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[Chris_H]

I fail to understand why grown adults spend their lives playing online games, which mostly involve shooting as many "people" as possible. The games are imo all the same. They just change the graphics/ backgrounds and change the name - cyber macho 1, cyber macho 2 etc. etc.......

Tin hat on.

Tongue-in-cheek comment from Computing magazine (BackBytes if that means anything to you)...

Meanwhile at Stanford University, subjects who were immersed in a 3D virtual forest and told to chop down a sequioa, later used less paper in their everyday lives.
"We found that virtual reality can change the way people behave," said Sun Yoo Ahn, whose doctoral dissertation outlines the findings. Of course, this applies to learning lessons about saving the planet, which is nice, and in no way applies to shooting people or driving very fast in virtual reality, which the games industry has been telling us for years has no effect on behaviour.  So someone must be wrong.

[albitz]

Small things/ small minds ?

[duggs]

OOOOOOO well !  If hackers can get into NASA and the Pentagon I assume that Sony would have been a easy.

Perhaps they will think twice in future when it comes to throwing thier weight around...especially in the court room.

[Banjax]

I fail to understand why grown adults spend their lives playing online games, which mostly involve shooting as many "people" as possible. The games are imo all the same. They just change the graphics/ backgrounds and change the name - cyber macho 1, cyber macho 2 etc. etc.......

Tin hat on.

Tongue-in-cheek comment from Computing magazine (BackBytes if that means anything to you)...

Meanwhile at Stanford University, subjects who were immersed in a 3D virtual forest and told to chop down a sequioa, later used less paper in their everyday lives.
"We found that virtual reality can change the way people behave," said Sun Yoo Ahn, whose doctoral dissertation outlines the findings. Of course, this applies to learning lessons about saving the planet, which is nice, and in no way applies to shooting people or driving very fast in virtual reality, which the games industry has been telling us for years has no effect on behaviour.  So someone must be wrong.

if that was the case, if theres 100 million or so online gamers, and there isnt a mad spree of game related violence it must be utterly safe then 

[Martin_1962]

I'm surprised a company the size of Sony with all their resources were unable to prevent hackers getting in! I would have thought their security would have been second to none, so either it was crap or the hackers were exceptionally good.
I never understand why people with such exceptional "talents" use them for all the wrong reasons but then again, using them for criminal gain is that much more profitable.

Soo glad I'm not an online console gamer!

Sony aren't interested in protecting its customers. Never were in recent years. They are interested in how to provide a set specification for a minimum cost price, and trade on their (supposedly) good name to charge premium prices.

The same applies to the gayStation Network. Build something that (almost) does the job for the lowest price possible, and run it on a shoestring.  Security? Nah, too expensive.

Then, as a matter of greed, reduce the advertised functionality of the console, then try to use the law to stop people who do provide methods to re-enable that promised functionality...  ...now I'm just the stupid kid from the local comprehensive, but even I can see that will enrage some very talented people.  If they couldn't see that coming given the last couple of months happenenings, then they really do, as I suspect, have their heads so far up their own backsides.


All large companies put shareholders before customers, its just Fony are particularly bad, yet have a local following of sheep, who will only ever consider Fony, and not even look at other manufacturers (though they will claim they do). I will forward Martin Imber as a case point here .  Same with BMW and with Apple - they will both also overcharge customers and under deliver, yet their customers wouldn't dare look elsewhere


The company everybody loves to hate, Microsoft, understands security and how to provide a service, hence the XBL service remains the most stable.  Possibly because they know they dont have a loyal following like Fony/BMW/Apple/etc, they treat their customers with the respect they deserve. Quite unusual for such a large organisation.

Err we have quite a bit of Pioneer stuff here, and Relisys portable TV, PVRs from Humax among others, Pace have joined my shit list for lack of support. (We only have 2 TVs in use)

Console, TV, video camera, car MD player and a pile of old Beta VCRs does not a fanboy make.

