that id Software invented. On the other hand, from a story perspective, Doom was absolutely rubbish. You start in a room, no idea what’s going on and you are surrounded by demons. You have to read the manual and supporting media to get a grip on it all — something modern games would get heavily slated for doing. Yet the idea that plot was optional caught on and the same flaw was replicated in other games of the era, such as Quake and (to a lesser extent) Duke Nukem 3D. There were years and years where the lessons of early story-driven games were forgotten and all anyone really cared about was having as many sprites or polygons as possible."
