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Of course, it's harder to "acquire" rom images, now that Mame.dk is not allowing downloads. It was bound to happen; it's still a shame it did.

With that thought, here are some of my biggest disappointments (in no particular order):

1. Unreal Tournament 2003 : I played the original UT from the day it came out, up to the day the UT2003 demo (actually the leaked alpha) was released. I actually bought a new computer to play UT2003. I can't even tell you how disapointed I was by UT2003. The biggest reason is it seemed like Quake2003 and didn't have the feel of Unreal or Unreal Tournament. On top of that, the weapons were weaker than the ones in UT. The great thing in UT was all the weapons were useful, and most of them were top tier. Lastly, the characters seemed to be so much smaller than the original UT (no, it's not my monitor resolution either).

2. Ultima 8 , "pagan". After playing Ultima 1-5 and loving them I took some time off (ie the time between me having an Apple II and an a PC) and came back to playing computer games. The first PC based RPG I bought was "Pagan". It came on 8 disks ( I guess to match the sequel number...), and didn't run on my PC even though my PC fit the specs. After a few calls to Origin didn't help I gave up. A few days later I took it to a friends house and played on her PC. Then I realized the game sucked anyway and I wasn't missing much. It's funny how game companies can turns classics into crap after a few too many sequels.

3. Super Mario Brothers 2 - Way too easy, and too different in a craptacular way than the first one. Nintendo hit a home run with SMB3 though.

4. Wargods - From Midway, one of my favorite gaming companies came this crap. Sure, it looked really cool but trying to get off a 15 button fatality in 2 seconds was no fun. Never mind the complexity/sillyness of the combos. Ugg.

5. Mortal Kombat 3, 4, 5 - While I'm on the midway kick, Mortal Kombat has sucked for a long time now. It's downfall was trying to emulate the killer instinct dial-a-combos and putting in a run button in MK3 (which was correctly colored yellow...the CHEESE button). 4 was pretty bad, and 5 was aweful. This is a shame because 1 and 2 were both very good IMO.

6. Street Fighter Alpha 1 - chain combos..Ugg. Capcom much like Nintendo followed this up with a great game in SFA2. Maybe the mark of a good game company is to fix their own crap when they screw up a sequel.

With that thought, here are some of my biggest disappointments (in no particular order):

1. Unreal Tournament 2003 : I played the original UT from the day it came out, up to the day the UT2003 demo (actually the leaked alpha) was released. I actually bought a new computer to play UT2003. I can't even tell you how disapointed I was by UT2003. The biggest reason is it seemed like Quake2003 and didn't have the feel of Unreal or Unreal Tournament. On top of that, the weapons were weaker than the ones in UT. The great thing in UT was all the weapons were useful, and most of them were top tier. Lastly, the characters seemed to be so much smaller than the original UT (no, it's not my monitor resolution either).

2. Ultima 8 , "pagan". After playing Ultima 1-5 and loving them I took some time off (ie the time between me having an Apple II and an a PC) and came back to playing computer games. The first PC based RPG I bought was "Pagan". It came on 8 disks ( I guess to match the sequel number...), and didn't run on my PC even though my PC fit the specs. After a few calls to Origin didn't help I gave up. A few days later I took it to a friends house and played on her PC. Then I realized the game sucked anyway and I wasn't missing much. It's funny how game companies can turns classics into crap after a few too many sequels.

3. Super Mario Brothers 2 - Way too easy, and too different in a craptacular way than the first one. Nintendo hit a home run with SMB3 though.

4. Wargods - From Midway, one of my favorite gaming companies came this crap. Sure, it looked really cool but trying to get off a 15 button fatality in 2 seconds was no fun. Never mind the complexity/sillyness of the combos. Ugg.

5. Mortal Kombat 3, 4, 5 - While I'm on the midway kick, Mortal Kombat has sucked for a long time now. It's downfall was trying to emulate the killer instinct dial-a-combos and putting in a run button in MK3 (which was correctly colored yellow...the CHEESE button). 4 was pretty bad, and 5 was aweful. This is a shame because 1 and 2 were both very good IMO.

6. Street Fighter Alpha 1 - chain combos..Ugg. Capcom much like Nintendo followed this up with a great game in SFA2. Maybe the mark of a good game company is to fix their own crap when they screw up a sequel.

Mame.dk is better.

