Slashdot Mirror
New Slimline PS2 Compatibility Issues
Gamasutra reports that a new iteration of the PS2 hardware experiences issues with certain games, both from this and the last generation. From the article: "The listed games will only be affected on new models of the system, starting with the Satin Silver slimline PS2, so far announced only for Japan. Whether the SCPH-75000 model will eventually be the standard for all production PS2s is unknown, but Sony advises those wanting a thinner system which can play the aforementioned games to get a 70000 or above."
... but Sony can't even change the paint on their hardware without breaking compatibility?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
can screw up a game not working. after all it should be the same archateture just smaller.
Let's see: Gameboy? Nope. GBC? Nope. GBA? Nope. NES? Nope. SNES? Nope. Gamecube? Nope.
I've never had a console freeze on me; that doesn't necessarily mean that none of the above platforms are immune to it, but I've never had hardware/software incompatibilities except on a PC. Go figure.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Start up your SNES, then give it a good wack. You can probably get it to crash that way. :)
Actually, I remember that on Final Fantasy III for the SNES (yes, we know, FF6, shut up), using one character's special ability would crash the system. (Especially fun since one fight you HAD to use it.) So I always say Relm's special ability is "Crash" since it would always crash my SNES.
But beyond that, the only problems with crashing games I can think about involve either hitting the console and causing the cart to lose contact, or Sony products. Sony: When it absolutely, postively, doesn't need to be reliable beyond 10% of the time.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't 75000 above 70000?
Goo goo g'joob.
I've never had a console freeze on me
I've had Gran Turismo 3 single-player crash and lose my progress on Playstation 2.
And multiplayer networked games via firewire are also notoriously unreliable. When it doesn't crash the machine, you have to frequently reset it when the menus stop behaving correctly.
but I've never had hardware/software incompatibilities except on a PC.
That's a silly statement - consoles are generally immune to hardware or software incompatibilies by their very nature. As a consumer, there's no way of connecting hardware to your Xbox when it was not explicitly designed to be used with an Xbox.
To be fair, there was a lockup issue with Metroid Prime on the GC ... basically, the "other" parts of a level were loaded while they showed an elevator cinematic. If the cinematic ended before the data was loaded... lockup.
AND TO BE EVEN MORE FAIR... I will say Nintendo has very tight QC. NEVER had any problems with a Nintendo handheld over the course of 15 years. Sony certainly can't make that claim with the PSP. The current PS2 woes seem to be from redesigning the hardware for the second time this cycle. The beauty of Nintendo is that they design hardware to be cost-efficient from the get-go. I think most companies could learn alot from moneybags Nintendo.
Um, the entire point of TFA was the fact that there *are* incompatibilities between console hardware and software - or did you miss that bit?
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
I had FIFA 2004 freeze on me on the Gamecube. Not once, but several times. Was mildly annoying, to say the least.
Yes, it's an anecdote, but it goes to show that the vaunted stability of a console isn't a guaranteed thing. Better than a PC? Definitely. Perfect? Hell no.
There's likely upgraded parts, to be cheaper or less power hungry
Probably not. The upgrade was likely to exclude the loopholes and modifications that homebrewers use because those are the same loopholes and modifications that pirates use.
Sketch was incredibly buggy, I'll agree, but it didn't crash my system at least. I just ended up with 1000 dirks, and enough gem boxes and economizers to get 1 MP Ultimas for the rest of the game.
I have, however, frozen my N64 a few times, and Gamecube once (Worms 3D, a terribly buggy but terribly fun game).
This is my sig. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
If you've never had a NES hang on you, you've never had a NES.
Metroid Prime was one of the most widely publicized games that froze. I would say that 1 out of every 100 times I play a Gamecube game, the console freezes. I don't know if it was speculation or an official acknowledgment, but the word that went around shortly after Metroid Prime was released, was that the freezing was the result of the game using every last bit of memory in the system.
At least it hasn't for me, or any sizeable portion of the installed userbase since the stupid first wave. You may think Xbox is evil, but knowingly and arbitrarily breaking compatability is another. It's one thing to say "All Game Boy games will not be able to be played on the Game Boy Micro", but it's pretty stupid when you have to make a list of PSOne and PS2 games that specificly don't work on the new system. I thought that the whole point of consoles was to get rid of silly things like compatability problems.
I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
I had Castlevania: Dawn of sorrow freeze on me once. And countless original steam-Gameboy games have frozen.
Now there's a slogan.
