ThunderPeel2001
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Posts posted by ThunderPeel2001
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Lol!
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I think that Ron Gilbert comment about Star Trek applies here... WOW!
Of course... it looks good to us, but does it look good when you're 6 inches away from the screen?
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Silly ginger...
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PS3 = Ugly? 360 has "good form"?
Let's get one thing straight: The XBox 360 looks like a Dell Desktop PC from five years ago, but in white, whereas the PS3 looks like a sleek, modern and sexy machine.
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That's nice for people who'd want a black Xbox 360, but it's a color that totally does not fit the form. I saw a picture of a prototype (?) black Xbox 360 once and it was hideous.My sources within MS confirm this is true btw (also that a black X360 will be available soon).So, what are the changes going to be?
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That's cool! I'm glad that it's actually a decent game. It's nice to see something so different on the XBox 360. I should give it a try, I guess!
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You just know that there's two guys doing the entire backwards compatibility on their own... inbetween bug fixes for Vista. MS really suck sometimes. It's very annoying to not be able to play decent XBox games with we wait for some decent/interesting XBox 360 titles.
The PS3 has damned decent backwards compatibility already, it's just ridiculous that we're still waiting for games to trickle in. I for one am getting very fed up!
On the upside, I think they added some games I asked for, so that's cool... Still plenty I'm waiting to play though!
The Wii calls!
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Here's, finally, a decent review that ACTUALLY lists all the awful things about the Zune, but also the good stuff, too:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2061973,00.asp
Zune: iPod Killer or Half-Baked Flop?I'm not sure whose "fault" it is, but the Zune has been all over the Web for the past several weeks.
As soon as it became known that Microsoft was preparing its own portable media device and service, the phrase "iPod Killer" was attached to it.
Whatever Microsoft's intentions, it was going toe-to-toe with a well-established product that absolutely dominates the portable media category.
In one fell swoop, Microsoft is now expected to somehow de-throne the iPod. It has to offer all the iPod's features and more, at the same or lower price. It needs to look better, work better, offer better content, shine your shoes, walk your dog, and prepare your taxes.
Anything else is an abject failure. Or is it?
The early reviews of the 30GB Zune ($250 list) are mixed. Some people are happy with the device; others can only find every way in which it does not measure up to that ubiquitous media player that has taken the place of personal computers as Apple's flagship product.
When I got one, I was immediately bombarded by everyone who saw it with some rather specific questions.
Frankly, many of the initial reviews seem almost rushed, as if no more than a day was spent with the device before coming to a grand conclusion. Certainly they didn't answer many of my questions.
So this Zune review is going to be a little different. I'm going to go point by point, marking down the things I have found and learned in my days of Zune usage.
With any luck, this mother of all Zune reviews will answer all your questions.
Ultimately, I'm going to try to answer the Big Ones: Can Zune eventually challenge iPod's dominance? Does it really matter? Is it worth getting now, or taking a wait-and-see approach?
Read the rest, it's definitely the most unbiased and indepth Zune review out there at the moment.
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Am I the only one who is yet to see a benefit from going "next gen"? I'm an owner of a 360 and I'm, quite frankly, bored to tears with it. I find myself getting more exciting with the games on my girlfriend's GameCube, than I do with anything on the 360.
And really what extras does the 360 have anyway? All of the games on the 360 are pretty much available on the PS2, only with slightly worse graphics. As we all know: Graphics are the most important thing!
Now the PS3 has come along and I'm still a bit baffled. What are these new ultra-expensive consoles actually offering to us? They're certainly not offering the leap in gaming quality that the PlayStation > PS2 offered us. I could quite happily stick with the graphical quality of the PS2, but have a better selection of more interesting games. I haven't seen a single game that HAS to be played on a next gen console (Oblivion and FEAR are graphically intensive, but they're essentially PC games anyway - more mods and options on the PC, too). It seems to me that the only time we see a game that's "next gen only", it's more to do with rights than processor limitations.
(If only Microsoft would get it's thumb out of its arse and actually give us proper backwards compatibility, at least I could enjoy some decent XBox games!)
At this rate I'm considering selling my 360 and just getting a cheap PS2, and maybe a even Wii (for the same price!)
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BooJaka: I think FF3 is supposed to be one of the better ones, so I think you made a good choice! Personally I've only ever played FFVII - but I totally fell in love with it (completed it in a week
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I didn't see the first episode, so see how you get on.
