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I'm sorry to just post something verbatim from the site but this had me rolling on the floor:

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=6&cId=3 152506

For: A Joystick Under a Napkin
From: STD
Appeared in: EGM, September 1994

Of course I'm prepared. I covered my joystick with a napkin to protect it from lightning strikes weeks ago. The imagery here doesn't capture the excitement of one-on-one fighting games so much as it looks like someone trying to hide an embarrassing erection at a restaurant.

Sony is famously hands off when it comes to censorship. Nintendo is notoriously horrible for it. While that may not matter to someone who would just as soon play games with abstract geometic shapes, there is a sizable market that has developed for, at the risk of loading the argument, "richer" content.

as the playstation era dawned, vic was hoping to do some games for sony's new system. sony, however, had its infamous anti-RPG/anti-2D rules at the beginning, so WD gravitated toward the saturn.

I'm looking forward to Portal and Spore:

Portal Info - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_(Valve_Softwar e)
Portal Preview - http://pc.ign.com/articles/718/718911p1.html

Spore Info - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spore_(video_game)
Spore Preview - http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3138792&did= 1

Side note, the wizard is due on dvd toward the end of august.

http://1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3150998

AC was demoed on a 360 dev with a modded PS3 controller. I never heard anything about it being demoed on a PS3. That's where this rumor got its teeth and why everyone in the world is making such a bold claim.

I've copied most of Square Enix's request, but skipped over the most important part! Go re-read the article. At the very least, scan or search for "The following areas are embargoed until the corresponding dates:". The text below that is white-on-white to prevent spoilers, so in some web browsers you'll have to select the text to see it. The key point is that information about specific areas in the game is "embargoed" until a set of seven different dates, all of which are before the game's release. While much of the request is legit, the embargo list isn't about spoilers. This is about waiting so that Square Enix can announce it themselves (presumably on their web site). This is about yielding to Square Enix's marketing effort. That's the point where Square Enix crossed the line. Asking journalists to help them with their marketing is inappropriate.

"Hey, a power up. OW DAMN HELL,"

.er

There's more than these gaming factors that's going to contribute to how Sony places. The HDDVD market will influence this as well. One of the primary functions Sony seems to have planned for the PS3 is market penetration for its Blue-Ray player. They've sacraficed things like cheap price and possibly even earlier release to include the Blue-Ray player. If the HD format war doesn't flop out; it could become an important factor as those who what HD have to decide if the PS3 with Blue Ray or Microsoft with an accessory HD DVD (or internal HD DVD for the 360 if you think like Toshiba: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3151889) This have anywhere from a huge to an insignificant effect on what the Console war. It really is more of a Great Home Entertainment War rather than a format war and a console war; they are well intertwined.

Or atleast, they will be. I speculate that the Format side of the GHE War will slog along in a prolonged sitzkrieg for a year or even more before it starts to pick up as more consumers finally migrate (slowly) along to HD. With the sitzkrieg on the format front, Sony's Blue Ray justification for its price will languish; costing it valuable ground against Microsoft's established console (which I might mention consumers may enjoy not having HD DVD costing them up front when they don't need it yet; they can upgrade on their own terms, possibly cheaper than buying Blue ray before they need it.) Once the Format front picks up, the Console side will invigorate to as Sony's console will likely have come down atleast some, becoming a more economic competitor. That's the Great Home Entertainment War solved for X in terms of Y.

But, as I said, you can only solve for X in terms of Y and vice versa. It's really anybodies guess what the effect Blue Ray and HD DVD will have. Then their is the Z factor...Nintendo. But, I've already talked about what possibilities Nintendo can have, both on consoles and on HD Formats http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=188332&cid=155 24741

Clearly, the author has never heard of this gem from Japan. You drive an ambulance around hitting zombies.

FUN!

New York's District Attorney is looking for information covering a number of issues, including knowledge of company officers and directors regarding the Hot Coffee's development and subsequent failure to remove from the shipped game; the game's submission to the ESRB and any admissions to Hot Coffee (or lack thereof, really); disclosures and presentations of acquisitions, partnering arrangements and earnings results; invoices from, payments to, and termination of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and retention of Ernst & Young LLP; acquisitions in 2005; certain compensation and human resources documents; and documents concerning the board of directors and committees.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3151546

Episode 2 is NOT DELAYED. It's idiotic to get your panties in a twist over something in a magazine or game site unless it's actually a quote from Valve. Especially dates.

Who the HELL wrote this story?

Of course no one contacted Valve about this as they said today that the game is still on track for a Holiday 2006 released according to 1up.
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3151546

If you still have the art files for Transport Tycoon, check out openttd.org. Very fun, with rules expansions, patches, bugfixes, and (yes) cheats.

Many people think it's more fun than Sawyer's own followup Locomotion. And you can't beat the price or the platform availability (Win32, Linux, OS X, MorphOS)..

