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Sony, Nintendo Announce 'Fixes' For Their Consoles
Gamasutra reports that both Nintendo and Sony still have a few kinks to work out from their newly launched systems. It may seem funny to an onlooker, but the spectacular Wii strap blowouts are being taken very seriously by Nintendo. People are evidently 'even more excited' by playing the little white console than the company anticipated, and they're investigating the possibility that the straps aren't strong enough. Meanwhile, Sony has updated the PS3's firmware to 1.30 in an effort to take care of the much-complained-about resolution scaling issues. Ars Technica (and several other sites) are saying that the fix doesn't really do anything, despite Sony's reassurances. From that article: "The priority of resolutions has been changed, putting 1080i over 720p. So if you prefer 720p as a resolution, be sure to uncheck 1080i as a possible resolution on your television, or else games that support both resolutions will automatically display at 1080i. Of course, if you uncheck 1080i as a resolution, your Blu-ray movies will display at 480p. So you'll have to just manually switch the resolution yourself depending on what you're doing ... If you have a 720p set, not only has Sony not fixed the scaling issues, they've made the process of playing games and watching movies less user friendly. Sony really wants you to upgrade into a 1080p set, and they seem to want to punish you if you don't have one."
Sony, fix the price first!
Nintendo may call it "even more excited", but the UK Sale Of Goods Act calls it "not fit for the purpose intended" and would entitle the consumer to their money back from the retailer. So yes, better to get it sorted.
Okay, so before it was: "If my machine doesn't show 1080p, fall back on 720p, and 1080i (only) is screwed". Now it's "If my machine doesn't show 1080p, fall back on 1080i, and everyone else is screwed".
So it went from a minor annoyance to a severe problem?
Who put Don Rumsfeld in charge of patches?
You think there's any chance that the Nintendo Power Glove will be resurrected?
Sony actually has good hardware with the PS3, despite all the FUD. But if they don't pull their heads out of the sand and overhaul the software, they're going to lose a lot of customers.
I am a PS3 owner. Wake up, Sony.
Caffeine is my anti-drug!
Duranin - A NWN2 Roleplaying Persistent World
Even by Zonk standards, this is some impressive spinning -- it's not a defect, it's just that the fantasticness of the Wii is so all-encompassing that the designers couldn't have anticipated how much players would love it!
Microsoft should have come up with that: "Players are so exhilarated by the 360 that they can sometimes set the carpet on fire!"
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
If you look at a wiimote from the more recent batches (especialy if its one that got sent by nintendo because of a defect or another, as a replacement), and compare the straps, the newer wiimotes have much, much better straps. So its already fixed in the newer batches, as far as I can tell.
If you're honestly worried about the strap breaking on your Wiimote, check out this quick how-to on flickr. Just use some heavy duty fly fishing line to reinforce it.
My work here is dung.
Welcome to the world of console gaming, now with patches.
There's a warning screen before each game to tightly grip the Wiimote. I wouldn't blame Nintendo for my inability to grip an object. On a related note, society on the whole is far to sue happy and I'm of the opinion that they should institute a mandatory penalty for bringing frivolous law suits.
I was hoping this there would be news of a Wii system update, perhaps to allow the Classic Controller to be used with Gamecube games on the Wii. As it is, you have to use a Gamecube controller. The Classic has all the buttons you would need, even the analog-style L and R triggers, but for some reason, it is not set up that way. I really don't want to buy a Wavebird, and I really REALLY don't want an ugly dongle sticking out of the top of my nice new Wii.
Suggesting that Nintendo needs to be sued because people misuse the product, to a degree far enough beyond sensibility that it is almost laughable, makes me want to suggest suing microwave manufacturers because microwaving a baby makes a real mess.
This is something I seriously don't get about the latest generation of consoles. Every previous generation, one of the plus points was that once you buy the console, that's it - everything Just Works (tm Apple). Now the first thing you have to do when you switch on is download patches? WTF?
