it's always amazing how people who have absolutely no knowledge of the problem at hand come up with silver bullet solutions that contribute nothing but only attest to their ignorance.
Oh, well that's a fine how-do-you-do.
The problem of the patent system today is too many obvious patents, too many patents where there was prior art. Requiring prototypes does absolutely nothing to avoid those, NOTHING!
But the problem mentioned, IN THIS STORY Mr. Capslock, concerns Sony's patenting something that doesn't even exist, or may never exist. That may be a subset of a larger patent problem (which I don't consider to be merely obvious patents, but includes business method patents, software patents, and other things too), but it's still a problem, and one that prototypes would solve. (Of course, bringing a business method prototype to the patent office would be impossible, and a software prototype is a virtual construct anyway, but those'd be plusses in my book.) Further, it is an especially egregious example -- I don't see how anyone could justify this patent as anything except an attempt to restrain the progress of technology for anyone but Sony, who hasn't even progressed to that level yet. "Theoretical patents," phooey! What's to stop science fiction writers from patenting whatever things they cook up in their heads?
As for my "ignorance," well I will not profess to my own knowledge, but I do know better to flame someone unnecessarily, especially just for only moaning that prototypes would have caught this situation.
An application seeking to patent a concept that the applicant has no clear idea how to implement will always be very broad and it is very likely to be shot down because broadness is something even an inexperienced patent examiner can usually spot.
The key words here are "very likely." That's not a 100% chance. It'll still give serious pause to anyone attempting to create a real invention in this area. The great majority of patents are never stricken down, including some real doozies, and once the patent is granted the burden of proof is on the challenger, meaning *someone* has to pay money to get it overturned, whether that be a big company or the EFF, with the ever-present danger of failure. That's some bad mojo.
More often than not, very broad patents, if they are granted, are considered unenforcible.
Your list of reasons seem to give both reasons for it selling well, and for it *not* selling well. Weird, that.
All things considered, they came into a market dominated by Nintendo and are outselling the Nintendo DS by I'd say a margin very close to 2:1. That, by any measurement, is monstrous success.
Except it's a new release, and the DS sold much better during the same period of its release. So the PSP is not a monstrous success "by any measurement."
While it's difficult to argue against the potential selling power of GTA on the PSP, remember that the PSP is less powerful than the PS2, and Rockstar's first true-3D GTA was for that system. It's almost as much up in the air as how well that will work as it is how Katamari Damacy will work on the DS. (I've got my fingers crossed on that one....) And Nintendo *does* have some interesting DS software in the works, like Nintendogs, Meteos, a new 2D Super Mario Bros., Advance Wars, and other things.
Anyway, none of this means that the PSP won't win out in the long run... but neither does it mean the DS won't. It'll be more competitive than the PS2/Gamecube fight.
You can't impose a hard *limit* on ball length, but pinball tends to be quite tough with how long games last. This is the entertainment that gave us tilts, SDTM ("straight down the middle") drains, and outlanes. There are advanced defenses against all of these things (slap saves, bang backs, deathsaves), but they're usually not completely reliable, or easy to perform (I've never accomplished any of them). Overall, with pinball, there are far more ultra-short games than ultra-long ones. That's why many machines have "ball savers," grace periods during which if you lose a ball it's immediately returned. (Pat Lawlor games by the way, like Addams Family, Twilight Zone and Monopoly, tend to *not* have this feature turned on by default.)
And pinball machines also tend to have their own ways of reducing play length when in the hands of a gifted player -- decreasing or eliminating ball savers as the game continues, activating playfield toys that make drains more likely, and restricting available extra balls are old favorites.
Remember, earnings on a for-pay amusement machine are only decreased from long games if they preclude another person from putting money in, that is, if it results in fewer coins being inserted that day than otherwise. Too short games actually *decrease* earnings because the player doesn't feel like he's been given his money's worth. In my opinion, *that's* one of the reasons arcades are ailing as of late, not the opposite.
That's exactly what I was thinking too. "Really? For X-box 2? This sounds unusually foresighted (and hindsighted) of Microsoft, there's gotta be some kind of--"
"Yep, it's another ILoveBees. Go back to sleep, doesn't concern you."
If a requirement to produce a working prototype was introduced, it would make things even worse because the already overworked patent examiners would now also have to examine the prototype and there would likely follow a tendency to grant any application as long as the prototype appears to do what the specification says it does.
