Thursday Next

In my limited sample set of people that I have met, I don't know anyone who has a PC in their living room and I know a lot of gamers. PC's are considerably more expensive in the UK. Easily £1,000 for a decent rig. Mine was a self-build that cost me somewhere in the order of £800, it's decent but not top of the line. Plus I didn't have to pay for my graphics card (colleague threw me a freebie). So yeah, 2 to 3 for a global average. YMMV. If they can't get the price waaaaaay down then they are going to be asking people in the UK to spend around £1,000 on a gaming PC and around £500 on a Steam Machine. That's a really tough sell when I could get a PS4 for £350 and a PS Vita TV for £65. FLD's idea makes more sense. Assume your consumer has the gaming PC and provide a Vita TV, ChromeCast, whatever device for TV compatibility.

I'd agree that PC gaming is definitely a lot more straightforward these days than it used to be. The biggest obstacles these days are: 1. Cost: Decent gaming rigs will cost 2 / 3 times that of a Gen4 console. 2. Compatibility: You have to be a little bit knowledgeable to know if a given game will barely run / run / run really well on your hardware. As Dean mentioned earlier, if it's got "PS4" written on the box, you know it will work. (Bugs etc. notwithstanding). 3. Location: PCs are normally in the study / bedroom. Gaming has moved into the living room. Steam Machine clearly looks to solve 3. What Valve can do about 1 and 2 remains to be seen.

Your contribution is appreciated.

I'd like something like this:

Yeah, I generally hear if someone is attached early in social interactions (I assume to immediately identify them as not available). It also means that you don't have to ask the very loaded "So are you seeing anyone?" I'm not suggesting that well written gay men should be prancing queens spreading glitter everywhere and painting their accessories with rainbow stripes. I just mean that if you write straight white males and then re-skin them them as black gay women you are going to miss some of the nuances of the mix of experiences that background brings with it. For example, if you change John Mclane in Die Hard 6 into a gay guy who is going to meet his on again off again boyfriend Harry Genero at the train station, the inevitable part of the film where he does the "why do people keep trying to kill me?" speech takes on a different tone, because as a gay man in the police force he would have likely been the subject of persecution for many years. You only learn by moving out of your comfort zone and making mistakes. Writers need to start making mistakes because they are writing minority characters poorly so that they can get better at it.

I actually kind of like the idea of arbitrary minorities. If writers start chucking in more minority characters, then we can move the debate on from "Why the hell aren't you including them?", to "Why the hell are you writing them so badly?"

Nah, not serious, I was never going to get one. At least they've headed the issue off at the pass.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-09-20-microsoft-use-xbox-one-vertically-at-your-own-risk XBone cannot stand up! Pre-order cancelled.

Wooooo! Awesome news.

Not seen that film... Wreck it Ralph is it? Bug was well annoying. During a quest moved pair of sticks so my minions could lift a bit of scenery to stop the infernal repeating play of doom. Sticks safely located on scenery I decided to go outside. Saved. Quit. Went back to the game to find that one stick was not on the wheel. "Ho hum" thought I, I'll just go get that stick again. But alas, the stick was gone. Forever. And thus I never played again.

The only difficulty spike in Golden Abyss was the annoying touch-screen fight with the fat bloke at the end. On crushing it was a right PITA. Lately I have been playing New Little King's Story. Makes me want to play Overlord. I love that game. Shame a stupid glitch forced me to stop playing.

Gonna wait for the hype-dust to settle before going for GTAV. Once bitten and all that.

GTA4 was bleak, bland and dull, the gameplay was fine but the story was dreary beyond belief. Also, cliches are not bad things, they only become cliches in the first place because they are good and people like them.

It *is* good. Ethan lives to see another day.

Got one through Amazon. Whoopdedoo. If it isn't good I'm coming after you.

I'd go with "IVE" pronounced "Ivy" with people who consume that media being "Ivers". Can ivys be art? Ivers and non-ivers.

Since we seem determined to get Dean to split this off... I think there is a subjective line where something stops being a game to the observer. Is a "choose your own adventure" novel a game? If so, does that mean that technically films with deleted scenes or alternative endings are also games? Many fitness apps have gamified elements. But I wouldn't consider them games. There was a demoscene thing called Linger In Shadows on PSN. Not very gamey at all. Play through a video and click on items that you could see I think was about as far as interaction went.

You are sick. Sick and wrong.

Killzone: Mercenaries. Completed the main campaign last night. It was pretty tough for me, but then I'm not the greatest gamer ever. The challenge mode is brutal, that's gonna take some time to get through, but it never feels unfair. Also love that there are multiple ways to handle most sections, with stealth or guns blazing being equally valid options. This game is great all round. Tight controls, online is slick, looks fantastic, story line is ok. But, you know, it's an FPS not war and peace... A really great FPS regardless of platform.

Oh yes. You're both right, my mistake. Nevertheless. Still think it's a good deal. Just means that when I want to play my games on Steam, you will have to play a game you own instead.

Yeah, I'm not seeing how this requires you to give up gaming. An absolute maximum of 10 titles would be unavailable to you. Assuming you share with people on this forum the combination of being in different timezones, some people working part time, full time or weekends only means that you are actually quite unlikely to want to play the same game at the exact same time. As Ethan says, it would be polite to say "Can you save and quit please, I'd like to play [X]." at which point your friend can play one of the other titles in your library, but if I was borrowing a game I wouldn't exactly be pissed if I got a few minutes warning to pack up my stuff and get out. The point of this is not to give you 10 copies of the game to gift to your friends (otherwise Valve would do just that). It's to give someone temporary access while you aren't using it. Much like lending a disc.

I like the concept, and to answer deans issue, there's no reason you couldn't have different sized bases & screens. But I agree that this is not practical. Not least because companies make way too much money selling things like processors, screens and so forth to each other. Also Samsung and Apple and co's business model is built on the inevitable obsolescence of their products.

Then we clearly have different priorities. I'm happy with more easier steps. You prefer fewer more cumbersome steps. Luckily there are devices for each of us within the Android ecosystem.

It's a bit like the Tony Stark / Iron Man thing. We all "know" but Gabe is his Iron Man suit.