Posts by Thomas 4
1357 posts • joined Thursday 11th June 2009 12:46 GMT
Posted in Hands on with the Sony PlayStation Vita
Grrr
As I ranted in another comments section on, would people please shut the hell up about smartphone gaming being the death of the DS & PSP?
I'll reiterate what I said previously - the DS & PSP are dedicated handheld gaming systems, with very different pricing structures to mobile phones. When Angry Birds costs £34.99 at launch, then you can "start" to make comparisons.
There's also a question of volumes as well. The PSP sold 185,000 units at launch and the Nintendo DS 87,000 units. Let's extrapolate a little and say both have sold 1 million units ish by now. As of 2008, there were 75.7 *MILLION* mobile phones in use in the UK, a figure which I suspect is closer to 90 or 100 million by now.
How in the name of fuck can you say that's a fair comparison? If each mobile phone user bought just 1 game, the market share of Nintendo and Sony, two of the biggest games console manufacturers on the planet, instantly gets reduced to 1%.
TL;DR - When mobile phone games cost the same price, are of the same quality and are of the same prevalance as PSP or DS games, then you can harp on about mobile phones causing the death of the platforms.
Until then, kindly shut the fuck up.
At least we got this cool looking ivory jewellery out of it
Fucking assholes.
I disagree
The quality of Android gaming is dire, to say the least, as indicated by a distinct lack of Android game reviews on here.
Of course there are going to be more mobile phone game sales than PSP/DS game sales, ***because there are more mobile phones than PSP/DSes***. You cannot expect to qualify statements like "Sony's PlayStation Portable has lost out too" & "a decline of 36 per cent" *when smartphones and PSP/DS are two gaming systems*.
Basically, PSP & DS compete for market share because they are both standalone game systems, with similarly priced games. If you compare 1 million PSPs vs 1 million DSes vs 100 million smartphones, which one do you *think* is going to have the greater market share in games?
Fail.
@Barry
Agreed. Every time I read an article along these lines I die a little inside.
Can I get Super Mario World on an iPhone?
Can I get Final Fantasy Crisis Core on an Android?
No? Then shut the fuck up with the "death of the PSP and DS" angle which most articles like go for.
In other news
Local excitement increased amongst the maidenry of Gila Bend when rumour spread about the Prince having a 12-inch.
Posted in Amazon ups Kindle Fire production...
You might even say
....that Kindleslab sales ARE ON FIRE!
Sure does
....right up to the point where you realise they didn't develop a damn thing and merely bought out someone that had created it on their App store.
Well, duh.
If we make the only thing the 4GS has going for it a £20 upgrade for everyone else, we can watch 4GS sales nosedive in a way that makes the Touchpad seem a roaring success.
Posted in Nokia Lumia 800
"It’s customary to start with a description of the hardware"
...except that it looks almost exactly the same as every other Win Phone out there and every other Win Phone that will ever be due to Microsoft's insistance on specfic design details.
Oh dear
Looks like this probe didn't have enough grunt to break free of orbit.
Posted in World of Warcraft subscriptions slip
Agreed
I was a long time WoW player to the point where it almost consumed my life and I remember frothing at the mouth when the first ex-pac was to be released.
Burning Crusade came and went and the jade started to set in. I was never in a hardcore raiding guild so a lot of the top end stuff I never got to play, no matter how much time and effort I sunk in.
Then Wrath of The Lich King arrived. A few small scale features that didn't really add much apart from the new class, which involved revisiting content I'd already gone through a dozen times before, with dungeon runs consisting of 5 death knight teams. -.-
That was the point when I quit. Cataclysm was released and for a little while I was tempted to go back and see the new changes. Then I remembered that the good memories I have of WoW (and there are more than a few) were all from the old content - the endless Scholomance runs, dying in Zul'Gurub, the fishing contest and exploring with guildmates.
All those are gone forever.
I don't know if there's anything that would make me go back to WoW but what I do know is that it'll take more than a panda and a new class.
