This is the conclusion that several companies came to back in the dot com days. Remember the eye opener and similar web appliances? The thinking there was why do they need a full OS at all? Just give them a device that has web capability and be done with it. Is it possible that these guys were just ahead of their time? What was missing back then was some of the rich Web apps that we see today. I wonder if a cheap web appliance might make a come back? Think, Web TV 3.0, but with broadband and in HD! All backed by some good web services with lots of online storage (hmm, think Google here). It just might work.
Related info: Just for grins I tried out this new Web based office product. It is free and offers word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. It reads and writes MS office formats and PDF. It is not bad. The word process has a light mode that is Ajaxy, and a full version that is a web based java app. It pretty much looks just like a clone of Word, and has almost all the features implemented (it is still in beta). It includes advanced features like tables, styles, TOCs etc. They even give you 1G of file storage.

Remote technical support is probably the most important, and if you can't help them once you've set them up with a Mac, that's a problem. Since I have both, I've advocated Macs for my mom and sister, and that's worked out fine.

As far as comprehensive driver support on Windows, this is not my experience. Or rather, the statement should be, "In theory, Windows has better driver support" but I've never experienced it. I've had a terrible time getting XP to recognize basic devices like my Canon digital camera or a wifi card. Nevermind the fact that my former Windows laptop would regularly drop sound drivers when you installed any audio application, or the Creative TV tuner card was hell on earth to install and work. People say that Windows supports more stuff. I think that the word "supports" needs to be in quotes because they really mean "sort of supports, almost".

I'm probably migrating to a Mac / Linux setup at home (I was messing around with installing Ubuntu this weekend) since I'm more of a unix guy anyways, and I'm totally not impressed with the Vista UI (translucent window borders!?! that's about as cool as translucent xterms until you try reading text in them).

As for games, I've bought 5 PC games in the last 2 years: Half-Life 2, Doom 3, Warcraft 3, Black & White 2 and Darwinia. HL2 was excellent, but I'm sure it'll end up on the 360. Doom3 and B&W2 are total disappointments, won't miss them. Warcraft comes on a Mac/Windows hybrid CD so I can keep playing that. Darwinia comes on a Linux/Windows hybrid CD. So, games for me have moved to the console, PC not required.

Don't forget to try out the 'Remote assistance' feature in XP, that's what it is there for. It is also another reason I don't really understand the market for CoPilot.

Just a guess about Remote Assistance, but probably the same reason that MSN Messenger voice chat never took off (and Skype did 5 years later). Proper NAT traversal.

Pretty sad state of things when people just assume something from MS won't work and don't bother to try it. MS is a big company and I'm sure a different group of folks worked on RA. I have been able to connect from work to my wife's laptop at home so at least it gets through my NAT. It works by sending an 'invitation' to help via email or IM. This starts the connection process. It is much slower than RDP but as long as it gets the job done.

Ha ha. Very nice. I totally agree. Um, why do I need RSS notifications of stuff that can just be emailed to me? People are going mental with it. It has its uses but please everybody, just calm down.

Well, monopolies are never a good thing for any market ;)

But independant gamers are already getting locked out of the PC market: games are so insanely expensive to make now, that no little shop can put out a blockbuster like valve and id did in the 90s. Having said that, DirectX / OpenGL are always available for the independants, nothing is stopping them from making games on the PC... they just don't get to make something on the scale of Half-Life 2. Or maybe they do, using the HL2 SDK.

I actually like that the console vendors have more control. Online play was terrible before Xbox live. Trying to find a server that had low enough ping times for everyone (and that didn't have griefers and cheaters) was tedious, there was no built-ing voice communication. I'm more than happy to pay for the online walled garden, when it comes to gaming.

I'm pretty much done with PC gaming. I may pick up the occasional Bioware / Blizzard / Lionhead release, but I'm not building another game machine. Here is my issue:

Bought a $600 video card. Built a smokin game PC. Installed 17 CDs worth of games, everything seems to work great except Doom 3 and HL2 lock up my machine. Download a driver update. Now my DVD player won't playback. Revert driver, God knows what my registry looks like now. Troll gaming forums, hoping to find someine in my situation that has found a solution. Mess with random BIOS settings ("disable AGP fast write"). HL2 doesn't seem to crash after that change, but I'm too demoralized to test thoroughly. Looks like there is a patch for HL2 "sound stuttering". Apply. Repeat.

That and Xbox live are the reasons why I'm now a console boy, I just don't have the energy to be a PC person anymore.

