Actually I *do* work in supply chain and inventory management. The price of a $60 game is generally in the high $40s to low $50s.

So no, the margins on new game sales are very, very low.

It would be smaller than a regular DVD for sure - if you've taken a look at the structure of an Xbox game disc, there is TONS of duplicated data - mostly so that your load times aren't so long (data that is loaded together is kept together).

So I'm thinking maybe 6-7GB... reasonable, I'd do it for like $40 or something, if it's as big as another game.

That doesn't make sense. When you see a 5-star movie review in the paper, do you believe the movie is perfect? Of course not, it simply means that it's so good that it's a must-see.

Or restaurants - does a star rating mean the food can't be improved in any way whatsoever? Of course not.

Same with games. A 10/10 simply implies an experience so satisfying no serious gamer should deny themselves the chance to play it.

This doesn't mean squat for "sophistication" of the average gamer. Orange Box, Bioshock, and Ratchet all had *massive, MASSIVE* ad campaigns for it. This is more a proof of the power of good marketing than it is proof that gamers are becoming better in their game choices.

Brian: You are crazier than me, then. My Toshiba was a hunk of junk. Way too big, way too heavy, the fan was louder than a jet engine taking off, wireless reception was crap... It was easily the worst laptop I've ever spent money on.

So much happier with the MacBook Pro now... I'd take a Lenovo too... Anything but Toshiba.

If you don't mind going through the command line, rdesktop is a full-featured client also, free and open source. Sorry MS, I've switched and not switching back.

Joeshie: Actually Hellgate's grinding isn't nearly as tedious as other games, including WoW. I play the Marksman class (or at least I used to...) and the fact that I have to AIM at my enemies automatically takes away the tedium. Clicking on an enemy and waiting for the virtual dice to roll is tedious.

That being said I really do wish they spent the effort to put in a real story...

If matchmaking is as good as Halo 3 and COD4, I'm sold.

And I want to see a damned war this time, not set piece battle after set piece battle. I swear, Epic is becoming like id - purveyor of fine game engines and brainless shooters.

UT was an awesome game (and even UT2004 is still a lot of fun), but IMHO time has long since passed it by. We've invented Counter-Strike, Halo, COD4, TF2, and a whole host of FAR better multiplayer games (with more teamwork, better balanced weapons, etc.) since the first UT came out.

And without mod support, I just don't see myself being very interested at all, especially since UT games often demand insane accuracy for many of its weapons, and I just won't be doing that on a controller.

I feel bad for this guy. Apple is notorious for their punishment of leaks, both internal and external. If this is true, he will no doubt be punished, maybe even lose his job.