Posted in Ten... high-end Android tablets
Dear Reg
Can you please forgo writing reviews altogether and just publish a percentage based score for each new bit of kit that comes out?
Posted in HP seeks buyer for WebOS
Quite right
It's not like IBM often buys mobile OSes just to sit on them....
Posted in Are we in the middle of a PATENT BUBBLE?
If we are in a patent bubble
Please form an orderly queue behind the needle.
Actually
His post quite neatly illustrates the issues of a surplus population and how it needs to be controlled, one commentard at a time....
Well.....
I think Gearbox can make a very good Duke game. Borderlands was very successful and pretty solid - it's worth remembering that they were essentially building 4 games with several different engines into something workable.
Is DNF a good game? From what I played of it, no. Is there still the potential for a good game with the current dev team? I think so.
Why is this such as surprise to them?
Remember back in the 90s when there was a huge fight going on between Palm and HP for control of the PDA market? The reason why Palm lost was because HP were making big advances in wireless technology and in particular the integration of telephony systems into PDAs. As the smartphone market grew exponentially, the PDA market dwindled for the simple reason that people didn't want to carry around multiple devices to do one task - namely internet browsing.
After all, why shell out for £300 fondleslab *and* a £300 phone to browse the internet when the £300 phone can do it by itself or a £450 intergrated slab can do it by itself.
Posted in Sony and Ericsson divorce
Well, this is going to ruin someone's day
Either the PSP line is going to be phased out or Xperia Play is going to be phased out. No point having to competing ecosystems.
Posted in Apple gets patent for ‘unlock gesture’
Right, that does it.
I'm going to patent a revolutionary idea - I call it a "personal power management cycling system", with multi function capability:
A single activation of the PPMCS causes electricity to be diverted from the battery of the device to the main operational areas, such as the CPU and screen.
A second activation causes a temporary interrupt to the electricity diversion system for all non-critical device functions, such as the screen.
A long activation of the PPMCS causes a gradual cessation of the electricity diversion function, allowing all active device functions to cease operation in a controlled manner.
Someone get me Apple or Google on the blower and we'll talk.
Posted in Web czar: 'Drag your nan online'
Better idea
Tell them that by visiting www.magicallyfixmyinternetconnection.com, their internet connection will start working again, *THEN* hang up the phone.
Any chance we could replace Bob Crow...
....with someone that isn't psychotically insane and willing to, oooh, I dunno, *NEGOTIATE* instead of getting on his mountain-high horse every time someone says something bad about the Tube?
Correct
I play a game called Heroes of Newerth and the community for that game makes CoD seem like its filled with sweet, kind and considerate angels.
And yet I keep playing it. Why? Because I *enjoy playing the game*. Why should my gaming habits be decided because someone else is a mouthy little shit?
If you insist on trolling
...don't be suprised when your arm gets ripped off by an angry great white shark..
Posted in Griffin Technology Helo TC
Sadly I have to agree
Was hoping for one that would work with an Android phone. Oh well.
Welcome to the internet
www.dictator-porn.xxx
Fascinating
I use bone conduction daily as part of my job as an audiologist - a small transducer placed behind the ear to check for conductive hearing losses. So if I understand this correctly, the BumChum sends vibro-tactile via the base of the spine?
Hmmmm
Let us know how you get on with it, in terms of day-to-day performance and external apps. I'd honestly be interested.
Heh.
Eye see what you did there.
Posted in Apple iPhone 4S
@AC
Yes.
Take the article regarding the "10 Androids to outshine the iPhone 4S" . A large proportion of those are the the generic thin, big screen, little frills slab design *that is identical to every other smartphone design out there*. Do not get me wrong, quality *IS* important but there comes a point when one high quality slab design is much the same as another high quality slab design.
The very best scores should only be given to phones that *try something truly different* and are of high quality, rather than just a standard design of high quality.
Posted in Apple iPhone 4S
And that
Is why smartphone design has stagnated over the past 2 or 3 years. There is almost no innovation left in smartphone design now - the Experia Play experiments with PSP technology and the Motorola Atrix at least flirts with the idea of powering a laptop.