(just wish there were a Symbian or Palm version ;)

1. There are existing court rulings (U.S. Circuit Courts) asserting that violence is not the same as sex and is therefore cannot be used to classigy something as obscene. This runs counter to the "structure" of the law in question.
2. Forum posts carry little or no weight on this issue. Only real letters to the gov in question will do so. Those *dont'* have to come from local voters. Perhaps companies that won't want to do business in the state will want to as well.

I may agree with a lot of what Nadia's written, but I think the final page has the most unfortunate linking of titles and graphics around.

"A well-developed game will live for years." next to a picture of KOTOR 2, a game derided as being rushed to market (rather than being allowed to percolate to perfection), complete with locked-up content showing off the mostly-unfinished proper ending. At least Halo 2 had most of the bugs fixed before the "SEE YOU IN HALO 3" ending flashed up, while Kotor2 would often leave gamers stuck in the floor.

I'd argue that KOTOR2 is a textbook example of how to kill a good game release. KOTOR1 didn't seem to suffer for its April/May release time frame, yet the publisher of KOTOR2 demanded a holiday release. And release they did -- a turd!

It may not be the best thing to say, but I find that it will most likely be true when David Reeves, the SCEE CEO said: "We have built up a certain brand equity over time since the launch of PlayStation in 1995 and PS2 in 2000 that the first five million are going to buy it, whatever it is, even it didn't have games".

Apparently, the justification for this is coming from Sega VP, Scott Steinberg. He believes that the Wii will launch at under $200 due to its far simpler hardware in comparison to the competition.

Nintendo has always had a profit on all the consoles they've sold.

I don't see why Nintendo couldn't sell at $200 and still make profit. My understanding is that the core hardware isn't that much different from the Gamecube. Sure, they might lose short term profits that they could have had, but it would be worth it if they could pull a Sony on Sony themselves!

1. The Atari 2600's price point included a profit for each console sold. Profit for Atari, and a higher margin for the retailer as well.
   
2. The 2600 sold rather slowly until the Space Invaders cartridge was released in 1980. So slowly, in fact, that parent company Warner Communications nearly pulled the plug on the unit.
   

Say what?

There are lots of games coming out for the Wii.

And just because big third parties aren't frothing at the mouth doesn't mean anything. I'm FAR more interested in titles like Sadness. These less-known developers are going to take risks that you won't see any big third party developer take.

... which claims: "Kutaragi said that that the PS3 will require a hard drive, which will have a 60 GB capacity and support Linux OS."

- Kutaragi at the earlier PS3 Conference Report

... which says: "He [Kutaragi] did offer some tantalizing new details about the system, though. PS3 will include a 60GB hard drive (which is upgradeable) with Linux preinstalled."

It would appear then that things aren't all that bleak. Maybe IBM had an influence this time around, as they would love to see the Cell succeed, and perhaps forced Sony to open up a bit.

Nintendo's "job" now is to keep everyone honest. They're the voice that the industry needs.They're the conscience, and the guy at the back of the room reminding everyone why we got into this stuff in the first place.

This week's 1up show also has a new Spore clip with some Will Wright commentary.

TN: The PS3 tech demo was actually not the perfect forum that he wanted to have. It was just timing that we had to submit something in time for E3, for the press conference. So, again, it was not perfect forum. And the 7 remake idea was always, always in conversation, just because it's so popular. And then just because of that tech demo here in the PS3 conference, that probably based more expectations of fans, obviously. And Kitase-san already has told Nomura-san so many times that if there is a remake, that should be created by Nomura. But, again, Nomura-san has so many other projects lined up already in the future schedule, so it's almost impossible to think about that and squeeze that in. But if there is a right time, it would be interesting to create.

not quite confirmed eh?

Given that the poll shows only an 8% difference between the Xbox360 and the PS3, those 14% of gamers could very easily tilt the most-popular-console-o-meter in either direction. Of course, I'm holding out for the PS3 since I'm one of those 36%. I'm also not even a serious gamer. For me, it's a cheap Blu-ray player and with confirmed rumors of a FFVII remake I'm pretty much sold. Throw in to that the fact that it will run linux and what more do you need? It'll be interesting to look back on these numbers once the HD format wars are over and see just how much impact that 36% of die-hard fans had on the format that won.

"The 360 has sold a miserable 1.7 million consoles in its first six months on the market."

It has shipped 3.2 million. You're telling me almost half of that stock is unsold at retailers?

Umm, you do know that the Nintendo On video was a cleverly designed fake, right?

Second Life allows children to easily access their system through cell phone authorization, which many children have and most have access to. I have seen many of them openly admit that they are less than 18 years old.