Knightfall writes "Well, it seems remembering those games may soon be all that is left. As companies are dropping support, but not property rights to our old favorites, many are in danger of vanishing forever. [stuff deleted] What can we do to prevent them from no longer being available?"

"oh! the sky is falling! the sky is falling!" blah, blah, blah, blah...
Mame, MAme, MAMe, MAME!

'nuff said

Do you mean mame.dk? I've been able to find just about any ROM I can think of there.

It would be fantastic if they could strike up a deal with the proper-owners of arcade boards and titles to set up a system where the Phantom runs a modified version of MAME, and Inifinium Labs' networks provide on-request ROMs to subscribers. Every time you hit "insert quarter", you get charged a nickel. Two cents go to the holder of the copyright, two to Infinium Labs, and one cent to PETA (I just threw that last one in for fun).

It'd be like having an infinitely large arcade in your home, and you wouldn't be doing it illegally. The people who wrote the software will be reimbursed, possibly even twenty five years after they stopped producing that game.

Also, imagine if they implemented something along the lines of Kaillera. You could team up with your kid brother from a thousand miles away to play NARC together, just like you did in high school, at the corner arcade.

I don't know why there's so much anti-Sidewinder sentiment on here. It makes me sad to see M$ stop supporting a key piece of hardware, and gives me yet another reason to never upgrade from Win98SE. I bought my Sidewinder gamepad about five years ago and it's still going strong. I use it for MAME, Fighter Kyodotai, MAME, emulators, and...oh yeah, MAME. I've never had problems, except that the pad isn't easy to make Dragon Punch motions with.

Although I can't locate them now, I recall mentions of "streaming games" and "trials" and "online rentals" of "over X0,000 existing software titles". While this is said to include PC titles, I keep thinking that old arcade ROMs would be perfect for this kinda thing.

Games you could play on a whim, whose ROMs are typically a few megs at most, often have high production values, are completed and tested... You could download them via the Phantom, and Infinium Labs pays the copyright holders a nickel each time someone presses "start" on Do Don Pachi.

These arcade games from five, ten, fifteen years ago, they were designed to get you to pump in your quarters for an hour or so, maybe-just-maybe a few times a week. Unfortunately, I think the trend as of late has been towards the production of games which require a real commitment over a period of time. Levelling up in RPGs, playing out a season in a football game, unlocking cars in Gran Turismo, and getting your Sims rich, these are the things which seem to get people's wallets out of their pockets.

If some of these old arcade games found their way to a home system now, I bet people would complain about their lack of replayability, the simplicity of their nature, and their brevity. Those were their strengths in the arcade, of course, but how much could a developer expect to make porting a title without content changes to the PS2? They'd have to sell them for a very low price. People would probably not pay fifty dollars for a game they could finish in 30 minutes. Heck, people complained about Ikaruga on the Dreamcast being a straight arcade port.

I have no idea what I'm rambling about anymore, but I guess I'm just sad that the only way I can get a 4-player game of Sunset Riders going is by breaking the law.

These arcade games from five, ten, fifteen years ago, they were designed to get you to pump in your quarters for an hour or so, maybe-just-maybe a few times a week. Unfortunately, I think the trend as of late has been towards the production of games which require a real commitment over a period of time. Levelling up in RPGs, playing out a season in a football game, unlocking cars in Gran Turismo, and getting your Sims rich, these are the things which seem to get people's wallets out of their pockets.

If some of these old arcade games found their way to a home system now, I bet people would complain about their lack of replayability, the simplicity of their nature, and their brevity. Those were their strengths in the arcade, of course, but how much could a developer expect to make porting a title without content changes to the PS2? They'd have to sell them for a very low price. People would probably not pay fifty dollars for a game they could finish in 30 minutes. Heck, people complained about Ikaruga on the Dreamcast being a straight arcade port.

I have no idea what I'm rambling about anymore, but I guess I'm just sad that the only way I can get a 4-player game of Sunset Riders going is by breaking the law.

These arcade games from five, ten, fifteen years ago, they were designed to get you to pump in your quarters for an hour or so, maybe-just-maybe a few times a week. Unfortunately, I think the trend as of late has been towards the production of games which require a real commitment over a period of time. Levelling up in RPGs, playing out a season in a football game, unlocking cars in Gran Turismo, and getting your Sims rich, these are the things which seem to get people's wallets out of their pockets.

