Zoraptor

Would have been an... interesting guess, a year ago.

Dead Space is good, assuming a 3rd person System Shock/ Doom3 hybrid appeals and a relatively unresponsive (for PC, it's much like playing on a console, really) control scheme isn't a drawback. It's a game people tend to either love or hate- don't get if you hate advanced monster closets/ FEAR style railroading, though.

Actually it can be interpreted in a number of ways, the most likely of which is that Obsidz cannot comment because the release date is Sega's purview and, at this time, Sega does not not have a concrete release date and does not want to make any comment until it does have one. A release towards the end of October still seems most likely, in my most humble opinion, as the game must be very close to complete- it has after all been rated/classified for some time in a number of countries (late July in the UK and Aus, for example and IIRC; and if you want some :tinfoil: the latest twitters could refer to submitting a gold master/ release candidate, which would gel with a late October release). Online retailers make release estimates all the time- at one stage, and not that long ago, a local online retailer had DAO, AP, Ego Draconis, Bioshock2, MW2, Risen and about a dozen other games all coming out on September 30th.

Shouldn't be. Its rating are generally 16+ (MA15 in Australia, perhaps the most retentive rating system in the world at present) so nobody seems to have much trouble with it.

I'm now vaguely embarrassed, as it seems likely potere came from me. It's modern Italian, and is only occasionally used in dog Latin. Possum/ posse is correct. I suspect something like "qua nemo insisto posse" is what is being looked for. I haven't done latin for ten years and it's near 1 am, so take with salt.

The SCEA comments as listed in the leaked alleged minutes (ie too hard, not enough RPG for an RPG) would not usually be cause for lack of certification, so far as I am aware- bugs, poor performance, poor performance relative to 360 or perhaps even OMG teh sex!!! might potentially be. Having said that, certification issues would explain an eight month delay and lack of any comment rather well, as they'd no doubt be trying to sort things out quietly behinds the scenes.

Don't hold out any hopes for Oct 6th, the game would have to have been gold for a week to make that date. Sega US is in very poor shape, though the Japanese parent is still ok.

IIRC that was the SCEA person (ie Sony, not Sega). Sega should have a producer on AP, so ought to have a very good idea of what's in there.

MS' figure was 1.6m copies shipped, in the first six weeks. They don't make anything like $60 revenue a copy- basic, and approximate breakdown $60 - retailer cut ->~$30 - licensor (console manufacturer) cut ->~$20 revenue shared in some manner between publisher and developer. There's also publisher cuts if you're working for a third party publisher (MS in this case) which depends on the contract- as I understand it, the publisher may take a near 100% cut until it has recovered its costs/ minimal sales target has been met, though this is less likely in this case as Bioware had a fair bit of clout itself and MS really wanted ME for the 360. Typical costs for a genuinely AAA title start at around $20 million, plus more if it's marketed extensively, generally borne primarily by the publisher. Something like GTA4 supposedly cost more than $100 million, though ME would not have been near that league, cost wise. Basic estimate is that for a AAA game which sells 2 million copies there's roughly $20 million in profit to distribute. OTOH Bioware would likely have been paid up front by MS during development and for platform exclusivity, so would not have been that dependent on sales numbers, though this does not particularly help EA's value as it would have (presumably) been received prior to its bioware purchase. NB. I'd stress again, the figures used are ballpark and approximate and will vary with title/ developer/ publisher and contract; don't take them as having any absolute truth or accuracy.

I suppose 'can' could also be intended as 'canis' (dog), though how that would fit in context... I think that might be reading a bit too much into it- the motto isn't 'proper' latin as 'can' doesn't exist in latin, so making an assignation of tense or person based on proper latin construction is a bit... tenuous, even if correct linguistically. It might even be meant as a noun (~journey) rather than a verb. It would be helpful if we knew what the first word(s) in the motto are. I suspect the motto is intended as something similar to Terry Pratchett's latin mottos (nil illigitimo carborundum, non temeris messor, candela est ars enixa, etcetera) ie not 'properly' latinate but a bit of a "don't fear the reaper", haha, type thing.

At a guess, can should be possum/ potere ( =able to/ can in english), giving "[something] Can Not be stopped". It ain't great latin, in any case.

So far as I can see the possibilities are: 1) It actually isn't delayed and the release date change is due to ??? (eg rumour cascade everyone assumes [site] has the good oil and changes date when in fact [site] made a 06/10 -- 10/06 type typo, or just added a placeholder)- Moderately likely, especially as some very major sites still list an October release. If Sega's silence stretches into the new week then (2) becomes more likely. 2) It is delayed due to one or more of: bugs, content additions, missed release window, concern with competition, unavailability of fabrication plants, strategic financial reasons, ie generally 'internal' reasons. 2a) It is delayed due to console certification or other 'rating' issues 3) It is being canceled (highly unlikely), onsold (may be possible, though it seems unlikely, Sega US does have some fairly major financial problems though) or entering an Aliens: Colonial Marines type holding pattern (hopefully not and seems unlikely) Basically it's all speculation at this stage. But certainly, and importantly, a cancellation seems very unlikely. I'd personally be very surprised at an eight month delay as well.

