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Playstation II Launch Notes From the Field
ksquire writes "Joystick101.org has a
feature on the release of the Playstation II, detailing how the launch was experienced in one sleepy midwestern town and exploring what all of this craziness really means."
Woah-ho-ho... touche'! That was a really great flame! (Note I called it a flame, not a troll; I thought you made some very good points in that napalm storm.)
But keep in mind that it is very easy to forget that VAIOs, AIBOs, PSX2s, etc., all come from the same company that happens to be giving us grief in other sectors. When I see a new gadget, I don't immediately think to run down a mental checklist, to make sure the company is "cool," before drooling and coveting. It's purely a pavlovian response.
HSJ$$*&#^!#+++ATH0
NO CARRIER
Just remember, Soul Calibur was a Dreamcast launch title.
I had the same macrovision problem with the Panasonic deck that I bought.
A $50 (cdn) Digital Video Stabalizer between the DVD & the VCR solved that (can't wait until those are illegal under the DMCA somehow).
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"..Hell, we didn't even get Quake until, well, it must have been at least 2 years after the PC was
introduced."
Heh, 2 years after the PC was introduced few came with 20meg MFM HDs wile even fewer had CGA color. wolf3d and Quake came out WAY after the PC did...
I have to return some videotapes...
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Oh, btw. while everyone is fighting for the PS2 i'll be watching DVD's in all glory on a full DTS compatible DVD player with digital outs as dvd's are meant to be.
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Oooh...
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I will also be playing PSX and Dreamcast and N64 games that everyone blindly forgets
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Ahhh...
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and oh, i'll have 400-500.00 left to buy christmas gifts for my friends.
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Wow. I sure wish someone would spend $500 bucks on a christmas gift for me.
*ahem*
Anyhow, there's a principle in consumer electronics that goes roughly like this (please store this in your long-term memory for the next time you feel like chastising people for what they like):
In short, different people want different things.
I personally don't need a super duper DVD player with all sorts of bells and whistles. The PS2 DVD player, which somewhat spartan in features, does exactly what I need it to do - play DVD movies. Assuming that there is an actual picture quality difference that isn't limited to the minds of self-possessed yuppies, it's quite unlikely to show up on my TV. Plus, this saves me from making yet another purchase and clogging up my entertainment center. Plus one for the Playstation 2.
I also have a somewhat decent sized library of (original) Playstation games that I'd like to keep, but I really don't want to have more consoles than necessary. I could get a Dreamcast and end up with _3_ consoles hooked up to my TV, or stick with a Playstation 2 and my N64. The latter is less cluttered. Score another for the Playstation 2.
Another reason is, quite simply, there are some games I like that will be coming out for the Playstation 2. Shortly. Some of the launch titles look pretty decent (and the few I bought recently I enjoy already), and before long Playstation development will be moving over to the new system. While the current crop may only be superficially better than the Dreamcast versions, that will change as developers get used to the system. Another bonus.
Speaking of Dreamcast, I'd rather not buy into a console whose developer has a tendency to screw up. Sure, they're not doing too bad right now (not great either), but Sega seems to be able to screw up a good thing with their consoles. Be it marketing or technology, they don't pick up a lot of games or are dropped. And to be honest, there are only a few games that I'm into on their console.
Last but not least, those of you who insist that people are "paying too much" need to understand that some of us don't consider $300-500 an ungodly sum for something that will provide loads of entertainment for a few years. I can understand some peoples' issues with the cost, but don't project it on everybody, okay?
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
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Especially, if getting better graphics would entail giving $500 to Sony, which Sony would then use to take away my freedom of speech.
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Out of curiosity, how exactly is the PSX or Sony infringing on your freedom of speech?
Please please please don't let this turn out to be some sort of "it's evil because it's proprietary" speech. If there's something substantive, I'm sure we'd love to know.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Last I checked, Slashdot wasn't some great single consciousness with One Opinion and One Voice.
Some of us are quite likely money grubbing, materialistic, capitalists. A share of those quite likely don't give a damn, as they don't see anyone doing anything wrong.
But I will tell you this - if anyone, it's you who is out of touch with the Slashdot populace. You attribute shame on Rob & Co. for being interested in something, but fail to recognize the scores of geeks who are just as excited as he is.
Either way, don't try to lay down some sort of defacto Slashdot policy - not everyone is interested in conforming to your personal opinions.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Just remember, Soul Calibur was a Dreamcast launch title.