If some of these old arcade games found their way to a home system now, I bet people would complain about their lack of replayability, the simplicity of their nature, and their brevity. Those were their strengths in the arcade, of course, but how much could a developer expect to make porting a title without content changes to the PS2? They'd have to sell them for a very low price. People would probably not pay fifty dollars for a game they could finish in 30 minutes. Heck, people complained about Ikaruga on the Dreamcast being a straight arcade port.

I have no idea what I'm rambling about anymore, but I guess I'm just sad that the only way I can get a 4-player game of Sunset Riders going is by breaking the law.

These arcade games from five, ten, fifteen years ago, they were designed to get you to pump in your quarters for an hour or so, maybe-just-maybe a few times a week. Unfortunately, I think the trend as of late has been towards the production of games which require a real commitment over a period of time. Levelling up in RPGs, playing out a season in a football game, unlocking cars in Gran Turismo, and getting your Sims rich, these are the things which seem to get people's wallets out of their pockets.

If some of these old arcade games found their way to a home system now, I bet people would complain about their lack of replayability, the simplicity of their nature, and their brevity. Those were their strengths in the arcade, of course, but how much could a developer expect to make porting a title without content changes to the PS2? They'd have to sell them for a very low price. People would probably not pay fifty dollars for a game they could finish in 30 minutes. Heck, people complained about Ikaruga on the Dreamcast being a straight arcade port.

I have no idea what I'm rambling about anymore, but I guess I'm just sad that the only way I can get a 4-player game of Sunset Riders going is by breaking the law.

Is there any one out there that sells ROM collections? I would be interested in buying some, but I can't find any.

I will give my experience with collecting ROMs: Drop the crazy notion of trying to have a complete collection! As many have pointed out, a complete collection is HUGE, and in all cases, just isn't worth it. If you waste your time collecting as many ROMs as possible, you will then have to waste your time again weeding through the worthless ones.

A while back I created my own AdvancedCD ISO with a whole collection of ROMs. Mostly the older ones as those are the ones I like. The problem with my ISO was that there were so many games, but only a handfull were worth playing. Instead of creating a MAME engine, as I like to call it, with thousands of ROMs, you would be far better off only collecting the ones you like (think top 50).

In regards to searching for the stuff on the net, I recommend sticking with the mame.dk site. There are alot of places out there, but mame.dk is pretty much the standard source. You won't find any place where you can download a tar ball or zip wad of games. I've looked extensively. I did find one place, but then it quickly went away. Besides, once I did get the 10 or so zip wads, I had to weed out all the crap. In the end, I deleted the whole mess and just went back to mame.dk to grab just the ones I liked.

I do, however, wish there was a site that had an easy zip wad to download for all the great classics. Things like PacMan, Dig Dug, Tempest, and the like. Not a zip wad of 1000s of crap ROMs with the bootleg burns. Just a top 50 from the 70s and 80s and only the main version of each. Since that "top 50" is subjective, I again recommend just going to mame.dk and getting only what you want. It's just not worth trying to get a complete collection as it's a moving target. And by all means, I'd pass on all those wankers that want you to pay them to burn CDs for you. The mentality behind that whole sceme is alittle warped. But if you're extreamly lazy, maybe they could help. You're better off with snagging from a friend.

The second best resource for snagging ROMs would be the Yahoo Groups and MSN Communities. There you can get some small collections of ROMs and converse with others.

Good Luck. And by the way, I'd pass you what I have, but really, you'd be better off getting your own (one at a time) from mame.dk. The other thing with ROM collections is that they do change! If you went out and bought a CD collection for MAME back at version .36, you'ld need to repurchase many of those ROMs/CDs for version .70. Sometimes a new MAME verion requires a slightly different change to the a particular ROM. You'll find that you'll have to update some ROMs as you update MAME. This is not 100% accurate, but some ROMs do break with newer MAME version. So again, keep a small collection of just the stuff you like, then upkeep and maintainence will be far easier. My goal is to only keep my collection at 50-100. I'm still weeding out crap, and I'll probably chuck the whole lot and start anew with MAME .70.

some info, screenshot, and history of I, Robot at mame.dk

Now I go there and a part of me wants to weep. Instead of a glowing paradise filled with every possible game my brain could conceive, there's approximately three titles. Time Crisis 2, Street Fighter Alpha 3 and skeeball. An entire wall of machines has been removed so two big-screens could be installed to attract as much attention to the flavor of the month. It may not always be those two exact games, but I guarantee you it'll be some variant. Always a shooter and always a fighter. Once the shooter was replaced with a driving game, but that was it. Back in a neglected corner I found some pinball machines, Ms. Pacman, 1943 and a poor Neo Geo MVS cabinet with the second stick ripped out. I couldn't tell if it was the one I first experienced SS2 on, but I fed it a quarter on principal and left. Xanadu is gone and all that remains is a business struggling to keep it's head above water by pushing whatever the current hot game is and only that. It makes me wonder what'll happen to the place when the next hit game does a bellyflop...

