Slashdot Mirror

Not the origional, the square corners would leave marks on my palms for hours afterward. My favorite was the 2nd gen "dogbone" controllers.

http://www.vidgame.net/COLECO/COLVIS.html - Third Controller from the top. Yes, I actually bought an Adam. Paid all of $50 US for it.

I had a set of these, they were packaged with a baseball game. Not just one but four triggers, one under each finger. Sure it's a lot bigger but it still puts trigger controls under the main control stick. And it beats the patent by at least 10 years.

They actually weren't bad. They had an arcade style stick on top that worked well. The numeric keypad was mostly worthless from a gaming perspective. The triggers worked fairly well as long as you were trying to pull them one at a time. Trying to pull more than one at once was awkward with trying to hold the controller and work the joystick.

The Memorex VIS takes the lame cake. It was really a Microsoft product, but they couldn't put their name on it for fear of pissing off the OEMs.

It was a 286 PC crammed into a console. It ran "Modular Windows" - a version of Win3.x - which meant that almost any then-current software could be ported to it. This was Microsoft's first atttempt at entering the videogame/console market.

RadioShack sold them, Memorex gave it branding. MS provided the OS, and invited big publishers to release. They sure did - direct ports. None of the software was adapted for television, meaning that text was unreadable, and colors just looked wrong or shimmered off the screen. Single pixel dithering and single pixel lines abounded, but made most TVs "tear". The processor was terribly slow, as was the optical drive. The sound capabilities were horrid (think 1992 soundcard, then cheapened). The entire experience was totally inferior to older 8-bit consoles and the still-then-popular Commodore 64 - yet it cost an astounding $400.

In short, the entire thing was totally unusable. It had NO redeeming features at all.

They tried selling it for a while, but no one bit. I recall that total sales figures may have been hundreds, perhaps a few thousand. It was a huge, huge failure, perhaps the biggest one that MS experienced up until that time.

No one remembers, especially the lamo "journalist" that wrote that lame article.

No R-Zone??!?! This thing was the shit, head mounted viewscreen get you looking like a true virtual warrior, until you realize the games are bad ports of game and watch style games. The idea of having each cartridge act as the screen was a pretty cool idea though... http://www.vidgame.net/TIGER/HEADGEAR.htm

What - no mention of the Bandai Playdia? http://www.vidgame.net/BANDAI/playdia.htm/

The console looked like Fisher Price designed it and the titles were nearly all anime games. It probably wouldn't have been much of a success in the US.

How about the Sega Genesis 2?

I am right handed. I personally think that it shouldn't matter much about the character being left or right handed as much as the game being playable for left or right handed people. If the player is right handed, then the on screen avatar should be. If the player is left handed then a left handed avatar.

True, Link is an established left handed character but having the avatar match the player makes more sense. It's much better than making Link right handed and also forcing all the southpaws to "just deal".

I haven't been fishing for over 20 years, but I do use a right hand retrieve reel when fishing. This is where you reel with your right hand. This page even calls a right hand retrieve a "Classic" method but goes on to say that it's just preference. I will say that the Dreamcast's fishing controller is right hand retrieve but you can clearly see that videos show Twilight Princess' fishing as left hand retrieve.

Consider the dreamcast, which has more a peripheral to match everyone mentioned, + more

http://www.vidgame.net/SEGA/dc_peripheral.htm

SNES: Huge Success
The Super Famicom (SNES) was designed around the 65816 processor initially to retain backward compatibility with the Famicom (NES). Although the systems used a different cartridge layout, adapters do exist.

Sega MegaDrive/Genesis: Huge Success
The Mega Drive 1 and 2 used a Z80 to retain backwards compatibility with the Mark III (Master System). Sega manufactured and sold a device called the Power Base Converter to retain compatibility. The Mega Drive 3 as well as other systems (Nomad, CDX) released at the end of the system's life did not have the Z80.

NES: Huge Success
Yep, the Famicom (NES) maintained backwards compatibility with all of Nintendo's existing multi-game cartridge based systems... meaning that there wasn't anything to maintain backwards compatibility with. Same with the original Playstation. Sony had nothing to be compatible with at that time.