Good example.
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Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
So what? Lawyers will try to protect intellectual property, and reverse-engineering laws will stop them. Sony tried to sue Connectix over their Playstation software emulator, and they lost.
/. shouldn't post stories on companies that will try to protect their intellectual property, even when we think they should lose? That's censorship based on third-party ideals, and not news for nerds.
So what you're saying is that
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
So how does it feel to spend 500.00 on a console, 2 controllers and one game? How does it feel to play the same Madden that has been out on the PSX for years now?
How many of those 1000.00 bids on ebay do you think are going to be paid? Most likely its lil johny going to wacky with the bidding.
Oh, btw. while everyone is fighting for the PS2 i'll be watching DVD's in all glory on a full DTS compatible DVD player with digital outs as dvd's are meant to be. I will also be playing PSX and Dreamcast and N64 games that everyone blindly forgets and oh, i'll have 400-500.00 left to buy christmas gifts for my friends.
I'll wait till next year or the year after when the real consoles come out. There is a reason sony is selling the ps2 at a loss, they expect americans to be stupid :)
I've got three little letters for you: SSX. The game is incredible. It's the Tony Hawk of snowboarding and, IMNSHO the best game on the system at this juncture.
Yeah, Sons of Liberty is a year off, but there are some good games available for the system now. The PS2 version of DOA2 (MHO) does indeed look better than the DC version and it's a decently fun fighting game. TimeSplitters looks like it could become the next Goldeneye (ahhh, the hours I and 3 friends wasted on that precious bit of gaming goodness...).
I guess what I'm saying is that you all should actually give the games out there a try before saying they suck. Go ahead and play SSX and tell me it's not a good game... I'll say that you haven't played it at all. Even my fiancee and my 16 year old sister (neither of whom are even close to be avid gamers) loved it.
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I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
I live in New York City, AKA The Free Market Capital Of The World. Certain stores here have 50 copies of games in stock three days before the official release, never mind after.
:)
Today, I spent two or three hours going through 9 or 10 of them (Hey, I could use an extra 700 bucks...) starting at 10 AM.
Every store that had a preorder list has it filled up through January.
The one place that has no list hasn't gotten delivery (and probably never will, because if it doesn't get there today, somebody hijacked the truck.) That didn't stop the five people ahead of me (and the 800 that were there a half hour before that when the store opened) from grabbing business cards ready to call back.
On my way out of the store the second time I checked it, a guy half a block away stopped me to ask if I came out of there. I didn't even ask; I just said 'they don't have it' and he nodded and kept talking on his cell phone, no doubt with a buddy doing the same thing in the other borough.
The Circuit City I went to immediately afterwards had a neat, pre-printed sign saying 'PS:2: We're sold out (Yes, we're as disappointed about it as you are.)'
My final stop, the Electronics Boutique twenty blocks away, had not only sold out of PS:2's months before, they were actually down to 8 copies of Legend of Zelda.
Not that I've given up or anything. There's two months left in the Ebay season, and if I can't get it here, online awaits
As one of the few people who preordered and got a PS2 today (Fantavision kicks butt!), I can assure you that the PS2 has an optical digital out (TOSLINK) for AC3 and DTS, and that it works fine - I have mine hooked up that way right now, games and DVD's playing just fine.
The DVD playback is improved over the Japanese release, compairing it with my friend's import PS2, which got a bit blocky at times. The DVD playing software has been moved off the memory card into firmware, due to the weird memory card corruption problems in the japanese release.
Supposedly the Macrovision in DVD playback is catching people offguard - a lot of people are having problems using their VCR's as RF converters to go to their TV's, which doesn't work well for some reason. The guys at EB exhorted people to read the manual for this reason.
BBK
Want to find out? Reverse engineer your PS2 and write a Napster client for it. Wait for the lawyers.
Or reverse engineer your PS2 and figure out a way to make copies of your game disks. Wait for the lawyers.
Or just reverse engineer your PS2 and publish the information online. Wait for the lawyers.
I also played the PS2 at Fry's. I think they made a poor choice of games to Demo. They had Tekken Tag on the PSX2, and right next to it was a DC running Soul Caliber... The DC looked 10 times better than the PSX2! I KNOW there are better games they could have demo'd for the Playstation.