...

Well. THAT was melodramatic, wasn't it?

Now I go there and a part of me wants to weep. Instead of a glowing paradise filled with every possible game my brain could conceive, there's approximately three titles. Time Crisis 2, Street Fighter Alpha 3 and skeeball. An entire wall of machines has been removed so two big-screens could be installed to attract as much attention to the flavor of the month. It may not always be those two exact games, but I guarantee you it'll be some variant. Always a shooter and always a fighter. Once the shooter was replaced with a driving game, but that was it. Back in a neglected corner I found some pinball machines, Ms. Pacman, 1943 and a poor Neo Geo MVS cabinet with the second stick ripped out. I couldn't tell if it was the one I first experienced SS2 on, but I fed it a quarter on principal and left. Xanadu is gone and all that remains is a business struggling to keep it's head above water by pushing whatever the current hot game is and only that. It makes me wonder what'll happen to the place when the next hit game does a bellyflop...

...

Well. THAT was melodramatic, wasn't it?

Now I go there and a part of me wants to weep. Instead of a glowing paradise filled with every possible game my brain could conceive, there's approximately three titles. Time Crisis 2, Street Fighter Alpha 3 and skeeball. An entire wall of machines has been removed so two big-screens could be installed to attract as much attention to the flavor of the month. It may not always be those two exact games, but I guarantee you it'll be some variant. Always a shooter and always a fighter. Once the shooter was replaced with a driving game, but that was it. Back in a neglected corner I found some pinball machines, Ms. Pacman, 1943 and a poor Neo Geo MVS cabinet with the second stick ripped out. I couldn't tell if it was the one I first experienced SS2 on, but I fed it a quarter on principal and left. Xanadu is gone and all that remains is a business struggling to keep it's head above water by pushing whatever the current hot game is and only that. It makes me wonder what'll happen to the place when the next hit game does a bellyflop...

...

Well. THAT was melodramatic, wasn't it?

Now I go there and a part of me wants to weep. Instead of a glowing paradise filled with every possible game my brain could conceive, there's approximately three titles. Time Crisis 2, Street Fighter Alpha 3 and skeeball. An entire wall of machines has been removed so two big-screens could be installed to attract as much attention to the flavor of the month. It may not always be those two exact games, but I guarantee you it'll be some variant. Always a shooter and always a fighter. Once the shooter was replaced with a driving game, but that was it. Back in a neglected corner I found some pinball machines, Ms. Pacman, 1943 and a poor Neo Geo MVS cabinet with the second stick ripped out. I couldn't tell if it was the one I first experienced SS2 on, but I fed it a quarter on principal and left. Xanadu is gone and all that remains is a business struggling to keep it's head above water by pushing whatever the current hot game is and only that. It makes me wonder what'll happen to the place when the next hit game does a bellyflop...

...

Well. THAT was melodramatic, wasn't it?

Can't help thinking about Karate Champ and its dual joystick control while reading this.
Just be careful with those bulls coming at you!

Want logic games?

Try some of the games in Mame (also available for Linux/Unix) such as: Boxy Boy, Chicken Shift, Logic Pro, Logic Pro 2, Phozon, Pushman, and Wise Guy.

Some of these can are real real brain-busters.

Want logic games?

Try some of the games in Mame (also available for Linux/Unix) such as: Boxy Boy, Chicken Shift, Logic Pro, Logic Pro 2, Phozon, Pushman, and Wise Guy.

Some of these can are real real brain-busters.

Want logic games?

Try some of the games in Mame (also available for Linux/Unix) such as: Boxy Boy, Chicken Shift, Logic Pro, Logic Pro 2, Phozon, Pushman, and Wise Guy.

Some of these can are real real brain-busters.

Want logic games?

Try some of the games in Mame (also available for Linux/Unix) such as: Boxy Boy, Chicken Shift, Logic Pro, Logic Pro 2, Phozon, Pushman, and Wise Guy.

