Nice thing about being Micro$oft - is they have such a cash empire to work with, they can afford to spawn and maintain a neigh infinite number of failed projects, on the basis that they'll become profitable, eventually (Zune anyone?), as they basically have the entire computer industry by the balls, as proven by how little of their own money went into backing Vista. Also, the fact that Sony was willing to help fund Vista, shows how seriously they take Micro$oft's attempted invasion of the game console market.
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"To Microsoft: This word you use...Innovative...I do not think it means what you think it means." - Slashdot poster jhill, June 1, 2001
Thothie

Thank you for so succinctly illustrating the reason why I loathe the current generation of consoles. Not only that, but they also basically expect the market to beta test their games for them now that they have online services and they can patch them. That's already borderline intolerable if the patches are free, in my opinion. How have things gotten so bad that we let them just rush their bug-riddled, festering pile of shit to market with bugs along the main storyline that crash the game and make it impossible to even finish without a patch of some sort? There was a time when these people actually did some in-house testing! Hard to believe, I know.

*sigh* That was the one thing I really did like about consoles - you generally got stable, bug-free games from them, no need for "patches".

Granted, I'm thinking back to the Atari 2600, when I'm having fond memories of consoles.
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"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Norman Schwartzkopf
Thothie

Aye, that was the glory of the console.

So, you're a lover of the ET game, are you? Or perhaps it was all those fantastic porn games they had.

I kind of like the ps3's ability to update games via internet. I also like that its free for the ps3, barring some of the updates which are actually expansion packs. It adds alot more depth to some games, especially multiplayer games.

Holy crap! He has two Atari 2600 pr0n games I've never owned! Damnit, I thought my collection was complete.
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"It is not what you wear, it is how you take it off."
Thothie

It's a nice feature, yes. The ability to get more content, free or not, is always a plus. Fixing bugs that slipped through testing is also wonderful. The problem is that they're using the ability to update as an excuse to not actually do any testing in the first place, or if you're slightly more paranoid, to make games shorter and shorter while releasing content that might otherwise have been included free for a price. The whole system is being abused to take advantage of gamers, and it does so at the cost of one of the consoles historically greatest strengths. It's simply unacceptable, from my point of view.

Hmm i never looked at it like that. Sounds pretty cynical to me. You and thoth are so jaded. :tinfoil:

No that's pretty much truth. Your giving to much credit to the people that live on how little programming they have to pay for. Why pay overtime when you can do it later? etc...

Yeah. It has nothing to do with being jaded, and everything to do with the intarwebs lowering the bar for them. The skyrocketing production costs for games don't help, either.