Great site! I love it. Sadly this site is blocked where I work, so I haven't been able to comment... but hint hint, I'm "working" from home today... and yes, it's 9/25 for all those wondering.
I am able to subscribe to this via Google Reader so at least I get to keep up on the news, but can't see the videos and stuff like that.
Anyway, great site. Keep up the good work!

P.S. Why can't someone be a "fanman?" At least that rhymes...

Great site! I love it. Sadly this site is blocked where I work, so I
haven't been able to comment... but hint hint, I'm "working" from home
today... and yes, it's 9/25 for all those wondering.I am able to
subscribe to this via Google Reader so at least I get to keep up on
the news, but can't see the videos and stuff like that.Anyway, great
site. Keep up the good work!P.S. Why can't someone be a "fanman?"
At least that rhymes...

Great site! I love it. Sadly this site is blocked where I work, so I haven't been able to comment... but hint hint, I'm "working" from home today... and yes, it's 9/25 for all those wondering.
I am able to subscribe to this via Google Reader so at least I get to keep up on the news, but can't see the videos and stuff like that.
Anyway, great site. Keep up the good work!

P.S. Why can't someone be a "fanman?" At least that rhymes...

The biggest difference here is the infrastructure that MS has put in place for Live. Remember that MS controls and owns all the servers. If Live were to be free, then it would be up to the studios whether or not they will provide an online space for you to play. We'd also then have to find hosts and all that other stuff. It can become quite difficult. PC gamers have a bit different because there are people out there running servers for this kind of stuff. Will people be able to run Xbox 360 servers out there? I'm not sure about that.

Let's look at another game where the developers control the server - World of Warcraft. Last I heard, that wasn't free to play online. In fact, it ends up costing a whole lot more than Live would cost since you can only play a single game for that fee.

And don't forget about the Xbox Live Diamond program. www.xboxlivediamond.com
There's enough discounts there that you'll quickly make that $50 back in no time. Rent one (Game or movie) get one free from Hollywood Video, free sub with the purchase of another from Quiznos, etc...
And this program is free. It's totally worth it.

I have to agree with the developers here. I don't think reviewers should use price as an indicator for game reviews. Their job is to review games, not determine if the game has value. If the game is good, give it a good review, if it sucks, then give it a low score. It's not that hard. If reviewers want to talk about value, they definitely can, but there should be a separate score for value. No one seems to complain about WoW and it's price. You have to pay a $10+ monthly fee to play just that single game. To me, that's bad value. Reviewers need to stick to just reviewing games and not trying to make financial decisions for gamers.

Things I'd want changed:

1) Better (or more useful) predictive text
2) Ability to create and use custom profiles. Fix the stupid reminder sound bug (If switching to Vibrate, then switching back to Normal), the reminder sound is stuck on Vibrate. The editing of the profile doesn't have a choice for reminders on any of the profiles except for the Vibrate profile. I have a Dash, so I don't know if it's only a Dash problem or a WM6 problem. There is a hack out there to fix this: http://www.omnisoft.com/downloads/OMNISOFT_Dash_WM6_ReminderFix.CAB
3) When a voice mail comes in, ability to silence/stop the sound from continuing to play - When I had a 30 second sound playing when a voicemail came in, I couldn't stop it. This especially was bad when I was already on the phone.
3a) Ability to not play notification sound (reminders, voicemails, etc...) when actually talking on the phone.
4) Problems with synching Office files when editing them while your phone is connected to your PC. For some reason, if the phone is connected, you always receive a message when synchronization occurs that both files have been modified and you must choose which one to sync. If you disconnect the phone, edit the file on the PC (or the phone), then reconnect, there aren't any problems at all.
5) Not exactly a Windows Mobile 6 problem... but allow me to write my own apps using either one of the Visual Studio Express Versions (C# or Visual Basic) rather than me having to purchase the full retail version of Visual Studio.
6) Allow me to create folders in the start menu to organize my icons and programs, rather than having to scroll multiple pages of stuff, I could just do multiple clicks to get to what I want.
7) File Explorer should let me choose the default startup location rather than just My Documents.
8) When uninstalling programs, the icon for the just removed program should disappear from the recent programs list. Not just change to a default icon because the program can't be found. It should just be removed completely, or at least when you select it (Someone might want to see an icon just to know that the program was removed or that something happened to phone if a program was removed unintentionally), allow you to remove it from the list.

That's great that they're doing this. I can't stand this. Secondly, why don't they make an A/V Receiver/Amplifier that has a special button for a 20% (or any other arbitrary percentage) decrease in overall volume. We could even have it customizable. So instead of completely muting the commercials, we can just decrease their volume with a press of a button and bring it back up to our normal watching volume when the show is back on. I think that'd be a great feature and I'd buy it up in a heartbeat.

Sadly, manuals are a dying breed. I love manuals and always read them. But they seem to be getting worse. They tend to be badly written and rushed through because it seems that many think they need to have a manual to have a manual. Very few games come with good manuals these days - it's a sad thing.

I definitely like the in game tutorials because they are very helpful as actually playing with the controls is always good. Nothing really beats hands-on experience. But having and reading the manual helps prepare for that (as long as it's well written). Plus manuals to give insight to most of the other features in the game other than just the main gameplay.

Definitely being able to take thoughts from all groups of people would be the best way to go. Isn't that the way that all businesses and industries want it to be. We need to get a good cross section of all types of gamers in order to be able to bring new and fresh ideas to the gaming world. Miyamoto is right about innovating. I really think that through new ideas, the gaming industry can grow. We need to bring in non-traditional gamers. Although the industry is growing at a phenomenal rate, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are all clammoring to get into the non-gamer groups. It's billions of dollars just sitting there waiting to be spent, but no hardware or software producer has been able to grab it yet. I really feel that Nintendo is doing something right with the Revolution and that it is a pretty darn innovative piece of hardware. Yes, motion sensors are nothing new, but the way that it's implemented is going to be the difference. Remember that this stuff is straight out of the box and not a peripherial like every other time motion sensor hardware was made (as Gavin's post states). In order to make a game for the system, you're going to have to take advantage of it. I like what Nintendo has also done with the DS. Nintendo really is doing a good job with applying existing technologies and tweaking them towards to gaming industry. Innovation is the way to go. Rehashing titles is fine and good, but there really have been way too many of them out there. It's time to bring something new to the industry.