Some of these can are real real brain-busters.

Want logic games?

Try some of the games in Mame (also available for Linux/Unix) such as: Boxy Boy, Chicken Shift, Logic Pro, Logic Pro 2, Phozon, Pushman, and Wise Guy.

Some of these can are real real brain-busters.

Want logic games?

Try some of the games in Mame (also available for Linux/Unix) such as: Boxy Boy, Chicken Shift, Logic Pro, Logic Pro 2, Phozon, Pushman, and Wise Guy.

Some of these can are real real brain-busters.

Want logic games?

Try some of the games in Mame (also available for Linux/Unix) such as: Boxy Boy, Chicken Shift, Logic Pro, Logic Pro 2, Phozon, Pushman, and Wise Guy.

Some of these can are real real brain-busters.

Technically they have this. And ::Gasps:: Sammy made it. Here is a review of it, and here are some screen shots from it.

It is actually a halfway decent game and a Hentai game to boot!

Time to play "Bishojo Janshi Pretty Sailor 18-kin" aka "Pretty Sailor XXX"...

Take a look here, dudes but you have to log in, download MAME, and download the game for it...

-uso.
*lemon face*

Misleading? Not really; you have to actually play the game to see what I mean by "XXX".

Get a free account on mame.dk and download the game. Then set one of the DIP switches in MAME (xmame, mame32, etc.) and you can watch the graphics...I called it "XXX" for a reason. (Note: the "kin" in "18-kin" is the same as the "kin" in "kinshi"~~"verboten").

-uso.
"Usagi-chan, atashi, ima, nanimo kikanakatta no daijoubu yo...ja ne!"

dalamcd

I'm sorry, but gamespy obviously doesn't know about
kaillera.

Kaillera enables mame to play just about any old arcade hit online. Since it's
release 2 years ago, it's developed an entire subculture of dedicated players,
clans, and ladders.

According to statistics built by
kaillera the most popular game genre on kaillera is fighting games (King of
fighters, Street Fighter), followed by a single adventure game that dominates
the charts,

Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara.

I think this game was misclassified as an Adventure game, because it's
gameplay really resembles that of Final Fight, and other Beat em ups

Thats all I have to say about that.

1) Super Monkey Ball (NGC)
2) Super Bust-a-Move (PS2)
3) Fantavision (PS2) (come on, it was the first friggin game even released on the PS2)

It might not be a prominent genre on consoles these days, but you can't say it's been dead for two years...

P.S. If you want a good puzzler, check out Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo . The name might put you off, but it is probably the best two-player puzzle game I have ever played. It takes a bit from Columns but adds a "fighting game" twist on it with attacking, defending, counter-blocks, and, of course, super combos.

Screw regular pachinko. I want Pachinko Sexy Reaction on my PS2!! I wonder if they'll make a Super-Lucky-Ultra-Mega-Ghost-Samurai Pachinko?

Nice game titles from that company ;-)

--sex

Sammy has done a bit more than just Pachinko, notably the very fun shooter, Viewpoint : Some sammy games emulated in mame

See here for more information about Qix, including screenshots.

Because it is just a lame Puzzle Bobble ripoff.

I'm with you there. I just downloaded Snood to see what the fuss was about, and you're right: it's Puzzle Bobble without the hypnotic music or the great graphic design.

Details of the arcade original here.

Puzzle Bobble is also known as "Bust a Move" - you can play it on MAME, and there are versions for most consoles, from the Megadrive/Genesis right through to PS2.

Seriously, if you like Snood, try the real thing, and find out what a little finesse and a few production values can do.

Snood is primarily a cheap rip-off of the arcade game Puzzle Bobble (aka Bust-a-Move in the USA). Mame does an excellent job of playing the ORIGINAL versions, and there are also plenty of less "hacked" alternative (by hacked, I mean that Snood has removed a lot of the original features of the game that made it really fun).

I thought the PC port was pretty solid. My controller was the real prob... oh, wait... nevermind (grin)

BTW, if you're curious, what makes the difference between video games and gambling games for us is whether skill can make a difference. In gambling games, all is decided by the return ratio the operator set in the configuration

Not for blackjack. Blackjack is a balance between skill and chance, just like Tetris (which MAME currently emulates). A player who know what he doing can beat the dealer pretty reliably in four-deck blackjack.

Outside the realm of coin-op games, is "Casino Kid" a video game?