How long before the first console game that requires patches just to get rid of all the v1.0 gameplay bugs?
You must think in Russian.
No, I'm sorry, but I don't agree at all that this is some type of spin. Nintendo designed the Wiimote to what they felt would be appropriate safety standards when used responsibly and with a modicum of common sense. How exactly it is their fault that a bunch of people are far too overzealous for their own good? The strap is there for backup. The Wiimote should never have left the people's hands in the first place.
This whole thing might convince me to put some adhesive rubber strips on the Wiimote for a better grip, (get your minds out of the gutter, guys...) but it's not Nintendo's fault if I act like a freaking maniac and the Wiimote flies out of my hand because I'm swinging it faster than I should or need to.
As far as I'm concerned, Nintendo is taking the high road by saying that they're going to look at making the wrist straps more secure whereas they could just as easily say, "The Wiimote wrist strap was not designed for people who don't know how to control themselves properly" and leave it at that.
And, no, that's not a troll or a flame. I'm just so tired of people pushing things beyond their limit of tolerance due to their own lack of self-control and common sense then blaming the manufacturer for it. If you buy a car, never take it out of first gear, red-line the engine by going 50 MPH, and end up in the hospital when the engine explodes, that's not the car manuacturer's fault for not making the engine more tolerant of your bad actions.
Nintendo just gained some credibility in my book.
As for Microsoft, I'm not as willing to let them off the hook. People have been putting consoles on the floor since the days of the Atari 2600, so that is not an unrealistic expectation. Yet Microsoft designed the 360 and its power supply to be a small toaster oven. They could have put a bit more planning into the heating/cooling system of the 360.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Gears Of War required a patch on release day.
HTH
HAND
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
The european virtual console is stuck @ 50 hertz, the games are about 15% slower and the screen has ugly black borders around it.
As much as I am a nintendo fanboy, I really must admit they badly botched the it on this one...
So please make eu games run @60Hz and use the overscan... pretty please?
I'm a PS3 owner, and the new settings are the right ones for my non-1080p HDTV. So, I'm happy with them. The better choice, of course, is to make these choices more user configurable so people can get the mode they prefer for each situation.
I'm a little miffed that when a patch comes out they force me to install it before I can log into the playstation network. This patch had nothing to do with networking. Of course, the 360 works the same way.
Ars is making a HUGE deal out of this resolution nonsense, and I don't know why:
Almost every TV on the market can scale down from higher resolutions (or from interlaced to progressive and vice versa) to its native resolution and refresh rate with (in my opinion) no visual effect. Most cable HD comes in 1080i as well and I don't hear the conspiracy theorists talking about that.
Damn you! How could you be so culturally insensitive as to insult my god!?
I put the 't' in electrical engineering.
If Nintendo is smart they will milk this for all that it is worth. "Oh no people are soooooo excited and having soooo much fun playing our new revolutionary console that they can't hold on to our controller. So because we are worried about our consumer here's a free super duper deluxe strap so you and your stuff will be safe."
However I don't think people should really be able to sue Nintendo because they are a butterfingers.
Your TV is 1.78:1. A lot of widescreen movies are shot in 2.40:1 and transferred to DVD with black letterbox bars to pad it out to 1.78:1. Blame CinemaScope for introducing 2.40:1.
I disagree about the sole use of the lanyard. I think it is specifically for keeping the wiimote handy while you grab your soda, or pick your nose, or whatever. It is NOT a restraint device. It is the *EXACT SAME THING* that has been on every digital camera ever. It is meant to save the camera when you drop it, NOT save the guy you try to throw the camera AT.
Not quite. The straps they use are rated for a certain force. If you exceed that force, the strap will break. None of the reports say the strap just snapped, in each case, the player did not simply let go of the controller, but were actually swinging it with force at the time it left their hand. Even the "snakey metal" you speak of, has a rating beyond which it will snap. Using a stronger strap would guarantee nothing, and Nintendo would still have to educate people not to release the controller when they're flinging it at their tv at high speeds.
just some guy