In particular, I'm looking forward to DOA2:Hardcore, Bouncers and Zone of Enders..
Then again they had yet another DC running some stupid@ss mexican maraca[sp?] game...really frightening.
Ender
Nothing to see here
The Apple //e came with Little Brickout, which was a great game. So you suck.
- Have a picture
Yeah, but I bet you're all sold out of corn holders!
- Have a picture
When is the last time a game console got this much attention on it's launch. This is strange.
How about "every console for the last ten years"?
This is news for nerds. I'm a /. reader and got my PS2 today. In fact, my /. reading wife waiting out in front of target. It's news to us. Not every story has to be about how some big company is taking some right away.
Activision was never history. They've been that big conglomorate pumping out games forever. Are you confusing them with the now-defunct Infocom, that Activision bought? Activision may still use the name Infocom for some things, but believe me, the real Infocom is long gone, and may it rest in peace. :(
-bugg
I arrived at my local Kmart, er, Big K at about 5:00AM. Duty called, friends were counting on me. There were three cars frosted over. One with an occupant. There were 6 PS2s reported to be available. At 5:30 our overzealous local K manager came out to the cars to hand out pre-written numbered business cards. By 6:00 AM, three of us gathered in my car. For two hours, eventhough we could go and return, we swapped gaming stories.
By 8:00 AM, at store opening the six of us lucky golden ticket winners were somehow connected. While at the counter 4 calls came in, each for a playstation.
The machine does not excite me too much. In a few months it will be discounted, but the experience of being one of the first will still be as rich as the morning fog.
I waited at a Target in New Jersey with some buds. All we did was chat with people on the line waiting for the Target to open. We got there around 3AM and the Target security guy gave out tickets at 4AM. He said there were 33 PS2s and luckily all the people in our group got tickets.
Yeah, so eventually, the doors opened and we systematically filed into Target and bought our PlayStation 2 Entertainment Systems. Yeah I'm going to Ebay mine. Easy profit for just chillin' outside with some friends. Nothing big, and yeah the PS2 is a big deal. Target security turned away dozens of people after the tickets were all gone.
Just wait till Christmas time and the prices will really skyrocket.
Rangers Lead the Way!
OK, after about two weeks of playing various games on the Playstation 2 (DOA2, Fantavision, Summoner, Tekken Tag, Wild Wild Racing) I'm completely underwhelmed. The games suck. There's no denying that the PSX2 will be the undisputed heavyweight champ in terms of raw power, but if the games I've played are any indication it'll be a while before there's any point in buying one. Bah. What a let-down.
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
ok. here's the deal. anyone who says the games suck ass at console launch are crazy.
1st off, the PS2 is oooh so very badass. i've been cleaning my undies every 20 minutes since i got this thing....VERY SWEET!!!
Madden 2001 is absolutely, without argument, the best Madden ever. The physics are unbelievable, the only problem is i can't figure out how the dolphins keep scoring with a pass to the right? i mean, WTF?!?!?!
Yes, the games will get better. prolly the best game that will be out within' the next year will be GT3 (check out IGN.com for the scoop). But they're already one level higher than the dreamcast. (funny anecdote: when we were being hurded in to pick up our PS2's, they had a dreamcast display. $150 for a dreamcast. the display looked like they were sellin' bulk cassette tapes.)
Yes, the PS2 will go nowhere but up, and i already am severely impressed....oops, gotta go get my ass kicked by the Dolphins again. WTF?!??
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Here in Quincy, IL, there is a stack of about twenty playstation twos at the local KBs. I pity those of you who live in bigger towns. :P
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Username taken, please choose another one.
I'll admit, Super Mario 64 was incredible, one of the best launch games ever, possibly the best launch game ever. But with a $40 million budget and Shigeru Miyamoto behind it, how could it suck?
J
Since everyone's pointing out that, yes, there have been good launch games, I guess I'll concede and say, yes, there have been a few. Very few. Maybe one, maybe two in a single console launch.
I was speaking a bit too generally, I guess.
But speaking relatively, as the system matures, so do the games. As the programmers and designers learn how to get the most out of the console, the games increase in quality dramatically over their first gen predecessors.
The NES had a wicked game at launch -- Super Mario Bros. The rest were all pretty much crap, at least compared to the system's twilight years. Gyromite, Duck Hunt, 10 Yard Fight... how much did they lick compared to Super Mario Bros. 3, >= Mega Man 4 and Bionic Commando?