There was another aliens vs predator before the snes one in the arcades, and THAT one was GREAT to play. The SNES one was utter garbage compared to the arcade one, but the arcade aliens vs predator might be one of the greatest final fight style games ever.
The skinny on the arcade version with a screen shot can be found here

Of course, Mame is the best answer to this question, as many have pointed out.

On that topic, does anyone know what happened to mame.dk? All the roms get removed with just a mysterious message that a copyright holder complained. One copyright holder and they ditch everything?

Fortunately, I had written a program to download all roms from the site (heh) not long before it closed, but are there any other places that are as complete as mame.dk used to be?

The FAQ says ROMs can be obtained from mame.dk. Unfortunately, they've stopped offering ROMs for quite some time. Best they offer now is some nifty info about the games and a couple of links to ROM link sites.

I'm only replying because by some miraculous wonder, you did not get modded down.

There is absolutely no legal reason to own a modified console.
I'll repeat the obvious, Import games that are regionally encoded with no plans to ship to your region.
"Well, my modified Dreamcast lets me make my own games and play them!" No, it lets you play burned games that you download from the Internet.
There are people that do write their own DC games. Just because the majority of people use it to steal games that aren't being produced, or sold right now does not make everyone who modifies thier machine a pirate (and the people who do steal games are not right just because they aren't available anymore, either).

as soon as you put a burned game into that machine, you've committed a felony
This is not always true. You are allowed to make backup copies of software you legally own. I only bring copies of my music CD's to work, does that mean I'm a felon whenever I listen to "3 Doors Down"?

Why do you think Microsoft included an ethernet adapter? It's because when "Xbox Live" goes live, they can see your machine. They could see your saved games, they could see how often you play, and nobody would be the wiser. Why? Because the entire operating system is proprietary, and there's no way to disassemble it. You couldn't even install a piece of software on the Xbox to trap packets coming out of it, because it would have to be approved by Microsoft.
And you AREN'T bothered by them watching what you do on your home entertainment system? Remember that they are adding a PVR to this machine, they will watch that as well. (My only hope is that they use information about what people REALLY watch on TV to keep from cancelling the good shows. Of course, I know I'm going to be sadly disappointed by finding out what people really watch). What happens if someone watches an adult movie on their X-box one night when the kids aren't home, only to have "adult entertainment" ads invade their home for the next few weeks when the kids are home. This should bother everyone.

No legit user would ever want or need to open up their console to play games
I agree and disagree with this statement. This IS why people buy console machines. You have a black box, toss in a game, flip a switch, and you're playing. That's all it's supposed to be, no more, no less.
I disagree with it because many legit users open their machines for fun. Who didn't open up their nintendo or atari at some point (usually near the end of it's life) just to see what it was like on the inside? Saying no legit user should ever have to open it up for any reason is akin to saying no driver should ever look at their engine: They don't know what is happening, and could only either break it, or be doing it for an illegal purpose.

The amount of "good" games is controlled by the console manufacturers already. Sony releases fewer games in the U.S. as it does in Japan, Nintendo is not much better. I'm sure that Microsoft will do the opposite (release more games in America than Japan), at least I hope so. Modern games being copied hurt game developers severely. Older games aren't the same way. The people who put the blood and sweat to work on them usually aren't with the same company 15 years later. There are Three different games that are freeware for MAME even.

As for your last argument, THAT should have earned you flaimbait -1 right away.


Mod chips don't make felons - copied games make felons.
TDY

I'm only replying because by some miraculous wonder, you did not get modded down.

There is absolutely no legal reason to own a modified console.
I'll repeat the obvious, Import games that are regionally encoded with no plans to ship to your region.
"Well, my modified Dreamcast lets me make my own games and play them!" No, it lets you play burned games that you download from the Internet.
There are people that do write their own DC games. Just because the majority of people use it to steal games that aren't being produced, or sold right now does not make everyone who modifies thier machine a pirate (and the people who do steal games are not right just because they aren't available anymore, either).

as soon as you put a burned game into that machine, you've committed a felony
This is not always true. You are allowed to make backup copies of software you legally own. I only bring copies of my music CD's to work, does that mean I'm a felon whenever I listen to "3 Doors Down"?