As for price, I think that even PC games have been trending upwards. Remember all the angst we had over paying $55 for Wolfenstein, but we eventually caved in? I can understand the increases: the technology isn't cheap. Most games now include motion capture, huge amounts of artwork, realistic physics engines, plus developer tools for making mods. The price of games is generally where the console makers profit, since the hardware is sold at a loss. I think that this is a good thing for me, since increases in price will prevent me from buying so many games that I never get around to playing!

Independent gamers aren't really locked out of the PC market. If anything, Internet distribution eases the entry for them, compared to having to be published years ago. Similar to independent music artists. Many of the flash based games are independent, as are most of the good mods to Doom and HL. I agree that the production value of games has gone up a lot, but we'll see more gamers building on top of these great tools and engines on the PC.

A great example is the cell phone game market. You would think that these crappy games are ripe for independent developers. The problem is, that the carriers control the channel, so a lot of the larger mobile gaming companies (Mobliss, PopCap) have tight distribution deals. And good luck downloading and installing games on your phone directly from the Internet.

$600 for a video card was probably too much - let's face it. The thing is that even though the new consoles have the equivalent to 2 6800's, they've obviously figured out how to do this cheaper (they're not subsidizing it that much). This means that the card prices will come down on the PC as well. Also, the big difference in a $150 and a $400 gforce these days isn't about quality but resolution. They support the same quality at lower resolutions. Most consoles are hooked to 320x240 TV resolutions!

Your computer has to have a base video card to function (let's say $50), so your average gamer is adding $50-$100 to the cost of their machine for gaming. And saving the $50 yearly live charge, more limited game ecosystem, and the more expensive games.

I didn't have your same problems with HL2 (although crappy Steam is aptly named...) XBox also crashes, scratches DVDs, and was plagued by Live disconnects for a good while.

PC game prices have gone up BECAUSE of higher console game prices. Agreed that some games have huge production value and will cost more, but in general the upward trend is because of consoles and less piracy. Also, console game prices hold their value more vs. PC prices in my informal tracking.

"I'm more than happy to pay for the online walled garden, when it comes to gaming." I hope you don't regret saying this. I have way to much distrust in absolute control to belive this.

Finally, I totally agree that PC online services and voice comms suck. And I have no idea why they do so much. Gamespy tries to do player and game tracking, but I don't know why it wasn't more heavily adopted by game developers. And PC microphones/headsets are totally cheap enough to be bundled with a game. This doesn't seem like a console issue, just more of a complacency issue with PC developers.

Oh, the reason you don't worry about ping times in Live is that they don't show them and do massive interpolation and weapons spray to conteract it. PC's still handle the lag and sharp online gameplay better.

Technically, most consoles do only support 320 by 240, since most consoles consist of Playstation 1, and Super NES. However, the native resolution for all modern consoles, going back to the beloved Dreamcast, is 640 x 480. This is then converted to NTSC which is something close to 712 x 502 lines (interlaced).

I got lucky with my AMD64 gaming rig. I swapped by DOA Abit for an ASUS MB and I haven't had a single lockup through HL2 and Doom3. But I guess I just got lucky. Most of my gaming is done on Xbox Live now though. I pay for the "walled garden" for the same reason J pays for Tivo, it just works. Xbox Live today is very stable and works well. Xbox crashes happen, but once every few months for me. For me online play with friends is the ticket. Being able to find my friends across games, easily host or join games and voice communications is the value add I get for my $3.00 a month. The PC doesn't come close. My biggest grip has been resolution, and that is soon to be fixed.

Maybe what we should be doing is using the Xbox to sync up and talk while playing on the PC. Hmmm.

Pc gaming is very expensive compared to consoles. Consoles are more simply to work, but I LOVE PC GAMING. I love overclock's, I love upgrades... And the pc can do much more than play games. the pc is an Universal platform and the consoles doesn't come close. The PC gaming WILL NEVER go away. Now you tell me that this next generation of consoles are much more powerfull than any pc. I agree. But is a question of time.
Consoles: simplicity, price, (and now power)
PC: power, evolution, universal, and much more.

Yes I agree it is only a matter of time. The PC always manages to catch up and surpase the console. When Xbox came out the Nvidia graphics were ahead of the PC for a little more than a year at best. The PC caught up quick and zoomed past. Current consoles are only running 640 x 480. I'm running HL2 on my PC at 1600x1200 with far more graphics coolness than today's consoles can deliver at any resolution. But that power comes at a price (and we are not just talking about money).