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From what if have seen people don't think Apple is "this "honest" company that couldn't possibly do wrong". The "if you have bought music from iTunes you have to use iPod and vice versa" thing, for one, has constantly been brought up in both reviews and general mp3-player discussions. And the popularity of iPod alone has caused a strong anti-reaction. Some people even turn into these bizarre tech-preachers every time they see someone with a pair of white headphones.According to surveys by J. D. Power, Apple has the highest brand and repurchase loyalty of any computer manufacturer. While this brand loyalty is considered unusual for any product, Apple appears not to have gone out of its way to create it. At one time, Apple evangelists were actively engaged by the company, but this was after the phenomenon was already firmly established. Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki has called the brand fanaticism "something that was stumbled upon."[34]Macintosh users meet at the Apple Expo and MacWorld Expo trade shows where Apple introduces new products each year to the industry and public and Macintosh developers in turn gather at Worldwide Developers Conference. Many users show their loyalty and devotion by wearing Apple t-shirts.
Apple Store openings can draw crowds of thousands, with some waiting in line as much as a day before the opening or flying in from other countries for the event.[35] The New York City Fifth Avenue "Cube" store had a line as long as half a mile; a few Mac fans took the opportunity of the setting to propose marriage.[36] The Ginza opening in Tokyo was estimated in the thousands with a line exceeding eight city blocks.[37]
John Sculley told the Guardian newspaper in 1997: "People talk about technology, but Apple was a marketing company. It was the marketing company of the decade."[38]
See also: Cult of Mac
(8GB Sandisk Sansa costs $50 less than Zune, is smaller in size, has a better battery life (and user replaceble battery), and has no moving parts, which could make it more durable. People who don't need more than 8GB for their stuff and know that they won't enjoy watching videos on 3-inch screen (in other words, use the player mainly for playing music), could save some money and pocket space if they decided to go with Sansa. What I'm trying to say is that you can't choose which mp3-player is better than another just by doing a price-capacity-screensize comparison.)I understand what you mean about not everyone needing a 30GB portable video player, but it still seems expensive to me. According to SanDisk's site, the 8GB model retails for $249.99. The battery life is 20 hours (compared to the iPod/Zune's 13/14 hours) and I cannot think of any reason why anyone would need more than 14 hours of continuous music playback in one day, and certainly not on a regular basis. The longest I'm away from an electrical outlet in one day cannot really be more than 14 hours... But I suppose there must be people who need longer...?
The Sansdisk doesn't support music bought from iTunes or Zune Marketplace, either, so that narrows people's options a bit.
I know it's more to do with how they're made, but the smaller capacity models like this still seem like a bit of a rip-off for those that would rather use them. Even Apple's Nano is the same price. It'd be much better if they were cheaper, but I suppose if size and durability are prime concerns it might be worth it.
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I disagree! It's brilliant! I loved Dark Places too!
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I guess it's just an opinion of mine, and the term DRM-fucked is not an official one, but I think it describes well what happens when a product decides to apply copy protection to something without asking, without checking if applying the protection is in violation of other licenses.It's apparently got far less restrictions that the iPod, and I don't recall anyone ever calling that "DRM fucked", so it just baffles me why it should be an issue now?
If I make an MP3 from a CD, it doesn't have any license information whether it was Michael Jackson or that band from down the road. So do you really think that they'd let the Zune just WiFi music to other Zune users with any restrictions, based on the license?
You've missed the point I think. I know plenty of people who use a range of those "pointless" features on a daily basis, and for Zune to not include those - for no obvious reason - won't mean these people suddenly ditch their iPods and take up Microsoft's hardware instead.My mistake. The thing is, not a single person I know with an iPod uses any of those features. Not one. I've even heard complaints that there's "no games" available to download like on the iPod... I commute to London every single day (it's a nightmare) and I literally see about three people in my carriage with white headphones every single trip. Not once have I ever seen anyone playing games on an iPod!
If it was the other way around I can't help but think that people would be saying "oh, look at Microsoft's device trying to be something it's not! They should follow Apple's example and have streamlined their features. It's a music player, not a filofax, afterall!".
What? You want tons more space and really high quality video playback? AWESOME.Indeed!
Let's go to the Zune marketplace and buy some... oh wait, THERE ARE NONE.For how long, do you think? A month? Maybe two? Once they have the stuff available to BUY, will you be happy then?
Want automatic podcast support? Can't have it.Well, I can still download them manually from the sites, which is what I do to most of the podcasts I'm interested in at the moment. But you're right, it would be preferable to have this feature, but it's not a deal breaker.