>> I don't think a weird controller is going to awe enough people to their platform.
> It might. Wasn't it weird when they came out with a touchscreen on the DS? That's selling huge...

I have a feeling the new controller will be more like Nintendo's VirtualBoy in terms of success.

The article sure does a time-warp and goes directly from Atari to NES. What about the multiple variations of Colecovision controllers and Intellivision controllers?

The article sure does a time-warp and goes directly from Atari to NES. What about the multiple variations of Colecovision controllers and Intellivision controllers?

Hell, I'm still pissed about Steel Battalion: Line of Contact. Talk about screwing the loyal customers. At least I can still play the original...

I've been into consoles for over twenty years now and can not think of a single time where an add-on device has been successful.

Don't you remember the Colecovision Expansion Module #1? It let you play Atari 2600 games on a Colecovision console, and was pretty successful because it increased the CV's software library and allowed 2600 owners to move to a better system while still retaining their investment in 2600 games.

~Philly

Errr, I'm confused. If there was a lock-out chip, why do I recall playing Tengen games on the NES that weren't liscensed by Nintendo. I belive there were several Tengen games. Also I remeber the HARDEST GAME EVER: The Adventures of Dizzy. It was released unauthorized by Codemasters. I remeber there was a little switch in the back of the cart, and if the game didn't work in one position, you flicked it in the other.

Here I found a link that gives a bit of a run down between all the different unauthorized carts that were manufactured for the NES. Have a look.

Vidgame.Net

This reminds me more of Tiger's GAME . COM, which tried to throw in every feature it could - and winding up overpriced as heck. Really, they tried to be everything to everyone and ended up being nothing to no one...

Waitaminute... Tiger... *slaps forehead*

That's not totally unheard of...

That's not totally unheard of...

That wouldn't be backwards compatibility would it? It would be compatibility with a completely different system.

Architecturally, the GBA is "a completely different system" from the GBC, but the GBA can play GB and GBC games. Nintendo also sold an adapter to let the Super NES play 99% of GB games and one to let the GameCube play 99% of GB, GBC, and GBA games.

How many games designed for a 4:3 TV screen would even be usable on a 16:9 handheld

The Game Boy Advance (3:2 display) in both its original and SP iterations can run games for Game Boy and Game Boy Color system (10:9 display) out of the box; by default, it draws a black border around the screen.

with a different control scheme?

The only thing that the PSP lacks vs. the PS1 digital controller is that L2 and R2 are missing. Sure, Ape Escape and other PS1 games that require both analog sticks wouldn't work, but those are few and far between because publishers wanted to target those who bought the PS1 in the first two years before Sony packed in the Dual Shock controller.

Does the DS play N64 games? Or Gamecube games? No. It plays

...most NES and many Super NES games, with a PassMe adapter and a GBA flash card. And unlike Sony, Nintendo doesn't play the cat-and-mouse firmware upgrade game.

Sony doesn't have any previous handhelds.

I beg your pardon?

I do think that GBA compatibility is an advantage of the DS, but as a GBA owner, it doesn't make me want to buy a DS.

If you buy a Nintendo DS, you can carry one device to play your DS games and your GBA games, unlike a GBA SP/PSP combination. This parallels the PSP fanboy argument that if you buy a PSP, you can carry one device to play your PSP games and your MP3 music, unlike a Nintendo DS/iPod Shuffle combination.

Unless there are good DS-only games, why should I upgrade?

There are good DS-only games.

I patiently await your rebuttal of the alleged FUD.

Bull shit

If someone told you that the PSP is a portable gaming device, shoot these people. The PSP is not a portable gaming device, it is really a convergent portable entertainment device.

Right, because the history of convergent entertainment devices is long and illustrious. They would be fools to not want some of this action.

And going with a brand new disk standard that nobody has and nobody sells as a medium for selling movies? It's a brilliant maneuver from some of the industry's best minds.

I should say that the Sony reps I've worked with about other things have been completely with it and didn't lose sight of reality. So what happened to this guy?

This is soo innovative!

i think i was the only one in my entire county who actually bought one of these

until Panasonic releases the revolution Q http://www.vidgame.net/NINTENDO/Q.htm ...