"Sony: Six nines of reliablility. Just ignore the decimal point at the beginning."
In the UK we have silver slimline PS2s as well - Anyone know if they're 70000 or 75000 series? Not that I'd get one, I think plastic silver is really tacky as a finish, but I'm just interested.
(And do they still have the wonderful (not) matching black controller ports and power buttons etc. that the silver and aqua blue tray loading PS2s had?)
10 PRINT "LOOK AROUND YOU ";
20 GOTO 10
And I hear the new PS2 unit is also incompatible with FFXI. :-)
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I'd say you've been very lucky. Virtually every console I've owned has frozen up or crashed on me at some point. It was by far most common with my NES, but I've had the problem with GB, SNES, PS, PS2, and GC as well. Never owned an XBox, so I can't comment on that one.
Right, because the best time to stop the modders is a year before you release a whole new console?
Sony has been changing the PS2 around more often than you think, and this is just one more step, albeit one that resulted in unintended consequences. Steps against modding are necessary even now because if you're five years into a console's life cycle, that means you still have 90 years to defend the copyrights in the launch titles. Blame Sonny Bono.
Why is parent flamebait? For that matter, why is it troll?
I used to carry a bottle of whiskey for snake bite. And two snakes. -Nefarious Wheel
It's quite possible that the game is buggy, but the bug didn't appear on the old architecture. There are quite a few games with bugs in then that don't appear on Windows but do appear in Wine, even though Wines API matches Windows API.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Anyone else get the feeling it might be quicker to cut out the middle man (Zonk) and just bookmark 1UP and Gamasutra directly? Although then we would miss out on the oddly-worded summaries...
Read Pynchon.
I had my Xbox crash several times. Of course I was running the homebrew Xbox version of MAME with a bad romset at the time...
Sometimes my arms bend back.
For metroid prime, opening and closing the disc cover seemed to work if it locked up
I love my GC dearly, but I've seen it crash- the Metroid Prime US 1.0 freeze glitch. If you skipped the monsters put in your way to buy the game time to load, the system crashed. It would crash occasionally with elevators.
Resident Evil 2? Chrono Cross? Upsetting SquareEnix and Capcom, two of the biggest supporters of the PS1 AND PS2, is not a good way to start the next generation of console wars. What next? The first wave of PS3s can't play FFVII? The Blu-Ray drives are defective? The systems don't work 'right out of the box'? Sony has really hurt its own reputation in hardware reliability these past few years.
You've never had your GameCube freeze?
e2 | LJ
With the PS3 now rumored to be 600 or more (again, it's a rumor), I'm thinking that next-gen gamers will be having a compatibility issue of their own with Sony products. That being, of course, their current wallets will not be big enough to play Sony's new system.
Gamecube: Metroid Prime Freezing: http://www.classicgaming.com/mdb/mp/glitches.htm#f reezing
Mod redundant. Did you not read the post directly above yours?
I played the Player's Choice version of MP, so maybe that's why I never had any problems with it.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Well there you go.
I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
As someone who has owned an ps1, psp, ps2, gamecube, sega satrun, genesis, nes, snes, atari, xbox and other systems, the PS1 is the ONLY system that I had to buy three times...the first TWO ps1 systems failed. I also had to buy another PS2 because it had issues. I also own a PSP and the controls on it suck really bad. Sony really has got to fire the people who make their hardware, their hardware not only fails the easiest of all the manufacturers, it also is the easiest to break if you drop it. Gamecubes are virtually indestructible as are Sega Saturns and Dreamcasts...and those systems are all failures...
I guess it doesnt pay to build a good system its all about marketing.
Well, Nintendo isn't flaw-free, but still least buggy of all things I've tried. At worst, I've had startup flaws due to crap in the connectors (But then again, really no system is immune to crap in the game media - ahem, no dual meaning intended). The weirdest surprise was when one GBA game was identified as a DS game accessory pak. I was, like, "oh, DS games can be extended, what a wonderful platform this is" =)
I've only witnessed a Nintendo game crash once, when using quake power in Star Fox Adventures. And that happened only once.
"Gamecubes are virtually indestructible as are Sega Saturns and Dreamcasts...and those systems are all failures..."
Sorry to be off topic but I hate when people claim the Gamecube as a failure. Nintendo has profited MORE than Sony and Microsoft COMBINED with the Gamecube in this generation. Though it may have sold the least that DOES NOT make it a failure.
Does the slimline have heating issues? Guy at the local indy game shop said overheats after 2 hours, but I hadn't heard much about it.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death