The same can pretty much be said for any console.
J
... I'm waiting for some real games to come out on the system.
Games always suck at a console's launch. It's a historical fact. The good games start coming out when the designers figure the system out. Did we have games like Zelda: The Ocarina of Time for the N64 at launch? Would we ever have thought such a game was possible? Or what about Metal Gear Solid? Hell, we didn't even get Quake until, well, it must have been at least 2 years after the PC was introduced.
There's only really one game at this point I even want to play on the PS2, and that's Metal Gear 2: Sons of Liberty. That game looks incredibly kick-ass. The original MGS rocked hard on the PSX, I'm sure the next one will be amazing.
Of course, if I get MGS2, it'll only be so long until I have to get Metal Gear Solid X, which is apparently coming out on the X-Box. Fuck. Next I suppose Konami will be releasing Metal Gear Solid GAMECUBE.
Anyways, back to my point, the PS2 is pretty much worthless right now. Honestly, how much better are the games than the Dreamcast? I'd rather get the new Zelda game (which also came out today) than any game on the PS2, which says something about the longevity of the N64.
If you're buying it for the DVD instead of the games, what's the point? Buy a real DVD player and get the most out of those DVDs.
I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore. Just ranting on I guess. Did I have a point in there somewhere?
J
y'know... 500,000 Playstations... 260,000,000+ Americans... if ya do the math, and see just how LOW a percentage of the US is actually going to get to even use this thing... It makes you wonder if the Playstation is a topic worthy of 3 articles on the /. home page...
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
I think you mean "Ouvri barrié pou nou passé..."
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
If you an Signal 11 mated, you'd create the uber-karma-whore.
Some people have more money than brains.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Zork isn't written in C, it's written in Z-Code. Before the invention of the "Z-machine" and consequently Z-Code, Zork's father, dungeon, was written in Fortran.
Just downloaded it from www.funet.fi, c sources that is.
Activision was nearly dead a few years back, considering changing their name and doing business packages. That's what stunned me, was seeing them still doing computer games. I'd been through their offices in Mountain View, back in 1985, when David Crane was still developing Little Computer People. (now we call these things virii)
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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
X-Men
Tenchu
Spiderman
Orphen: Scion of Sorcery
Sky Odessy
Call to Power II
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
and some other stuff. Anyway, there's some stuff to consider, assuming anyone has any money left after actually buying a PS2.
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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Personally, I'm going with "PlayStation 2", since that's what's printed on the damned thing! I'll refer to it as the "supercharged Animé machine" when I want to criticize it.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I'm a little confused. What sort of gamer WOULD queue up for hours in the cold in the middle of the night, but WOULDN'T pay a little extra to get an import which they could have been playing for the last few months?
We've had one at work since the Japanese launch, and it's come out of the cupboard a grand total of *five* time. Four times for Tekken, once for Ridge Racer. Only three people have bothered to borrow it. That's in an office full of gamers.
I rather pity the people who'll be getting their brand new PSX2s home and spending a few sad hours desperately trying to enjoy Tekken TT and Ridge Racer 5. Great games are certainly in the pipeline for the PS2, but they ain't here yet and without them, the box is a bit of a dud.
To a slashdot editor making US90000+ in a plush job that consists entirely of tacking some pithy remarks onto the end user submissions, the release of a $500 soon-to-be-obsolete game console may be the most exciting happening since slashdot sold out to andover. But personally, I couldn't care less.
That the release of the PSX2 is considered of great importance by the Slashdot crew is yet further evidence that the Rob & Friends are out-of-touch with their readership and the (non-adolescent) world.
Go ahead and play with your aibos, vaios, and PSX2s. Feed money to the corporate juggernaut that wants to strip you of your rights. Indoctrinate your readers to do the same. Do this if you will, but don't expect me to play along.
For a site that is supposedly concerned with protecting the 'rights' of its readers, this disregard for important issues is troubling. That you will screech about the outrages done us by the RIAA and MPAA, both Sony-sponsored instruments of corporate oppression, and then turn around and support those organizations monetarily and commercially, is troubling.
I urge all Slashdot readers concerned with preserving their rights against the corporate machine to boycott the PSX2 and all future Sony products until Sony disavows the RIAA and MPAA and any other anti-consumer rights lobbying efforts.
