I love that this is actually news. I hope that the issues I have with UWP (namely, lack of end-user file access and modification, hardware restrictions and the like) are resolved in a way that's satisfactory to both PC power-users and Microsoft. This may not actually happen, but it'll have to for the Universal Windows Experience to actually take off.
@fisk0: It actually reminded me immediately of Age of Empires/AoE II: The Age of Kings' bitmap graphics as soon as I started playing it, which kind of gives me an idea of how lean yet beautiful the rendering engine is.
I've got to admit, I've spent way more focused time just tinkering around with trying to get self-sustaining power grids set up than I expected, I'm definitely considering picking this up. I wonder what kinds of mods have been made so far?
You know, I was wondering to myself if that Chrono Trigger animation was some of Akira Toriyama's work since it looked so similar, my question got answered immediately. That was a cool moment!
Thanks for uploading these tapes, guys! It's a really interesting look into that period of time.
Fun facts: So, the Gamecube had two adapters, the Broadband Adapter and Modem Adapter. One was the usual 56k-type-deal and the other the broadband connections of the day. One of them allowed for PSO, I assume Broadband Adapter. Eventually I believe the Modem Adapter was discontinued since the Broadband Adapter sold more units, but neither sold terribly well. It's the only way to run homebrew software on the console outside of I guess modchips due to a lack of a full-size DVD drive.
And as for the unused Serial Port 2 (tiniest one, adjacent to the Broadband Adapter's SP1 and Game Boy Player's Hi-Speed Port), yeah... nothing came out for it surprisingly, though my personal theory is that it probably would have been used for the Gamecube's stereoscopic 3D hardware had it been released.
A lot of this was covered in an Iwata Asks segment a few years ago but The Cutting Room Floor covers a lot of obscure stuff about the Gamecube in more detail.
I can see it going either way. Microsoft's been making overtures to try and do things differently, which I immensely appreciate.
That said, if this idea of a unified platform (which otherwise could profoundly improve the console experience through cross-play, account-sharing and save-sharing) involves locking out end-user modification and customization, the one major natural benefit owning a PC has over that of a console, then I'm not only not interested, I'm opposed on an ideological and ethical level.
It would, to me, completely negate the point of owning a gaming PC in the first place, especially if regular major hardware upgrades were to become the new standard for Xbox One and later consoles. The last thing I need is for the PC gaming ecosystem to become a walled garden, though I'm fairly certain the market will prevent that just like it prevented GFWL from going anywhere.
Hey, speaking of stick fights, if you want one heck of a great (at the time) stick gun/melee combat game, try Madness Interactive on Newgrounds, it was a staple in the junior high/high school days.
I imagine that situations like this are unavoidable when the infrastructure of Xbox Live is based primarily on the systems of the Internet. It's unfortunate, however, that apparently avoidable feature outages mentioned by others like the lack of basic Blu-Ray support depended on network stability to begin with.
Full disclosure: I do not actually own an Xbox One so, naturally, I am both ignorant of the potential circumstances I'd find myself in from a usability standpoint and ignorant of the accuracy of said statements.
That said, to a certain extent I imagine as a non-expert that Microsoft can improve their network infrastructure, but beyond a certain point Xbox Live's Internet-based corpus is inherently vulnerable to remote attacks. That's just how the whole global network is from a circumstantial standpoint, with denial-of-service attacks impacting business, entertainment and governmental systems indiscriminately. Denial-of-service attacks will probably continue to occur in the future unabated until the Internet's fundamental design changes enough over a number of years to preclude opportunities for said attacks -- if that ever happens.
I don't know if I should give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt that this incident was motivated by random idiocy more than it was by cost-savings, but then again I don't work for them so it's probably more polite to. It just sucks for everyone who doesn't go out there with a DDOS program and a Twitter account and pretend as if they're Henry Dorsett Case. At least some people can earn a living off of trying to mitigate these kinds of network issues.
@jedikv: I agree with you wholeheartedly. I'm trying to hang onto my pre-online consoles for as long as possible as a result. The only consoles with proven, decades-long longevity for game accessibility have been ones with physical media. Of course, we haven't had digital-only distribution yet, and our industry's experimentation with digital distribution has only lasted a little over a decade, with the earliest home consoles with digital-only games only having launched in the second half of the 2000s (unless there's a console I've not heard of somewhere). Maybe it's too early to make a clear verdict, but it's a safe bet?
I'm pretty hopeful that either the DLC or, at least, the Creation Kit will help with the somewhat lackadaisical story I've experienced in FO4 so far. Barring that, here's hoping the DLC brings some must-have unique loot and functionality at the very least, if it's just "more synths to kill on a small auxiliary world map" I might be a bit disappointed.
I'm of the camp which actually really enjoyed Operation Anchorage for the unbalanced Chinese Stealth Armor, alongside everything else, since it turns the late-game into two separate phases where stealth technique matters and isn't guaranteed and then it basically IS guaranteed and the game gives you the ability to do a god-game-like RP experimentation hunt with NPC AI at-will. I'm not all that impressed with most of the unique loot found in FO4, by comparison, since there's few cosmetic differences and such limitations on how they can be equipped and upgraded half the time. Perhaps those unique drops feel more meaningful with a different playstyle or something.
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