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PlayStation 2 Launched In Europe
Hougaard writes: "The PS2 release for Europe is today ... I went down to my local store to buy one. This is a store a lot like a CompUSA (sizewise). They will only get six from Sony???. The rumour has it, that Sony is only releasing 8000 PS2 for Denmark thruout 2000 :-(
But I was guy number five -- So hopefully ..." Can any European readers comment on the launch? Were lines stretched around the block like they were at some U.S. stores? Who's got one already?
I don't know if they've hyped up the PS2 launch as much in Europe, it's definitely been a big deal in the US, to the point where newspapers bother to report on the coverage due to the immense value of the console itself. I am not surprised by the fact that there aren't corner-turning lines in European countries though, that's where the factor of national population (and number of PS2s) plus the amount of knowledge people have about the quantity of the PS2s come in. I am not aware of the gamer ratio over there, but the PS2 seems to be able to cause anticipation and funny little nerd riots where ever it goes.
Jawa
Jawa
http://gryps.paravolve.com/jawa/
Dreamcast using Bleemcast plays PS1 games better than a PS2. :-)
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...I dunno why I'm posting on a two-day-old thread nobody's reading any more,...
I'do. I'll check it out.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
It was no problem preordering one of these, as the demand surprisingly hadn't been that big, at least not in those stores, which admittedly is not placed in the most populated area of Denmark (no 5 mile queues or any riot-like happenings
And, the fact that Denmark only got 8000 PS2s for the rest of the year just plain sucks.
United Kingdom : One PS2 for every 363 citizens
Denmark : One PS2 for every 662 citizens
Thats unfair, I should think :-(
When I came at the shop (Toys-R-Us in Wallau, near Frankfurt), there were +/- 10 people waiting, and it was an hour before opening time. So I waited an hour, by that time there were about 40 or 50 people waiting. The rumour among the crowd was that the shop only had 30 units, so when they opened the door, I *ran* in... only to find that only the 10 people that were there first actually came for a ps2, the others just wanted other stuff... So there were plenty of playstations. The bad parts was that they only had 4 games :-(
The PSX2 has *many* great games for it already available - PS1 games. I know that isn't what you meant, but I think Sony did The Right Thing when they added backwards-compatibility with their last console. I hope they keep it up, and others emulate them(keeping backwards compatibility with the *last* console the company made - no need to make another x86).
Dave
'Round the firewall,
Out the modem,
Through the router,
Down the wire,
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Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Immoral because they want to make profits? Welcome to capitalism
No, but because they use underhand tactics to do so. Threatening legal action against competitors is not nice. They may be within their rights to do this, but it becomes a totalitarian regime ruled by large corporations. Letters from lawyers look scary even if they have no legal basis to complain.
Unless they control the distribution and sale of software (=games), there is no money
If they couldn't, they would just have to find a new way to make money. And they would. Sony make quite a nice profit on CD players without control of the entire market. Companies have made a profit on hardware before. Cheaper games could be a selling point.
These guys make Microsoft look innocent!
I disagree: I have yet to see Sony to abuse a monopoly to embrace another market.
An exageration. Although they do use their monopoly to prevent non-sanctioned games from being developed.
Everyone can easily decide whether a game is good. Bot not everyone has the knowledge to decide whether an Operating system is good or not.
Well, that doesn't really matter. If I sell any useless product that you find adequate for your needs, then it doesn't matter whether its any good by an experts judgement. Its up to competitors to make a better product and convince you that its better.
Laughing my ass off! Cubemates are giving me funny looks. Who cares. Actually, I'm a Canadian, eh? but with enough exposure to British culture (and dictionaries) to "misinterpret" whenever someone tries to call me homosexual. Gay==happy, queer==odd, fag==cigarette, homo==3.25% milk. This post almost doesn't deserve to be submitted, but now that I've taken the trouble to write it...
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I haven't been there myself but I saw on the news (both TV, online and printed) that the Virgin Megastore here in Paris had 200 PS2 and opened at midnight that day. 2 people got injured in the "fight" and many people had been waiting for hours... They just did something grand like with a giant PS2 dome opening, the boxes being underneath the dome surrounded by spotlights... There were 70 000 PS2 for France, and 50 000 were only available for people who reserved one earlier so 20 000 Playstation 2 have been sold yesterday in stores all over the country. pfew!
Personnaly I wouldn't go through all that troubles for a console that still lacks a lot of great games (something else than arcade) and wait for the system to be a few months older...
The PS2 is going to be around for 5 years at least, so there's no point at all in queuing for hours. So you (might) get to buy a PS2 before anyone else - big deal. How about waiting for some games to appear and the price to come down?
I didnt see any queues here, in fact, I never heard a peep in the computer science common room.
However, the register is reporting about online buying. We've not gone as mad as you yanks though.
The PS2 retails for $300 in the US, its $433 over here. Somethign seems a little amis. If I were interested I'd get a NTSC-->PAL converter at those prices!
If anyone out there got one, can you let us know what the implementation of BASIC is like please?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
in Austria they open the stores at 12:00 PM in order to prevent that so many people have to wait outside in the cold a whole night.
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
So let's see, how many groups of people has Sony managed to piss off with this launch?
1) Customers: First and foremost, people cannot get these things, and they're going through an awful lot of trouble to. People have stood in lines for 8 hours or more and gotten absolutely nothing. Then some people (and dealers!) buy them and resell them after marking them up 200-300%. $800 for a PS2 is just ridiculous.