Doesn't play PlaysForSure despite Microsoft pushing it hard for years as an alternative to that evil closed system that Apple had going (which they now compied with Zune's DRM). AWESOMEThis is totally, 100% fucked. I completely agree with you here. This is the type of decision which makes people hate MS in the first place. What a bunch of complete assholes! Thank god for fairplay4wm!
you buy a Zune and put all your own LEGAL music on it -- Universal gets a portion of your money. AWESOME.It's the same price as a 30GB iPod or a 30GB anything. If it cost more because of that, I'd be unhappy, but it's just academic.
Microsoft points in the Zune Marketplace -- everyone loves those on XBox. AWESOME.It's exactly the same with Apple and iTunes outside of the US, so it doesn't affect me. I think it's pretty shitty that they're making interest off my money (I assume this is what your point was?), but I'm stuck. Plus, since I have an XBox 360 account, at least it means I've only got one evil interest-stealing account to worry about.
Wi-Fi enabled! Except not. Even you admit that the possible killer feature is useless. It's not useless because of the tech. It's useless because of the DRM BS. AWESOME.It's pretty useless alright, but as I've already pointed out, there's no way they were going to let people WiFi music based on user-added license options! Plus, there is at least some possible light on the horizon, as rumours are circulating about them adding more WiFi features post launch. We'll see.
Want to share your CC-licensed music with another Zune? Sure. Except for that fact that doing so ESSENTIALLY VIOLATES THE CC AGREEMENT. Awesome.Huh? What? Confused. It seems to me that, one the one hand you're complaining that the Zune doesn't allow people to swap music for free, but on the other you're complaining about the violation of "CC agreements"?
What license agreements? It certainly isn't an agreement that says you must give the Zune a "good" review. Just look at the New York Times piece, or that Endgadget review ("my harddrive broke... it's the Zune's fault!"). So, what's your point? And most importantly, this affects me (as a potential Zune user) how?
My Sandisk. I can connect to ANY computer with a USB connection and drag and drop ANY mp3s into it without having to install anything.AWESOME.
That's pretty nice, except the 8GB costs almost (or exactly) the same as a 30GB Zune or 30GB iPod, and has a screen which is nearly half the size. You must really love you're friends to want to share music with them so much!
I guess on the whole, since 90% of people's complaints about the Zune are completely true of the iPod (or just wrong), yet Apple (which is just as big and an evil corporation as Microsoft, on the whole) has good PR, so therefore musn't be as "evil" or something....? It's bizarre. Don't people realize that Apple uses sweatshops? They released iPods with a virus installed on them, but they somehow managed to escape criticism (they blamed Microsoft). They were successfully sued by Creative for stealing their property, but still people think they're this "honest" company that couldn't possibly do wrong. It just amazes me that people don't realize that they're being manipulated by the Apple marketing machine (not you specifically, n0wak), even "proper" journalists.
PS - I just ordered my Zune! I'm not a fan of iTunes, I hate their "wheel" scrolling thing and I fancy watching TV shows while I commute on a big(ger) screen. It's all good to me!
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Sorry, just had to add the worst comment of all:
The Zune 1.0 player is pretty barren, too. It doesn't have a single standard iPod amenity: no games, alarm clock, stopwatch, world clock, password-protected volume limiter, equalizer, calendar, address book or notes module.Oh my God! It doesn't have the least used and most pointless features of the iPod! What an oversight!
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I'm just, frankly, baffled. I thought Idle Thumbs was the place were people came to laugh at people making uninformed comments. I think some of you have been brainwashed...
:tdown::tdown: This DRM riddled piece of crappola does not interest me in the slightest.Also note that all music becomes DRM-fucked, even music with licenses granting you the right to copy at will.I want more DRM and more proprietary garbage in my audio players! And useless software just to get songs on to it!I'm especially impressed that it automatically puts DRM on everything you shove on it. Including non-copyrighted workSee the post by n0wak :wink:Will someone please explain? As I understand it the Zune only adds DRM to music that it's WiFi'd. How does this really affect anyone? I personally think the WiFi thing of sending music is a complete waste of time, but how on earth does it make anything "DRM-fucked"?
Here's a quote from the Gizmodo review:
A friend can take his Zune over to your computer, set up a "guest" relationship with your Zune Marketplace software (as opposed to a regular owner relationship), and you're free to drag songs and pictures from your library onto her device. These songs do not have the 3 play 3 day limit on them. Depending on whether you purchased or you're leasing these songs, you can do this with either 5 or 2 Zunes, respectively.Does that sound "DRM-fucked" to you?