I (and many geeks) have nothing but love for Nintendo, have they given us nothing but gold?

Virtual Boy.

All game console makers have sinned and fallen short of the glory of Bob.

It does get pretty similar battery life to a PSP running games, so I can see how you might get confused.

In case anyone's interested, I finally indentified the model in question. My memory was a bit fuzzy, but this is definitely it: Unisonic's Tournament 2000 (T-2000-JR), the first game console I ever played.

What the heck, though, is someone going to do with 78 NES decks?

Actually, if you got 78 Nintendo ROB's, you could could control them all and have yourself a fairly respectable army of robots that could destroy your enemies by stacking up little piles of discs.

This guy doesn't have the one I wanted as a kid: the NEC Turbo Express. It was, to my knowledge, the first color handheld, and used the exact same games as the TurboGrafx 16. The system never really caught on big, but it was WAY ahead of its time.

I never did buy one. It cost about $300 IIRC, and when you're a kid with a paper route, that might as well be a million.

6. Give up, and buy a top-loader

My uncle bought one of the these back in the day. Said it was the best $50 he ever spent.

The Saturn Net.Link was indeed available. Support was mainly limited to FPS and RTS, IIRC; never owned one and too lazy to rummage through the magazine stack.

That said, the SNES and Genesis also had the XBand 3rd-party line of modems, so by this time a game-use modem attatchment wasn't completely new.

Hypothetically speaking, if I am a songwriter, I am perfectly within my rights as the owner of that song to tell you that you cannot distribute it. That is unlicenced content

I come from a background where "unlicensed content" refers to content that hasn't been approved by the owner of copyright in the player software, such as independently published console games. Imagine if every title published on DVD Video had to be approved by the DVD Forum.

Wisdom Tree didn't quite break any encryption to get around the lockout chip.

They used a special cartridge with a passthrough that you would attach a real cartridge to. Then it'd use the lockout chip on that one to play.

Atari will also return to form with their new 128-bit Jaguar 2 & Jaguar 2 CD, now more toilet-like than ever!

Yeah, why haven't they gotten to work on the game.com yet? I mean, jeez.

Seriously, though, there used to be this great (so far as Tiger video game web sites go) with videos from game.com games, all sped up so the system wouldn't look so bad. I guess if you can hack a Pokemon mini-game, you can hack anything.

My thoughts exactly. It looks a lot like the dual-screen version of the Game & Watch.

It's been done, sorry folks. It just doesn't work.

Olympus Optical Co., Ltd. provides the "Dot Code Technology" used by the e-Reader to read data embedded on each e-Reader card. Each card can hold up to two code strips. A long bar holds 2.2 kilobytes of information and a short bar holds 1.4 kilobytes. The memory configuration in the e-Reader is 64Mb mask ROM and 1Mb flash memory. The scanned information transforms into a digital display on the Game Boy Advanced screen.

"Back that up."
Ok. Take a look here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. And for more plenty more links to back it up, Google has you covered. Hope that helps.

Home game consoles have never really be backward compatible. PS2 is the first real back-ward compatible that I know of (though someone will end up telling me differently).

Home game consoles have never really be backward compatible. PS2 is the first real back-ward compatible that I know of (though someone will end up telling me differently).

One handheld gaming system that should have been listed was the Game Boy Light. It was basically a Game Boy Pocket with a built in backlight. It failed because Nintendo released it around the same time as they released the Game Boy Color. The GBL was not capable of playing the newer "Color" games and gamers were forced to chose between being able to play the newer games or being able to easily see their older games.

Nintendo wisely decided to not release the GBL outside of Japan. Unfortunately, this blunder may have made them think that the public wasn't willing to spend money on a backlit portable; something that they held fast on until their release of the Gameboy Advance SP.

Offtopic... when the Gameboy and the Lynx were released, I chose the Lynx camp and still have three of the systems: A Lynx, a Lynx II, and my self-modified Turbo Lynx which is overclocked to 1.5 times normal speed. (playing Stun Runner on it is a blast) Personally, I've always believed that the Gameboy prevailed simply due to the Tetris license and Nintendo's foresight to include it as a pack-in. The Lynx had an early lineup that was wonderful (Blue Lightning, Chip's Challenge, Gates of Zendocon) and put the Gameboy's games to shame but it did not have Tetris. The rest is history.