2) Retailers: Retailers have no idea how many units they're getting from Sony, when they're going to show up, and when they finally do, they tend to get much less than they're hoping for. One retailer I spoke to was supposed to get shipments on 10/26, but got zip. Retailers can't advertise the PS2 console, which makes them look really bad. PS2 is "the thing" to get this Christmas, and people are saving the bucks until one is available, which means retailers aren't making money in the meantime. These guys are trying to bring in 40% of the year's revenues in about 40 days. Sony is really causing problems here. Furthermore, imagine how tired clerks are of say "we don't have them, and we don't know when we will."
3) Developers. There are tons of units of PS2 game discs available for purchase. But how many people are going to buy them before they know they have a system?
4) Parents/Wives: PS2 are at the top of wishlists everywhere. Too bad most people are going to get one.
5) Media: Newspapers, TV networks and radio stations would love to sell ads to retailers boasting that they have PS2s to sell.
I just don't by the component shortage line that Sony's feeding us. If that were the case, why are there so many PS2s available in Japan? And despite this, Sony still has the balls to run PS2 commercials during prime time. The upside to all of this is that Sega will probably see increased sales, which means more competition in the market next year with a larger Dreamcast installed base. The truth is that Dreamcast games generally look as good as or better than PS2 games, and there are many more titles available. If only Dreamcast had the EA Sports titles...
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Just a thought.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Well I got one.. The Yabasic works .. It can do simple character based programs and simple 2D graphics. It even has PEEK and POKE .. So we just need to find the address for the DVD region code :-)
BTW: The population of Denmark is ~ 5 million so this is one playstation for 625 people, compared to the US when the initial launch was one for each 280 people.
I had some luck, but I got mine today.
The shop of the local cable tv had a lot of PSX2, but nobody did think they would have had one, so there were some available until 2pm.
As a geeky anecdote, as me and a friend, both CS graduates, walked in, they guy in the shop asked directly: "One or two?". So, we really can't disguise ourselves.
Sadly they had no games/pads/memory cards to sell. I had to go to another shop located nearby, which had sold out all the PSX2, but had plenty of accessories.
Another friend tried to go to the same shop, about 2 hours later, but they said they had no more PSXs, but when he was leaving, a guy working for the shop approached him, giving him a card with a phone number, saying he could get one PSX2 by calling, but it would be a bit more expensive.
I guess he had bought some to resell them at a higher price.
Since I work at the university, I directly when to a room with a beamer and tried the console with Tekken Tag Tournament and ISS 2000. Tekken is visually stunning, but in the gameplay department still disappointing (like its predecessors). ISS 2000 has simpler graphics, but its the best soccer game on every platform, improving a bit on PSX ISS Pro Evolution.
On the demo disk, there is the Yabasic, I will test it: sadly I don't have an USB keyboard.
The SSX demo is also very impressive, the best game so far.
Still, I am very annoyed by the region lockout, both for DVDs and PSX 1 CDs. I have many region 1 DVDs and a lot of NTSC games I would like to play on my new console. I guess I will wait for a modchip, but I can hardly wait.
ps2 has not been released yet (30NOV), .nz (http://nz.playstation.com/)
:)
however you can (pre)order via http://au.playstation.com/ to be delivered on the 30NOV with free postage.
you can also pre-order in
this is good news if you have to go to work
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
As with the original Playstation is bad PAL conversions. PAL has higher res and runs at 50hz, and despite the delay in the release all that has been done to most release games is to put borders round the screen and not compensate for the 60hz->50hz switch. As a result games like Tekken Tag are completely ruined - at least to anyone who has played a full speed version. Ridge Racer has been tweaked and is actually *faster* than the Japanese version (not played the US version so I've no idea about that). Unfortunately they seem to have neglected to speed up the computer-controlled cars, which sort of wrecks the game. :)
Can't fault Fantavision though, that game is truly amazing. As to whether or not the console is worth the 300GBP it's being sold for.. well I'll leave that up to others. Personally I'd be going for an import model though, if I had the cash. As it is, it's back to F355 on my Dreamcast..
-- Piracy is a vicitmless crime, like punching someone in the dark.
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I dunno why I'm posting on a two-day-old thread nobody's reading any more, but I don't see this mentioned so I thought I should record it for posterity :)
/one signal for whole picture/ universally accepted) and RGB video (very high quality / one signal for each of red, green, blue, sync / not all TVs accept it) [as well as S-video, but that's niche stuff in Europe].
It appears that the current batch of European PAL PS2s have a problem with DVD playback over RGB.
The SCART standard used for European video applications carries both composite video (acceptable quality
PS2 owners appear to have discovered that although they can play games using RGB SCART fine, DVD playback is green-tinged and odd-looking. DVD playback over composite SCART is OK.
Some Sony sources are claiming this is to prevent DVD pirates from copying the nice, clean, RGB signal; that argument doesn't wash since there are plenty of cheaper DVD decks with RGB output a pirate could use instead, and anyway, DVD can be pirated much more easily in the digital domain now we have DeCSS. It seems more likely that something was overlooked in the move from US model to European model and that one of the AV pins meant for RGB is putting out US-style Component Video signals.
We'll see what happens.
--
I just don't by the component shortage line that Sony's feeding us. If that were the case, why are there so many PS2s available in Japan?
The Japanese version has a software-based DVD decoder (remember the disc recall when they discovered it wasn't region-locked) whereas the US/European version has hardware DVD playback.
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Isn't that two per person? That seems like plenty.