And no I would not buy a Sony PVR they are rubbish, nor a DSLR as Nikon make the best lenses.

The Sony stuff I have bought was all among top of class and not due to brand, I am not a fanboy.

W series Sony LCD TVs got rave reviews so I got one

The old Trinitron IDTVs had a superb picture and were good VFM so I bought one.

[Martin_1962]

I fail to understand why grown adults spend their lives playing online games, which mostly involve shooting as many "people" as possible. The games are imo all the same. They just change the graphics/ backgrounds and change the name - cyber macho 1, cyber macho 2 etc. etc.......

Tin hat on.

err.....it's fun? 
 

A lot of fun, I have invested a lot of time in two multiplayers one a TPS and the other a FPS.

Just really good fun and isn't gaming about enjoying yourself?

[Martin_1962]

I fail to understand why grown adults spend their lives playing online games, which mostly involve shooting as many "people" as possible. The games are imo all the same. They just change the graphics/ backgrounds and change the name - cyber macho 1, cyber macho 2 etc. etc.......

Tin hat on.

Tongue-in-cheek comment from Computing magazine (BackBytes if that means anything to you)...

Meanwhile at Stanford University, subjects who were immersed in a 3D virtual forest and told to chop down a sequioa, later used less paper in their everyday lives.
"We found that virtual reality can change the way people behave," said Sun Yoo Ahn, whose doctoral dissertation outlines the findings. Of course, this applies to learning lessons about saving the planet, which is nice, and in no way applies to shooting people or driving very fast in virtual reality, which the games industry has been telling us for years has no effect on behaviour.  So someone must be wrong.

if that was the case, if theres 100 million or so online gamers, and there isnt a mad spree of game related violence it must be utterly safe then 

Hmm does it have an effect?

---------------

Well I do not roll up stairs, I don't run about leaping off ledges and kicking people off them trying to pull me off. Nor do I point at Propane bottles and say boom.

But then I am not getting into gun fights with various fictional characters and skeletons based on historic figures such as Gengis Khan and Sir Francis Drake.

---------------

Nor do I get into gun fights on a hostile planet populated by a militaristic society with cockney accents, and Ray Winstone as head of military.

---------------

However I did think that ISA stood for Interplanetary Strategic Alliance.

Currently I am playing an oldish African set free roaming first person game and your satnav can find diamonds.

A few days ago some light reflected off the cars dash and I thought "diamond briefcase"

[Kevin Wood]

Sony aren't interested in protecting its customers. Never were in recent years.....

Agreed. I used to like some Phony products. I wouldn't touch anything they make with a barge pole these days.

They used to make some quality stuff. Some of their audio and video gear used to be very nicely made.

You obviously had to avoid the products that try to lock you into their overpriced, proprietary form factors for which they would later have you over a barrel - mini disc and those cr@p memory sticks being two examples.

I had one of their rubbish car stereos with the incessant beeping if you didn't remove the face plate - except that the faceplate wasn't rigid enough to stop the LCD display getting mullered when you removed it. Their response? You've dropped it.

The current Sony CRT TV has done almost 10 years with "only" one repair, but it won't be replaced from their product range.

Oh, and don't get me started on the Vaio company laptop that I inherited.

Kevin

[Martin_1962]

Sony aren't interested in protecting its customers. Never were in recent years.....

Agreed. I used to like some Phony products. I wouldn't touch anything they make with a barge pole these days.

They used to make some quality stuff. Some of their audio and video gear used to be very nicely made.

You obviously had to avoid the products that try to lock you into their overpriced, proprietary form factors for which they would later have you over a barrel - mini disc and those cr@p memory sticks being two examples.

I had one of their rubbish car stereos with the incessant beeping if you didn't remove the face plate - except that the faceplate wasn't rigid enough to stop the LCD display getting mullered when you removed it. Their response? You've dropped it.

The current Sony CRT TV has done almost 10 years with "only" one repair, but it won't be replaced from their product range.