Heh, I trawl TESS frequently, so I know who has the registration. I was thinking of the clause thing, basically, whereby if Sega failed to live up to its obligations the IP would revert (or have the option to be bought out by another publisher). It certainly isn't unheard of for companies to have TMs of properties registered that they don't own in any absolute sense, see Baldur's Gate for an example-- it clearly says on the box that WOTC owns the TM, but check on TESS and you get it being owned by IPLY and Bioware at various times, and only now that the legal shenanigans have been sorted is it actually listed as held by WOTC.

Why? It just seems rather convenient to say so, especially given that it supports your position. I'm not an expert on how to run a corporation by any means, so if you could explain it that'd be awesome. Especially given he was buying stuff he had a stake in, and given that average joe gamer can go "Hmmm, that looks fishy," it's seems rather suspect to then assume that the fat cats at EA wouldn't also think the same thing, especially given that it's THEIR money. You're going to have to do better than say that it's rare for a CEO that was raided to have his first deal turned down. Besides, I'm not privy to what deals Riccietello has suggested, so I couldn't even definitively state that this was his first one. I'm not by any means an expert on how to run corporations. However, if you hire an expert in any field you usually do so to take his advice, not to ignore it. It's pretty much the same situation, if you bring in a CEO to fix your company and he says 'do this' then you will, by and large do exactly that, especially if he's new in the job. Else what's the point of hiring them in the first place? Plus you'd end up with a (potentially) very annoyed new employee if you ignore them.

If Riccitiello had sold to EA for less than the 300$m originally paid he would likely have been sued, not less than it was actually sold for- in the Extreme case, selling from one company he was running to the one he was leaving for for, say, $5 and a stick of gum would almost certainly be outright fraudulent. That's what I was talking about, there was never suggestion that it would be resold for less than was paid for it. It's also rather rare to headhunt a new CEO then turn down the first deal he suggests, especially in the time before the financial crisis- I'd suspect that if he suggested similar now/ was hired now it would be looked at a lot more closely. As it stands, the doubling of the valuation appears to be almost solely on the back of TOR- else you're spending top dollar for a studio releasing one decently profitable AAA title every 18 months to two years. While TOR's a decent bet for success (and WoW like numbers would theoretically mean $1bn profit/yr to share) the market is littered with the corpses and or barely animated zombies of failed MMO 'decent bets', which cost huge amounts to develop too- far more than any standard game which doesn't have 'Grand Theft' or similar in its title.

Both those buyouts were by the same person though- John Riccitiello- just wearing different hats. He's hardly going to sell (himself, effectively) Bioware for less than he paid for it originally, if for no other reason than he'd get sued by Elevation Partners if he did so. Bioware is overvalued as it stands- you can, after all, work out their income streams roughly from their sales and compare that to other companies'. The big question being how SWTOR performs, if it's a genuine WoW killer then 750mUSD for Bioware alone would be a steal.

If it is an October 6th release we ought to get a gold announcement soon- that's only a little more than two weeks away.

I haven't followed Beth's history, but I know they've previously sued to kill the P&P version of Fallout (authorised by iply prior to selling the IP to Zenimax), threatened to sue replacement docs for carrying their games' manuals and threatened abandonware sites for carrying their old games. Not that they aren't necessarily justified- the replacement docs and abandonware ones are certainly well within their rights- but they are pretty litigious for their size.

If you're having performance problems then turn it off- it has a far larger effect on frame rate than is really justified, especially on lower end systems.

Strangely, those were the two things I thought were worst about ME. Though to be fair I thought the gameplay wasn't really bad per se- just tending towards formulaic and repetitive. OTOH I thought the atmosphere and immersion was borderline awful.

Clarifying, really, with a drop of disagreement Heh. Not that I disagree in a general sense but... In this case it wasn't actually the communists doing that. It was the standard-moderate-left-wing concensus-don't-rock-the-boat guy (Largo Caballero) who instigated the unofficial embargoes against the anarchists really early on in things, prior to his removal by the commies.

He only specifically mentions two industries- agriculture and woodworking- and the efficiency of woodworking increased too. That's certainly industrial (specifically he mentions the closing of lots of small workshops in favour of larger ones with more modern equipment). He also says that drops in industrial output were generally related to shortage of raw materials/ money, collapse of domestic demand, unofficial embargoes including by the Republican government itself (he cites the example of them giving uniform contracts overseas rather than to anarchist run textile factories), the Fascists gaining control of the Pyrenees' dams and thus most of Catalunya's electricity, and having a large proportion of workers fighting at the front or otherwise involved in war industries. OTOH Beevor does seem rather an Orwell fan, and he certainly had a strong admiration for the Anarchists- so there might be some bias at work. Overall though, he's fairly convincing. Kind of. More like a village than a family though (in the most 'advanced' forms there were far more people per group than we'd think of as 'family').

This is very arguable- most 'primitive' human groups had broadly patriarchal and authoritarian systems with no concept of individual property. Accepted, it isn't human nature now. That's incorrect, the anarcho-syndicalists actually increased production despite the war, despite the implosion of almost all other industries, and despite the outright animosity of the communists and others within Republican Spain (since I had Beevor 2m away you even get a ref: Josep Maria Bracall "Les collectivizatcions" in Anna Salles (ed.) Documents 1931-39).

Sadly, that's the best 'broadband' available here- theoretically it is actually a 3.2mbps connection...