Bill Baker

HOORAY, the anonymous cowards have won yet another victory. Feel free once again to be abusive and debasing in your vitriolic internet spew. Continue to make the WOW message boards about as vital a community as a 3rd world heroin ghetto, and feel free to be as internet brave as the veil of anonymity allows. You won a hard-fought victory, with your ragequitting and flamepost after flamepost, not to mention publishing innocent Blizzard staff's home addresses. Feel proud of the honorable battle you all fought with foamy mouths and cheeto stained fingers, once again the sanctity of mom and dad's basement has been preserved and your freedom from accountability for your actions has been protected. Keep up the good work.

While I'm concerned that Apple will indeed block these apps from release, I see it as a huge mistake and PR nightmare for them if they do. The halo effect from being able to tout the iPad as the ONLY current device that supports all popular eBook formats (AND COLOR too!) has to be worth all of the potential lost sales combined.

Apple should focus their efforts on delivering a really diverse assortment of titles and subjects in their bookstore, and cater to the strengths of the iPad (titles with lots of imagery, photo books, graphic novels/manga, etc...) instead of just rehashing the NYT bestseller list like everyone else. The iPad isn't going to sell by delivering the same experience as all the other e-readers, it's going to sell by delivering more than what the competition can.

If Apple needs to justify it to themselves as to why to allow these apps, they can always spin it as they allow a specific type of file (since B&N and Amazon both use proprietary file formats) which would otherwise be unsupported.

I'm hoping Apple doesn't need justification and are smart enough to see a windfall when it presents itself.

In terms of wish fulfillment, here's what I'd really like to see on the iPad - I want something visually exciting and unique, something that would be the 2010 equivalents of what Mondo 2000 and Ray Gun were back in the 90's. I want a window into the future, and not just another one into the world around me. I'm hoping the people of vision are fast at work putting the finishing touches on something just like what I'm thinking of. I'm looking at you, David Carson.

If Oblivion is the "gold standard" for immersive virtual worlds and Zelda falls flat of that mark, then there's another reason for me to buy Zelda. Oblivion is one of the most overrated, boring, self-indulgently dreary gaming experiences I've ever had the misfortune to play through.

Sounds like Zelda isn't your thing, which is perfectly fine, but to say it sucks because it isn't Oblivion is something akin to praise in these ears.

for the idiots who still can't grasp the difference between a pre-order and a "voucher" here's a simple analogy:

1. Resers announces an amazing new flavor of frozen burrito that will be available in stores on Nov. 17

2. Resers follows that announcement by stating that they will be releasing 4 million frozen burritos on Nov. 17

3. several weeks pass, and as it gets closer to Nov. 17, Resers begins outlining their distribution goals to retailers and supplying allocations based on what amount of frozen burritos they will be able to produce prior to Nov. 17, at this point, it is worth mention that Reser's original estimates for frozen burrito delivery have been substancially altered, meaning there will be far fewer burritos to be had.

4. retailers get their finalized shipping estimates and offer per-orders based on the number of burritos they expect to receive on Nov. 17, consumer demand for frozen burritos is demonstrated by the pre-sales being brief affairs where the Nov. 17 supply is claimed within minutes or hours.

5. Resers then announces that their original esitmates for burrito availability are further dim inished due to deep-fryer issues causing usable burrito yields to be even lower than anticipated.

6. Resers announces that,although they will not have enough burritos for everyone when everyone wants burritos, and despite the facts being that burrito production is not shaping up to be an easy process to accurately predict, they will be offering burrito vouchers in certain regions, with the promise to deliver burritos as they become available. This is not a guarantee of a burrito on Nov. 17, since the Nov. 17 quantity of burritos has already been sold through in advance. Indeed, this is not a promise of a burrito at any specified date, merely the hope that burrito production will improve and someday all demand for burritos will be met.

7. Burrito fans flood the internet burrito message boards and fail to graps the simple rules of burrito supply versus burrito demand, all the while extolling the virtues and superiority of black beans over all other foodstuffs.


You can buy all the burrito IOU's you want, I'm settling for italian food and know that my reservation guarantees me a table and a meal on the day I expect to eat it.

The difference being, Nintendo and current US PS3 pre-orders are based on lowball retail allocation promises for machines which (at least in Nintendo's favor) are already well into the distribution process. The Japanese vouchers are based on an admission there won't be enough and are a promise for something that hasn't been made yet by someone who has already publicly failed to meet their initial promises.

Scramble for a position in line for whatever floats your boat, but when launch day rolls around and you have your IOU, at least admit that you're going to feel cheated. No magical cell processor on the planet can fix that.

Thank god for the cell processor, now Israel will finally know peace, world hunger will be eliminated, and stupidity will be eradicated. Flip the happy switch, Sony, your world is waiting.

Not to be a double-poster, but what is the deal with people comparing currently existing systems with speculated and projected systems anyway? Does anyone really know how decent of a job Sony's going to do regarding their online services?

Ask anyone currently utilizing a Sony product with online capabilities if they feel like their needs are being met by Sony. Everquest, SWG, PSP and PS2 Hard Drive owners may have some interesting comments. Same goes for those people lined up to buy the BD players that Sony hasn't managed to ship on time twice now, so let that speak something towards Sony's ability to deliver within a promised time-frame.

Nintendo may have a stacked deck, since their virtual console is a license to print money, but I'll wait until I see NEW CONTENT before I declare any winners or losers in who manages their online services the best.

I mean, flying cars are going to kick a lot of ass, but what I can get right at this very moment is all that should matter in a blind taste test.

I seem to recall that just a little more than 30 days ago, MS loaded up the marketplace with a metric assload of new content of all shapes and sizes. Hell, I'm still playing the shit out of the Lost Planet demo, not to mention the Test Drive tryout and I grabbed the GRAW Chapter 2 last week as well.

XBLM has met my expectations 99% of the time, and I'd rather have delayed software than buggy crap. If I'm paying for something, part of my money goes into assuring that the quality is up to par, and I'll be damnd if I'll ever support shoving something out the door before it's done cooking just to satisfy the mouth-breathers on the internet

People need to remember that opinions are like cowboy hats and hemmoroids, in that they're really popular for assholes to have but sort of silly to share.

(this goes for mine as well, cheers!)

Actually, Progressive Scan refers to the way the screen is drawn on your set. most standard televisions use an "interlaced" signal, where every other line is drawn and it happens so fast that you see the whole image, at the cost of reduced image clarity. Progressive Scan allows lines to br drawn in order, not skipping, and the result is a sharper image with better color saturation and imrpoved resolution.

The resolution can vary, as progressive scan can support 480, 720, or 1080 vertical lines of resolution, depending on the set, the hardware attached to the set, and the way the game itself is programmed. 480p is not considered to be true high-definition, since it is actually almost identical to standard broadcast definition but with increased image quality.

What is much more likely is that the images shown have all been upconverted to higher resolutions by means of a dedicated hardware device.

Please tell me I'm not the only person whose mind was BLOWN by response #64's weird little Narnia tangent there at the end. Because of that post, the truth of this BD fiasco no longer matters to me, now I just want to know what the hell goes through that kid's mind.