Why do you think Microsoft included an ethernet adapter? It's because when "Xbox Live" goes live, they can see your machine. They could see your saved games, they could see how often you play, and nobody would be the wiser. Why? Because the entire operating system is proprietary, and there's no way to disassemble it. You couldn't even install a piece of software on the Xbox to trap packets coming out of it, because it would have to be approved by Microsoft.
And you AREN'T bothered by them watching what you do on your home entertainment system? Remember that they are adding a PVR to this machine, they will watch that as well. (My only hope is that they use information about what people REALLY watch on TV to keep from cancelling the good shows. Of course, I know I'm going to be sadly disappointed by finding out what people really watch). What happens if someone watches an adult movie on their X-box one night when the kids aren't home, only to have "adult entertainment" ads invade their home for the next few weeks when the kids are home. This should bother everyone.

No legit user would ever want or need to open up their console to play games
I agree and disagree with this statement. This IS why people buy console machines. You have a black box, toss in a game, flip a switch, and you're playing. That's all it's supposed to be, no more, no less.
I disagree with it because many legit users open their machines for fun. Who didn't open up their nintendo or atari at some point (usually near the end of it's life) just to see what it was like on the inside? Saying no legit user should ever have to open it up for any reason is akin to saying no driver should ever look at their engine: They don't know what is happening, and could only either break it, or be doing it for an illegal purpose.

The amount of "good" games is controlled by the console manufacturers already. Sony releases fewer games in the U.S. as it does in Japan, Nintendo is not much better. I'm sure that Microsoft will do the opposite (release more games in America than Japan), at least I hope so. Modern games being copied hurt game developers severely. Older games aren't the same way. The people who put the blood and sweat to work on them usually aren't with the same company 15 years later. There are Three different games that are freeware for MAME even.

As for your last argument, THAT should have earned you flaimbait -1 right away.


Mod chips don't make felons - copied games make felons.
TDY

I'm only replying because by some miraculous wonder, you did not get modded down.

There is absolutely no legal reason to own a modified console.
I'll repeat the obvious, Import games that are regionally encoded with no plans to ship to your region.
"Well, my modified Dreamcast lets me make my own games and play them!" No, it lets you play burned games that you download from the Internet.
There are people that do write their own DC games. Just because the majority of people use it to steal games that aren't being produced, or sold right now does not make everyone who modifies thier machine a pirate (and the people who do steal games are not right just because they aren't available anymore, either).

as soon as you put a burned game into that machine, you've committed a felony
This is not always true. You are allowed to make backup copies of software you legally own. I only bring copies of my music CD's to work, does that mean I'm a felon whenever I listen to "3 Doors Down"?

Why do you think Microsoft included an ethernet adapter? It's because when "Xbox Live" goes live, they can see your machine. They could see your saved games, they could see how often you play, and nobody would be the wiser. Why? Because the entire operating system is proprietary, and there's no way to disassemble it. You couldn't even install a piece of software on the Xbox to trap packets coming out of it, because it would have to be approved by Microsoft.
And you AREN'T bothered by them watching what you do on your home entertainment system? Remember that they are adding a PVR to this machine, they will watch that as well. (My only hope is that they use information about what people REALLY watch on TV to keep from cancelling the good shows. Of course, I know I'm going to be sadly disappointed by finding out what people really watch). What happens if someone watches an adult movie on their X-box one night when the kids aren't home, only to have "adult entertainment" ads invade their home for the next few weeks when the kids are home. This should bother everyone.

No legit user would ever want or need to open up their console to play games
I agree and disagree with this statement. This IS why people buy console machines. You have a black box, toss in a game, flip a switch, and you're playing. That's all it's supposed to be, no more, no less.
I disagree with it because many legit users open their machines for fun. Who didn't open up their nintendo or atari at some point (usually near the end of it's life) just to see what it was like on the inside? Saying no legit user should ever have to open it up for any reason is akin to saying no driver should ever look at their engine: They don't know what is happening, and could only either break it, or be doing it for an illegal purpose.

The amount of "good" games is controlled by the console manufacturers already. Sony releases fewer games in the U.S. as it does in Japan, Nintendo is not much better. I'm sure that Microsoft will do the opposite (release more games in America than Japan), at least I hope so. Modern games being copied hurt game developers severely. Older games aren't the same way. The people who put the blood and sweat to work on them usually aren't with the same company 15 years later. There are Three different games that are freeware for MAME even.

As for your last argument, THAT should have earned you flaimbait -1 right away.


Mod chips don't make felons - copied games make felons.
TDY

This isn't very usefull since http://www.mame.dk/ doensn't offers downloads anymore.

Mame.dk

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