Right... PC makers and makers of PC related hardware are all very interested in keeping PC gaming going. Games are the primary reason to upgrade PCs every couple of years, besides the obvious bloat in software that also pushes machine requirements up. I suppose illegal media downloads also drive a lot of the hard disk, CD/DVD burner and bandwidth sales too. No one needs a 300GB drive (or a 30GB iPod) to store songs purchased from iTunes.

Why should I spend 4000 on a gaming pc when I could spend 300 and build on for surfing/email and spend another 400 or 500 on a console and some goodies?

Lets not forget hardware upgrades every 18 months, I've had my console for 5 years. How much would it have cost me to keep a pc gamer current?

Very good points.

Except that it's more like $800 for a nice machine, not $4K.

That's true: I went a bit nuts last summer and built an entirely new top-end rig for less than $2k, and that includes an over-the-top video card which cost $600.

A duke Nukem Movie? I'd pay to see that.

I'm sure they'll release it when they're done.

You know, the developers of these things must just laugh and laugh when the product name is "duke nukem forever" or "the phantom console". There is a Doom Movie coming out August 5.

The good thing about the Doom movie is that it couldn't have any LESS plot than the game. It seems that they have at least established a floor for how dull they can get:

- player enters an empty room
- player scans every inch of room with flashlight
- player turns around to head back into the corridor
- 17 demons teleport in from hell and (what else?) attack from behind
- repeat for as long as you can stand it

We saw this movie today. The ambiance and feel of the movie was what I expected - like Sky Captain, but darker. The plot itself was more interesting that I thought it would be, but also much, much more violent. I can't remember the number of limbs chopped off in this movie. I should have figured when Tarantino was "Special Guest Director" that it would have some "stylized violence". In some ways this black and white violence thing has gone a bit too far - it's just too easy to have mass gore in a movie but call it artsy. I guess it got to the point of being campy in the end. John and I agreed this was more violent than Kill Bill; less violent than Blade 2.

The movie was definitely captivating and has 3 or 4 separate plotlines. I also liked the multiple independent heroes aspect. I like that they could squeeze so many characters into the movie, kill them off and still move the story along. Apparently there are plans to make more movies down the road with different characters from the comic book.

Seriously...no comments? Hands back on the keyboard!

It's good to see diversity in gaming, since hopefully that will broaden the market and make room for game developers that are interested in doing something more innovative than Madden 2009 or Halo 17.

I'm seriously tired of the same games:

FPS (Halo, Doom, Half Life):
- run around
- shoot everything
- pick up health and ammo

RPG (Neverwinter Nights, Diablo):
- walk around
- click on everything
- pick up stuff and arrange it in your backpack

Strategy (Age of Empires, WarCraft):
- make a bunch of units as fast as you can and swarm the enemy
- sometimes you can attack the chickens

This is why I was so excited to see stuff like Black & White, even if it falls short. At least they tried to do something different.

Anyways, back to Skull Stax.

I should note that adding XBox Live multiplayer totally changes whether a game is worth buying for me: it can be a very derivative game (Halo 2) or a type of game I'd never play solo (Midtown Madness)... just add XBox Live and it's much more fun. It's not just network play like you have on PCs, it's all about voice chat that is built into the XBox Live experience.

PC networking is all about finding some random server and hoping it isn't full of griefers and 14 year olds with cheat mods.

XBox Live is da shiznit.

Yes, yes I think it was taken in downtown Bellevue. A caption for this picture on the click-thru link indicates it was taken at PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) which is usually held at the Meydenbauer Center. Yay Bellevue!

We should go to this "PAX" this year...

Well, everyone could and probably should be donating more. The real crime, amongst all the truly horrible things going on right now, is the AIDS epidemic in Africa... see data.org for more details. It is going to wipe out a huge chunck of their working population which will in turn devastate their economy further. Extremism grows in countries where people have no hope...

Actually, Sarah MacLachlan is from Halifax, Nova Scotia. But as someone who also came from the east to live in the West, I can certainly understand why she would call Vancouver home now.

I saw Sarah play in my hometown, Hamilton, Ontario, back when she was just 18 years old: about 15 years ago. Her star was definitely rising at that time. I also saw her play at the (snicker) Lilith Fair in Vancouver back in 1999. It wasn't nearly as exhilirating to see her then, since her career and her musical ability had somewhat reached a plateau.

Oh, and she looks pretty hot in that video, eh?

If you're into bare feet and pink lips, then I'd say so! Yeah, I should have said "lives in Vancouver"

Seriously though, you would think the Secret Service would no better than to allow their email to travel over un-secure networks like T-Mobile.