ranger wrote:
I have to disagree about the new playmaker. The blue boxes are basically at the end of their useful lives. The game as we know it probably won;t survive long without reliable playmakers.
The most recent blue PM is very reliable, long battery life, quick response, etc.
The blue PM's have been around since either 1999 or 2000, and they've been a very stable tool. Sure, sometimes the batteries go bad, sometimes the antenna goes out, sometimes the keys go out. Just the same as any other piece of equipment. Now, factor in how many people use them, how many people treat them like crap, how many servers casually toss them into the chargers, how many people drop them on the floor, and I think you'll see just how reliable these blue boxes are.
Now, many locations do have bad PM's, but whose fault is that? A site sends in a bad PM, within 10 days a working PM arrives, pretty simple. And the same thing will happen regardless of how fancy a PM is.
Now, let's examine this proposed tablet PM. Will the battery go bad over time? Yep. Will the antenna go bad over time? Yep. If you drop one on the floor, what's going to happen? It's going to shatter, rending it useless. What happens when a blue box is dropped on the floor? Not a damn thing, it still works. If you left an iPad in a bar for others to use at their leisure, how long do you think it would be before it no longer worked?
And don't even get me started on how a tablet doesn't have a raised keypad for answering questions.
Quite simply, a tablet would be a regression over the current blue PM we use now as far as answering trivia question goes. And isn't that all we care about? Who gives a shit if we can access the internet with them? If I wanted to access the internet I'd stay home instead of going out to compete.
Lastly, the game won't survive without reliable PM's? Hell, right now there's 20 times the number of PM's out there than there are players. The problem isn't the PM's, it's getting people to play the games. Do you really think the west coast gives a shit currently if they can access the internet from their shiny new PM tablet?