Second Life is full of BSDM, fetishes, fully equipped furries, bestiality, prostitution, etc. Sooner or later, some parent is going to walk in and find their 14 year old playing a game where he has a gag ball in his mouth, getting gang raped by a bunch of male furries, for the equivalent of $3.

Full nudity is common even in PG areas. It would hard to argue that children haven't been exposed to these things. So even if the child avatars aren't problem directly, they promote a behavior that will sooner or later escalate in real life. By allowing this activity, sooner or later people start to think "it must be okay".

http://www.archive.org/ has plenty of music and video to fill your hard disk with.

One might argue that http://www.animemusicvideos.org/ is piracy, but they haven't been shut down by the RIAA yet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_of_the_Underdogs may or may not be down currently, but only over a domain name problem. http://www.the-underdogs.info/ seems to work at the moment.

http://digihosters.com/~cdosorg/ more.

...though the requisite agencies are perfectly capable of shutting down abandonware sites regarding piracy.

http://www.rockstargames.com/classics/ Rockstar makes available older games for free.

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3148013&did=1 101 best free games.

A couple of gaming websites posted some details on the Metroid demo from this event (along with some other games they had there). 1UP, for instance, gives a brief breakdown of the controls. IGN elaborated with some speculation on how they imagine the controls will work based on the demo.

In any case, the scheme that was demoed for the presentation involved using the wand for looking, aiming and shooting, while the nunchuck attachment was used for movement. However, Red Steel seems to incorporate a few more ideas.

i was kinda confused when i started out reading the second page of the article.

try this.

Just wait until your dentist get the toothbrushing game for Revolution! :-D

Just peeked over at amazon, and found this link to the game, by Vivendi.

No mention about the other games on that listing though... the only thing I could find about them on google was this old 1Up blog review

I don't know what "thacherous" means, but it's worth pointing out here that PS3 is going to come with Linux installed, with the idea that it'll be a great platform for video editing and such.

Apparently not everyone at Sony has gone over to the dark side....

The grandparent was referring to the final devkits, which are probably going out in May/June. This was fairly widely reported in the gaming media. Here's just one example story.

I'm not sure how different the current devkits are from the final PS3 hardware, but it could potentially lead to some serious development work still to come. If nothing else the more elite devs will want to take at least a few months to get better performance/graphics out of their game using the presumably superior performance of the final kits. A good example of this is Rare's X360 launch title Kameo: Rare added self-shadowing to all of the characters within the last two months or so of development, and it really improved the (already beautiful) graphics.

Maybe, but I'm upset that as of 2006 I can't "jack into the Matrix".

It doesn't matter if it doesn't turn up for till Summer 2007... This is the Next PlayStation, a brand that transformed the face of gaming, turned it in to the multi billion dollar industry it is today and the successor to a console that has shipped over 100 million units worldwide. That's nothing to sneeze at.

So Sony has some problems with their Blu-Ray drive. At least they are delivering a true Next Gen system, unlike MS who have effectively delivered a bucket load of graphical updates to old games to what is in all honestly just an upgraded Xbox (and that's being generous, it can't even play old games out of the box without downloading profiles from Xbox Live).

according to 1UP.com:

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3148775

If this is anything to go by, youre wrong. http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3148775

Sony has created the Playstation 3 (PS3), not as a game machine, but as a vessel to float the company into new lands. They are burdening the system with a new movie format (BluRay) unheard of levels of digital rights management for music and video, Memory Sticks and more.

The results are already starting to show. A year ago, Sony promised to launch the PS3 in Spring 2006. Instead, they waited till Spring 2006 to announce that they won't be launching the system until November 2006, in Japan , with other regions perhaps as soon as Spring 2007. Why? Digital Rights Management issues with the upcoming BluRay format.

The other divisions of Sony are dragging the PS3 down. The Playstation Portable (PSP) suffers from the same illness; too many hands in the basket. The PSP was designed around a slow-loading UMD format for distribution of movies which makes the machine less than ideal for game playing. Compared to ROM cartridges, UMDs are too slow loading and consume too much battery time. They make the machine more fragile and introduce problems with additional moving parts. In short, they are a sacrifice to the movie industry arm of Sony; giving up on the optimal game experience for the opportunity to sell you movies you probably already own on DVD.

The delays brought about by making compromises to the core functions of the system will put a great strain on Sony. Currently, their ark is full of holes and loaded with baggage. The flood waters rise. How many gamers will wait until this time next year in order to pick up a PS3 when Xbox 360 games are available today and are getting excellent review scores? How many will pass up the Revolution this holiday season when it is affordable and fun? How high will the waters rise before Sony can launch the ark?

Will it float?

More can be found here: Kamalot Blog

oh yeah, the comic was referring to this interview:

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3147131&did=1

According to http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3148295 they are having production problems with the other colors. No real details, but 1-up certainly is making it sound like the end of the world.

