The cable companies would just create a new, ultra-cheap Basic Basic tier consisting of the local broadcast channel plus the Discovery Channel, and move all the current basic channels to the new Basic Enhanced Basic Tier--which they would then encrypt, because otherwise people could pay for Basic Basic and get all the Basic Enhanced Basic channels for free, and that just wouldn't work at all, would it?

An exception to the rule is the Xbox 360 used as a DVD player and outputting to the TV over a VGA connection. In addition to upscaling the picture, the 360's GPU provides "free" 4x anti-aliasing, which is apparently too computationally expensive for most TVs and stand-alone upscaling players to provide. The result, frankly, is difficult to tell from true HD, except that the picture tends to have a slightly "softer" look--which, considering that motion picture film tends to have a soft look anyway, usually isn't what I would call a true disadvantage.

"Mascot & Sidekick 3: The Golden Rings of Coins"

Well, that would explain all the PS3s piling up unsold at Best Buy...

Oh, good! A trackpad that's useless to left-handed people. Just another of the many indignations my people have suffered over the years...

I purchased a similar device (for a lot less than $80) from Lik-Sang a few years ago for the original Xbox and stopped using it after one session of Halo 2. Even apart from the hassles trying to negotiate a keyboard and mouse in front of the living room TV, it's just not a satisfying experience--control feels too "floaty" and you can't execute the kind of quick 180-degree flick-turns you can on a PC FPS. For it to work well, the game developers would have to code for it specifically, the way PlayStation racing game makers used to accommodate the Namco NeGcon controller. I don't really see that happening.

I'm calling it: Duke Nukem Forever will never be released. Gaming trends, game engine technology, and gamer expectations are all advancing faster than DNF's glacial development team can keep up; as a result, every couple of years they scrap everything and start development over from scratch, which only puts them further behind.

Fortunately, the last person who cared about DNF died in a nursing home in 2004, so it's not like there's any real rush. Although I do feel kind of sorry for the editors of http://www.planetduke.com, which first went live on January 22, 2000 with a screenshot showing "a church level 3D Realms is currently working on for Duke Nukem Forever (DNF)." Imagine having to find enough news to keep that site going for 7 years.