More baffling comments:
I like the big screen and radio, but the 14-hour battery life for music playback is very unimpressive. By comparison, my Samsung Z5F has a rated battery life of 39 hours (or 44 hours after the latest firmware update), which, I agree, is almost impossible to reach but one can get close to that. It's also very strange that Zune doesn't support PlayForSure content.The Samsung Z5F has a 4GB maximum capacity and no moving parts, so it's obviously going to have a much larger battery life. The 30GB iPod has a 13-hour battery life and I don't know of a harddrive based MP3 with anything more than 14.
I use a SanDisk. Good capacity/size. Decent UI. Has radio AND voice recording. Registers as a disk drive when I connect it and then I can just drag and drop mp3s into it through explorer (don't have to rely on iTunes or Sony Connect or Media Player 10+ or other bullshit). Sound's good. Price is good. Screen is nice. Highly recommend it
It's got 8GB of memory, it's got a 1.8inch TFT (almost half the size of the Zune's), it can barely play videos and it costs $250! Bargain!
Personally, I'd go for something a lot simpler and hassle free myself -- that SanDisk player looks good for instance. You can also get a 2GB 65k screen MP4 player direct from Hong Kong, via eBay, for less than a new (screenless) 1GB iPod Shuffle too -- you get a digital FM receiver built-in as well, something no iPod or Zune can do out of the box.That MP4 player looks cheap and terrible (forgive me if I'm wrong). A friend of mine bought one of these sort of things off eBay it was horrible. Aside from that, you do know that the Zune comes with an FM receiver built-in, out of the box?
Has Steve Jobs been messing with your brains again?
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That Zune Master thing is pretty scary, isn't it? I guess the idea is cheap word-of-mouth advertising.
ysbreker: How is it DRM riddled?
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So Microsoft's answer to the iPod is finally here... or at least in the US! We don't have it in the UK yet. Any of you US folk picked one up yet?
The way I see it is this:
The WiFi thing: Useless unless they can get it to sync to your computer using it. Who cares about sharing a song for 3 plays for 3 days?! (Where did they do their market research...!?)Bigger screen: Very nice! Nearly 50% than the iPod, great for watching TV shows on the train.The interface: Finally an update to that drab iPod effort! It was nice in the original black and white models, but they really didn't use the colour capabilities of the iPod when they updated it.Radio Included: Who can complain about this! -
So it was for Nintendo before Playstation. The market is fickle.That's true, Microsoft and the XBox 360 are really not making the most of their long lead time. The XBox360 really needs a great game that's a "must-buy" that can't be done on an XBox or PS2, but with slightly worse graphics. At the moment there isn't one
PC CD-ROMs had Wing Commander and Myst
Nintendo had Mario
The PlayStation had Metal Gear Solid
The XBox360 REALLY needs something special that won't be available elsewhere.... and isn't just another FPS!
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Check out the superb World of Spectrum:
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/archive.html#top100s
There's plenty to see and do, but also some Top 100 lists, too!
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It's back!
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The problem isn't really that the author thought Spore looked boring, but rather that s/he made no attempt to explain why, and instead just resorted to pathetic childish insults.
Any journalist who posts: "Will Wright is a genius at making games I don't want to play" and think they are making some sort of interesting point that the rest of us are interested in, should have their fingers repeatedly broken so they can't type anymore (or at least until their ego is deflated).
What makes it all the more worse (as if it wasn't already far below any basic journalistic standards), is that Will Wright is the creator of some of the most popular games ever made... meaning that most of the people reading his comments do want to play his games... meaning that above quote is even less interesting/relevant/news worthy (if that's possible) to his/her readers than it would have been if it was about, well... just about anyone else!
It's interesting to see the "vocal minority" bash Will Wright, though!
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But I can no longer offer pictures of my boobies as co-workers now browse the forums.It doesn't matter. I don't have a job :'(If you don't have a job, who are your co-workers...?
Well, I think a flash of titties is definitely worth a PS2. I'd do it. Admittedly I'm a guy, but they're still nipples!
Heck, even Screech from 'Saved by the Bell' isn't above selling sex videos of himself for quick cash! Compared to him you're saintly!
Obligatory iPhone thread
in Idle Banter
Posted
Just thinking about practicality, you rude bastard.
I don't know about you, but I can imagine standing with my head six inches away from a massive VDU would prevent me from really seeing what's going on... Which is a potential flaw, if you ask me.
Try sticking your head 6 inches away from your monitor now, and then imagine your screen was 6 times as big... Can't see how that would be in any way functional. It'd be like sitting at the front row of the cinema... all day long.
Surely the next logical step would be to allow the user to be further back, so they could see the entire screen in their field of vision... which would require some sort of motion sensing technology, I guess.