Show me the data. As it stands, I know just as many people who own a Gamecube as a PS2, and I only know one guy who has an X-Box. Anecdotal?

Here's the data as of Jan 2004:

PS2 = 70 million sold
Xbox = 10 million sold
GCN = 10 million sold

By November of 2005, PS2 had reached 100 million units shipped.

I doubt that Xbox has caught up since in the meantime. I severely doubt that GCN has, given that e.g. here in the UK, you virtually can't even buy a GCN in a shop any more.

HTH.

I see a lot of comparisons between the 360 launch and the PS2 launch. If you do some searching on Slashdot and Google, you can find several articles that talk about some of the general PS2 launch issues and the hardware problems the console had.

Should Microsoft had learned from Sony's mistakes? Sure. Unfortunately, it's repeated a lot of the same problems: 1) Supply doesn't meet demand, 2) Lack of a killer launch title, 3) Hardware problems. (Actually, I think a lot of the 3rd issue could be solved with better messaging to buyers. Don't put the power brick in an enclosed space! Don't put your 360 on top of your already-warm TV! Otherwise, these same folks are going to have the same problem with the PS3 and Revolution)

Anyway, so the 360 launch has the same issues as the PS2 launch. Yet we know how the PS2 ultimately dominated this console generation, so they are definately not insurmountable problems. Anyone (including the media), who is already forecasting doom and gloom for the system needs to be realistic. The real battle is going to be months from now, when the other consoles are released. The key for the 360 is going to be how the next round of games do (Gears of War, Oblivion, etc.), and winning those GTA3-level exclusives.

You guys are welcome for the video. I spent 2 hours converting the video, and posting it on You Tube. I also spent a considerable amount of time writing up the blog that that I LINKED MY VIDEO TO. You guy's can use the video, just give the original poster of the video(me) and the writer of the blog which broke the the news of the video(me) some credit. By the way, I am going to update my blog tonight, at around 8 to 10 pm, I will be posting new videos of newscast trashing video games(comparing them to porn etc..) Most of these videos are between 1 and 3 months old, but I wanted to post them as part of my blog on the way the news media twist the facts and give half-truth's about video games. These video's are interesting to say the least. Here's the link to my, blog, which originally posted the video. http://www.1up.com/do/my1Up?publicUserId=5713859 Thank you.

Nope, besides being lighter and better-engineered (the lid closes shut firmly rather than smacking up against the main unit like the classic DS), the screen also has four levels of brightness and has, as far as hands-on reports are saying, much better color. Try here for the brightness and here for the color.. And here for a hands-on in-store. Battery life is also rumored to be better.

I like my classic DS, but there's no denying it was a bit of a rush job from the development model seen at E3 2004 to what hit the shelves that November.

Follow the trends: MMOs are the new golf. Sure, there are people who will log in and actually want to play, and in time they'll be viewed with the same cocked eyebrows and muttered, gentle admonishment about 'some people having too much time on their hands.' The majority of the people will log in because the course is well-groomed and the clubhouse is nicely appointed, er, the screen-candy is choice and the sounds make the most of the user's tricked-out dolby 7.1.

Why Star Trek? It's the Old School of SF/Fantasy Universes. The guys who followed along with TOS -- and even TNG -- are the captains of industry now. It's a natural.

How long before all those empty inn rooms in EQ start filling up with virtual conventioneers? Hmmm?

There is this rumor: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3146578.

If they are launching this November, it might make the Zelda game a lauch title of sorts. Maybe its a strategic move as much as it is a move to polish the part. Naturally, this is all crazy speculation on my part.

In my day, the Atari 2600 was $200 new and Pac-Man, E.T., Haunted House, Adventure (what todays kids call the duck game http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3137498&did=1) were $50 and that's 1980 dollars where video games were 25 cents and could last all day if you were good enough.

Intellivision and Colecovision were in the upper $100 to $200 and those games were $30 to $50.

I seem to remember that is was SNES, Genesis where the ames broke the $60 mark but they also warrant that in terms of artistic quality at least.
Mortal Kombat was worth the price for SNES as it was the a game that was close to identical to the arcade version.

No matter what, $350 is alot of money for a game console that doesn't include a game (or maybe it does) and $700 is way too much for a bundle but I understand the marketing angle as there are some families that will buy it.

If I were to buy a console today, Nintendo has my vote as $200 is a price that is a lot easier to part with for some mindless entertainment.

This story was on Fark yesterday. I mean, come on....
Fark links the story on ExtremeTech by the same author:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1922776 ,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532

and TheGrapeApe is using the 1Up link:

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3147826

They're the same exact story.

I have an idea: to make /.'s editors' lives easier, why don't you just use a crawler and every hour, you copy one of the Fark/Joystiq/Kotaku/Gizmodo/Engadget links? That way, you still have some 'news', and they might actually be a little less behind.