Oh, and don't get me started on the Vaio company laptop that I inherited.

Kevin

I have noticed some of the quality drop, however Minidisc I think was fantastic, and worldwide was surprisingly popular, lots of makes as well (Pioneer Sharp Panasonic). I got MD for the car as my tapes were useless and it was easy to get LPs on to them. My car MD player is pretty old (first had it in a Carlton) and is better build quality than the flimsy CD changer (I bought second hand).

Part of the problem with Sony is chasing the mass market. So if it is cheap and has a Sony badge it will be no better than anything else at that price point.

However when it comes to buying things I will consider a large number of makes and pick the most suitable for US.

There are market segments they were leaders in and ones they still are.

If I wanted a PMP there are a few makes I would want, but sound quality would be top - I have noticed that the Walkmans still work here.

TVs cheap - no thanks - I dislike cheap TVs, hence when we bought one the only ones I actually liked most I could not afford (Pioneer used to do lovely plasmas - actually one of the few Plasmas I thought looked good). Saw lots of LCDs running off HDMI split feeds, one shop had 4 TVs and 2 were bad 2 good, same make, same size, different pices and resolutions.

In the end the only TVs I could afford and what we liked at a largish size, was what we bought a W series Sony.

Now I am getting a dilemma.

My AV receiver is pretty old 12 years approx, but is suffering from a right front dropping out. Fixed by short blast of high volume.

I will try a resolder first but is it worth repairing?

Can I find a new one I like which I could afford (most look tacky now)?

It was better than both its predecessor and its replacement.

To be honest I can't afford premium stuff so will come down to auditioning the middle market kit again.

[TheBoy]

Spoken like a true fanboy;) - overcoming the denial is the first step

[Kevin Wood]

I could never see the point of Minidisk. It had a short window between inception and the advent of cheap car CD head units, writeable CDs, flash based mp3 players and PC storage of music to displace cassette and it didn't manage it.

Sound quality was only somewhere between cassette and CD (not good enough for Hi-Fi listening), you still had the inconvenience of one album to each piece of media and you still had to copy every CD to play it in the car / walkman/ wherever (unless you were mad enough to buy prerecorded MDs).

Most people either soldiered on with cassette or (factory head unit owners disregard the following) made copies of CDs to listen to in the car, etc.

As usual, Sony tried to lock-in everyone to using their format until realising too late that they would have to license it to other manufacturers.

Kevin

[Martin_1962]

I could never see the point of Minidisk. It had a short window between inception and the advent of cheap car CD head units, writeable CDs, flash based mp3 players and PC storage of music to displace cassette and it didn't manage it.

Sound quality was only somewhere between cassette and CD (not good enough for Hi-Fi listening), you still had the inconvenience of one album to each piece of media and you still had to copy every CD to play it in the car / walkman/ wherever (unless you were mad enough to buy prerecorded MDs).

Most people either soldiered on with cassette or (factory head unit owners disregard the following) made copies of CDs to listen to in the car, etc.

As usual, Sony tried to lock-in everyone to using their format until realising too late that they would have to license it to other manufacturers.

Kevin

I bought a cheap home deck as my cassette deck was knackered.

Also pre home PC as well.

If you have one you like it otherwise you generally do not appreciate it.

Sound quality.

Better than most mp3s I would say, through decent kit you can pick up the compression, but it sounds better than cassette and not too far from a cheap CD.

Locking in?

I thought there were a few makers

Actually what stifled sales was very simple.

No PC transfer back to PC for home made recordings.

[Martin_1962]

Spoken like a true fanboy;) - overcoming the denial is the first step

Mind you - you could be classed as a fanboy sometimes

[Martin_1962]

Pre recorded MDs - silly idea, cost more than a CD and home made recordings with top end decks sounded better.

[Kevin Wood]

No PC transfer back to PC for home made recordings.

True. That was particularly limiting.

.. a victim, then, of crippleware no doubt mandated to appease the RIAA.