Besides, you won't be missing much. Just consumer electronics you don't really need anyway. And, in five years, you'll be able to pick up a PSX2 at a thrift shop for 20 bucks.
I stood in line at a Minneapolis Best Buy store for 13 hours (worth it). I noticed something kinda cool, the hardcore gamers are alot nicer than some of the parents who tried to get this for their kid.
In the morning, people were starting to get really worn down from the pouring rain and cold throughout the night, but still no one got out of hand. No one that is but the parents of kids that were to lazy to come showed up in the morning about an hour before the store opened. I remember when the Tickle Me Elmo scam went down hearing stories of parents literally fighting with other parents to get a little blue fur-ball. First fights, scratching, whatever, these are grown adults. We saw the same type of behavior when similar parents showed up in the morning for the ps2, they bitched, they moaned, they even tried to just get in line somewhere near the front. But we knew better, we are better than them. After nicely telling them that they need to go to the back of the line, they got very defensive. One lady literally yelled at me for 5 minutes trying to kill time hoping to sneak in when the store opened. We even overheard a different parent arguing that because the people behind us weren't in line at that exact moment, that she should be able to take their spot. When confronted and said that probably wasn't going to happen, her reply was 'well, that's how lines are formed, are you stupid?'. Talk about nice eh? I'm 25 and took off today and tomorrow to play some games. The 12 hours previous to these parnets showing up, 150 people like myseld froze our ass off to get one, not a single incident, everyone was super cool and friendly. When it was getting close to opening, people who might have dozed off in their car or something were woken up by people they never met before saying 'hey man, get up it's getting close'. It's nice to know that us gamers have a better ethic than some of our previous generations when it comes to courtesy and just plain being cool. I don't know if it's just where I live, but overall, I think that these parents need to calm down. If you are a parent who didn't think ahead and didn't get one, relax, it's a video game, your kid will live without it for a couple weeks.
-redial+1
My concerns voiced, on with the focus of this post. I live in Canada, Toronto specifically, and the PS2 launch is huge here too. With Christmas consumerist madness well on its way, I too have been swept up in the hype. London, Ontaio, roughly 2 hours west from Toronto, has long been considered the ultimate test market in North America. It supposedly makes for a wonderful sample market and every kind of company from fast food companies testing new products (ie. McDonald's delivery) to banks testing new services (ie. drive-thru banking) were first launched there. The PS2 is no different. Consoles have been popping up there. I'm not sure if any media coverage has been done but two associates of mine who live there have been involved in the test sample, so it's for real.
My Second Vote Was For Gore
great comedy company.
...I look around and notice that every female in the area is connected to a male somehow....
...They all look like college students, and are about half men, half women....
Isn't it odd that geeks seem so ready to line up at all hours of the night, sometimes weeks in advance *cough*Starwars: The Phantom Menace*cough* to partake of these feeding frenzies of American consumerism? I did too, until I figured out the real reason:
American corporations are conspiring to build the uber-geek by selectively breeding male geeks with female geeks at toystores and movie theatres across the nation in order to staff the great technological campaigns of the future. Think about it: those long hours together in darkened parking lots, with nothing but fastfood caffeine for sustenance, snuggling in sleeping bags to ward off the cold, basking in the glow of the occasional palm-pilot and humming the theme to Tron to keep up morale....
And how to get these geeks together? American pilot-programs during the cold war indicated that sociability and people-skills were insufficient. You have to have toys, and they have to be slick:
"Hey, what a neat joystick you have there. Wanna come over to my place and play Mario together? I'll be the Princess and you'll be Luigi *rrowwrrr*."
It's time we put an end to their sinister conspiracy. We don't need them to fall in love. Set free the romantic inside all of you! Love will set you free!
-- Anne Marie
Isn't it worth to put some money into a computer instead? Let's look at some of the advantages:
-upgradeability
-tweaking (isn't overclocking fun?)
-possibility of updating the game, or installing expansion paks
-game mods (as in Q3A)
-a monitor is way better than a TV in terms of quality
-functionality other than playing games and watching DVDs
-most importantly: you can't run Linux on a PS II!!! (yet)
I guess this topic will just start another flame war on the console vs. PC discussion. *sigh* Anyway, just felt like voicing my opinion.
Join the NFSNET. Our prime goal is making little numbers out of big ones. http://www.nfsnet.org/