But the rest? Flatscreen, a couple of buttons, call me when a new processor comes out. I'd like to see El Reg reign in its scores for new smartphones and only award 85-90% for phones that genuinely have innovative features and ideas. Regurgitating an existing design (please, slobbering fanbois, this applies to HTC's efforts as well as Apple's), no matter how fast the processor is or how well it's made, should net 75% tops.
And in next week's NT News
After pursuing a local felon in regards to a recent exclusive, a journalist for IT news website The Register was found being towed along the ground behind a 4x4. Police are baffled, along with everyone.
@D.A.M
Indeed. We need to investigate the source of this mysterious and malign power and shut it down if we can. Then we can enjoy our star-gazing in peace and quiet.
I'm looking forward to RIM's new phone
The Blackberry Chumawumba: "It gets knocked down, but it gets up again...."
Keep your PS3s and Xbox 360s
All shall crumble before the awesome might of the Pippin Mark 2 because, hey, it worked really well the first time, right?
"who tried to inject MacBooks into Whitehall"
Oh thank Christ. We were worried we weren't going to get our iPad 2s for a second there.
Posted in RIM stands, staggers, falls again
In other news
A wave of peace quiet has broken out across London today as rioters were unable to access the BBM network.
Phew
Thank god they installed that chief information security officer after that last attack, otherwise they'd have no-one to fire over this one.
Hmmm
What's the keyboard quality like? If the buttons are solid and responsive, I might look at ditching my Nexus One and getting one of these instead.
Posted in Laptop shoots spike into owner's hand
A least Toshiba are making amends
Let's give them a big hand, ladies and gents.
Posted in iPhone 4S pay-monthly tariffs compared
And 2 years from now.....
Mephistophiles shuts down Hell due to a lack of souls. Apparently the department that offers deals for mortal souls has been driven out of the market by telcos.
Well...
It's got to be better than that soft drink they pushed out - "Mountain View".
One infamous snack
....that springs to mind are deep-fried Mars Bars. An almost mythical delicacy in my neck of the woods but I've never forgotten the taste after all these years. I've no idea what would make a good deathmatch rival though...
Sony Ericsson
Sony Ericsson used to make big strides in phone development - they introduced one of the first phones with a colour screen (the T68 & T68i), even going as far as to make one of the first MP3 attachments and camera attachment as well.
In the smartphone sector, there was always strong rivalry between UIQ phones such as the P800, P900, etc and the Communicator range but as @Red Bren pointed out, the P990i was starting to lose ground against its better functioning competitors.
I also recall the series of Palm based PDAs that Sony produced many, many years ago. Again, there were some really solid designs (my T37 lasted a very long) and they seemed very determined to bring out new ideas (including the first PDA with an OLED screen - released in Japan only).
If Sony can recapture these glory days and use this acquisition to bring greater diversity to the phone market (rather than just flat touchscreen slab, no buttons, kkthanxbai) then it could really rejunvinate their presence in the phone market. If, on the other hand, they are merely doing this for IP and patents, with a view to ditching Ericssons engineers, then what happened with HP & WebOS will seem like a rousing success story by comparison.
More to the point
If God hates the world and its people (ok, the second one I can kinda sympathise with), He really has no-one to blame but Himself.
Posted in Apple cofounder Steve Jobs is dead at 56
Woah
When I first heard about this, I thought it was some hoax. Kinda stunned at the moment. So long Stevie and thanks for all the Macs.
Ahhh, just what I needed.
A nice big bag of popcorn and an article like this.
Posted in Violent videogames reduce crime
You degenerate monsters!
How can you be so thoughtless? By refusing to ban such filth as Kirby's Dream Land or Nintendogs, you are merely encouraging the next generation of brutal psychopaths! I cannot supervise my child due to regular PTA meetings, my high profile business career and my Daily Mail column, so I often have to leave him with his Xbox and a copy of Tiger Woods Pro Putting Simulator. The thought that he could be playing something as foul and evil as Little Big Planet makes me sick to my stomach.
Won't someone PLEASE think of the children?!