Try playing Mortal Kombat 2 with the Sega Activator

which is a giant octagon that you stand in the middle of and stick your arms/legs out for various buttons/directions. (8 directions, two hights make for a 16 button controller)

The instructional tape that came with this was very funny, showing the kid playing with the Activator kicking the ass of the kid with the regular controller...

The only neat thing about it was that the games that supported it (couple of fighting games) would map "forward" for the character to "forward" for you as well, which was interesting, but still less efficient.

Read about it here.

"Sega Genesis Activator Ring. The ring was made of eight different sections that corresponded to buttons on a regular Genesis controller. Specially configured Activator games were Eternal Champions, Streets of Rage 3, Mortal Kombat CD, and Greatest Heavyweights. Eternal Champions, Mortal Kombat, and Street Fighter II: SCE were pack-ins. Many of the Genesis's library of games worked with the Activator. MK-1659"

They also have a picture, although not the one from the box showing a kid kicking, while on screen an Eternal Champions game has the user kicking a guy.

The fact is, the classic video games aren't truely dead. There's devices like this one that are re-releasing retro games in smaller packages because now all the chips it takes to do everything the old Ataris do fit into the controler. Just hook up to RCA video/audio ports and go.

So, there's still a market, and an easier than ever ability to deliver the product... PROFIT!

Sega is coming out with its DreamEye camera... article and pictures. Oh wait, it's already out. It was released in the summer of 2000.

Ok, maybe the dreamcast was pulled before they could sell this outside the japanese market. But, sony coming out with a product THREE YEARS after its competitors doesn't get me too excited. Sega had some other kick-ass hardware: its VMU had a much more usable screen compared to sony's almost useless pocketstation screen (which sony never released in the US), plus there is a dev community for it! I guess we just have to wait for Sony to come out with a fishing controller before we get excited with their innovation!

Sega is coming out with its DreamEye camera... article and pictures. Oh wait, it's already out. It was released in the summer of 2000.

Ok, maybe the dreamcast was pulled before they could sell this outside the japanese market. But, sony coming out with a product THREE YEARS after its competitors doesn't get me too excited. Sega had some other kick-ass hardware: its VMU had a much more usable screen compared to sony's almost useless pocketstation screen (which sony never released in the US), plus there is a dev community for it! I guess we just have to wait for Sony to come out with a fishing controller before we get excited with their innovation!

I love Nintendo. I really do. I've owned every Nintendo system except for the Virtual Boy.

But consoles like this don't help the problem much.

I wish Nintendo would pull away again and beat Sony. But then I see things like this, and I realize that they're right. I look around me. The kind of people I know who own PS2s by and large, aren't gamers. They're people who play for 5 minutes at a time before going to work in the morning, or who like to Play Grand Theft Auto with all the cheat codes on because they "want to enjoy the game fully".

I look at my library of Gamecube games, and I realize - The Gamecube is rapidly becoming a system for game snobs.

Sony's Playstation really is like MTV. There's a TON of titles there, but seperating the gold from the garbage is real effort.

Besides. Everyone acts like Nintendo is in trouble. Not really. Analists are pretty sure that Nintendo is making a profit on all their console (hardware) sales. They're making a decent chunk of change off fo games too. They're neck and neck in the # 2 spot with Microsoft, but honestly, the business isn't so large that you have to be #1 or you go out of business.

I'd love to see Nintendo be the #1 platform again, but if they're not, well, I can live with that, since they're profitable and they publish great games.

the PowerPad and PowerGlove Nintendo put several years ago? this seems like the next step in that direction ("physical gaming")

"Several years ago"? Try almost a decade and a half! There have been other attempts since then. Anybody remember the Genesis Activator Ring (at the bottom of the page)? Also, there have been numerous fishing poles, golf clubs, baseball bats, skateboards, snowboards, etc. And one could probably even lump steering wheels/pedals in this category as well, since a good set will accurately mimic the act of driving.

dcemulation it has all the 'underground DC info youd ever need. also if you want to know about what your dealing with, check this page out.