gozirah

That sure is a realistic ugly shack. I'm impressed by the tech achievement but I'm not convinced that the goal of photo-realism will necessarily lead to enjoyable gaming. Once visual realsim hits its limits, maybe designers will focus on realistic physics. Once physics hit its limits, maybe they'll think back about artistic representation. The sense of immersion may be important, say for simuation training purposes, but I think clarity of visual language should not be ignored. Take comics. If artists could instantly render a photo realistic Spiderman or Calvin & Hobbes, they might not because visual clutter could confuse the storytelling. I suppose waht photo-realistic graphics need is cinematographers to make judgments about perspective and lighting. In summary, the shore is pretty I guess, but the shack is not ugly in an engaging way.

Backwards compatibility is important because of the initial lack of 3rd party support. It matters especially for sony because of the hugh library of old games.

In addition, if 100 million PS2 consoles (give or take) are actually out there, it actually makes more sense for developers to continue to support the PS2 until adoption has reached criticial mass for profitability. Early adopters of the PS3 could be involved in the transitional phase and have the best of old and new.

I mean thank Joystiq.

Isn't anyone else as disturbed about the "sexy Bill" picture as I am? Thank Engadget for not showing us the more revealing pictures not meant for mainstream viewing.

Clearly we should have a caption contest.
"Why yes, darling, my floppy disk is five and a quarter inches"

I think the common perception is that kids should be playing sports to get all the hand-eye coordination, and interacting with other kids in person to get all the uh, socialization skills. Also all the simulatd killing, running over people, and "sex" seems to be turning parents off to the idea of video games being helpful. And if the competition is TV, well at least the kids seem more docile when they're passively watching power rangers-- instead of screaming while button-mashing.

So it's pretty obvious the mainstream, and elder generations don't appreciate it.

You could argue there are life lessons, and fine-motor coordination training if you want, but games are built for entertainment after all. I'm not saying that educational games would be big money makers. However, I've always wondered if games could be both academically educational AND addictive/fun.

What if parents did approve? What if teachers approved? What if learned skills in gaming carried over to real life? At least the Wii-mote plausibly could help you with sports. Could Oblivion help you with physics? Could the Da Vinci code game help with history? I dunno. I thought Carmen San Diego was pretty lame.

#15: Yes, there was some hubbub a while ago about using the product "Brasso" to remove scratches on the iPod. This method has been attributed to todd dailey.

Incidentally, there were some hilarious, blog comments on his site about people having various degrees of success, with one dissatisfied commenter writing "Thanks, a lot Brasso."

http://todd.dailey.info/archives/2005/09/27/restore-your-ipod-nano-to-new-condition-with-a-4-can-of-brasso/

I just did a check of PS2 prices since launch, and it seems that if the PS3 follows a similar trend it would be 333USD (399USD premium) after 2 years. I think I might be ready about then. It might not be as easy to reduce costs this time, of course, what with the fancy Cell processor.

Sure, presenting a really expensive system might alienate gamers, but it seems like Sony is simply subsidizing Blu-ray players for early adoption. And yeah, bundling might seem evil if you just want to play games, but wouldn't you find it weird if your game system didn't play HD movies? After all, when MS bundles IE with windows, Netscape died. When Sony bundled Blu-Ray... well, in two years, when HD tv's go way down in price, having an integrated next-gen game machine/ blu-ray player at relatively low cost might seem like a good idea.

In the mean time there is still apparently lots of development going on for PS2 (after all, it has the most market), so I don't think Sony will in fact go under. I think the real question is whether developers will abandon PS3 during the early adopter period in favor of Xbox, because of lower costs of development and already good market penetration.

Don't get me wrong, MS is doing some cool stuff with Xbox and has a great direction so far. But overall the continued existence of three strong game systems will ultimately be in the best interests of gamers. Lack of competition makes Windows slooooww and buggy.

If the Cell processor is as powerful as claimed, I am continue to be excited to see if developers can make use of it. I am guessing it will take two more years.

I have actually always been sceptical of vibration feedback-- not because it doesn't add to the game experience, but because frequent and high dosage vibration has been shown to cause hand arm vibration syndrome, and even moderate amounts cause drift in limb position sensing, or the allusion of limb motion. That creeps me out. I think the short bursts are great for simulating impact, though, and without making my arm go numb.

If only game controllers could exhibit low frequency push/pull sensations. In fact that's what I thought was going to be inside the boomerang. Any of you remember the Star Wars ride at disneyland? See, you actually accelerate the person by pushing the chair forward, then move back at constant velocity, so the person doesn't notice the reset. Same thing could have been done inside the boomerang with a heavy rotating rod. Probably Immersion took that idea too. Friggin intellectual property rights.

What I am saying is that there could be BETTER force feedback devices for gaming.

Is marketing strategy an okay venue to promote gender and cultural stereotypes? I suppose there are a group of sensititive, nurturing, and casual gamers out there (let's codename them "women") who aren't buying enough games yet, and it's reasonable that the industry in their desperation wants to crack open new markets.

I just think it's funny that the ideas presented in the gamasutra article seems to be tiptoeing around wanting present generalizations about women as consumers but also wanting doing so in a PC manner.

I will admit there are gender differences due to cultural influences and maybe even innate propensities, but maybe marketers should be speak more specifically. For example, maybe women surveyed in the southwest US .... and are therefore an untapped market. Or sensitive coal miners in Alberta have shown a preference for... and therefore would enjoy cell phone games.

Ah hell, wait no, stereotyping is fine. In fact maybe they should have a conference and find out why old people aren't buying enough games.

I am no expert in current opinion in women's studies, but is there really such thing as a female identity in America? Aren't there lot's of different kinds?

Perhaps more to the point, is the study of focus groups really going to get innovation in games? But do I agree that getting different people to consider becoming developers could get new perspectives and perhaps spark innovation.

I think you mean "stake". A steak would be gross.