Or, they could just reject patents without a working prototype out of hand, simultaneously freeing up the system and destroying a lot of junk patents -- junk patents like this one.
But fighting games are the base level of video games right now.
They're still one of the primary attractions in *arcades*, which was my point. Animal Crossing is cool in a good number of ways, but it's not an arcade game. Pinball is uniquely arcade-suited.
Imagine...you're going through a level, see a glimmer off in a dark corner, go pick it up, and a hidden video clip plays, featuring sean connery in celebrity jeopardy!
Or! Or! You find a tiny floating stone head in the corner of one of the levels and unlock the special "Zardoz" costume, with Connery in a red loincloth.
Oh, that wacky Electronic Arts, forever searching for new ways to make players gouge out their eyes.
Here's the details about the ceramic pinball found in most Twilight Zone machines.
First thing, it doesn't have to have one. The operator can adjust the game so that it doesn't require one. This is good because the ceramic pinball has become a rather expensive part, going, I've been told, for over a hundred dollars on eBay. It's bad because many of the game's features rely upon this ball, and turning it off in settings will disable one or two of its special features, and result in arbitrary metal balls being labeled the Powerball for purposes of Powerball Mania.
The primary physical effects of the ball upon the game are: * It's lighter than a standard pinball, and thus tends to be shot around a bit faster and is thus a little more difficult to react to, and is more likely to go down the outlanes. * It's very slightly larger than a standard pinball, and thus it's a tiny bit more difficult to make some shots with it, including the Slot Machine. * Most importantly, since it's not made of metal, magnets do not affect it, and the game can use its different electromagnetic characteristics to detect when it's in one of the holes on the board, and thus it knows when it's in play or when a certain shot (Piano) has been made with it.
The magnets thing is important because Twilight Zone, like Addams Family, has magnets beneath the table that turn on at special times in order to influence the ball. But while the magnets in Addams Family are there to mess up the player during multiball ("Feeeeeel the power!"), all the magnets in Twilight Zone help the player. The magnets in the orbits stop the ball when the Camera is lit or a Piano shot is ready, allowing the ball to slowly fall down over an upper flipper, greatly increasing the chances of making those difficult shots. They also turn on during multiball, where these shots are of even greater importance. And since orbit shots are the ones that get stopped, the ball is rarely sent blasting around and down towards the lower flippers at full speed, resulting in fewer drains on an otherwise drain-happy table. (Also, the ceramic ball is useless on the mini playfield, with the magnetic flippers, so the game will try to keep it out of there.)
The ceramic pinball, also known as the "Powerball," is subject to none of these effects. Because of this, left orbit shots are worth extra points, and a shot to the right orbit loads it into the gumball machine, starting "Powerball Mania," one of the more lucretive modes in the game. Powerball Mania takes one ball out of the gumball machine (guarenteed not to be the powerball since it just went in) and two out of the trough and challenges players to win the mini playfield *during* multiball.
More interestingly, it's possible to lock the Powerball for multiball, and start it too. If a jackpot is made with the powerball (rather difficult because the player doesn't get the benefit of the magnet setting him up for a Piano shot), the game "knows" it, and doubles the jackpot award for doing so!
But from a design stance, the most interesting thing about the Powerball is that it's a special pinball that the game can identify. At the start of a game it can either be in the gumball machine, in the trough, or even up in the lock. It's one more non-deterministic element for the game, one more aspect that carries over from game to game, like progressive jackpots. These features are part of what gives pinball its enduring charm, the idea that games are part of a larger continuity instead of starting completely over from an unvarying initial state each time.
The ceramic pinball, it should be said, isn't hollow like a teacup but solid, and is not at all fragile. It can take about as much punishment as the metal balls in the table.
Now you sound to me like a man who would like the wizard mode on Twilight Zone. Six pinballs on the table at once, one made of ceramic instead of metal, almost every award on the table on at once, a small magnet-flip playfield on the site is also active, and for 45 seconds, infinite balls. Perhaps the most brain-burning thing ever seen on a pinball machine.
(For the record: the Apollo 13 pinball machine had a 13 ball multiball.)
I agree, I started to get rather good at pinball after playing a few games. It almost got to the point where Tour The Mansion (Addams Family) was a foregone conclusion with me. (Even so, I only ever got Rule The Universe on Attack From Mars once.)
These days, pinball is much more interesting than arcade video games for me. I'd rather play a mediocre pin table than any fighting game....
But Katamari is the only ball rolling game that's horribly addictive.
Actually, the Super Monkey Ball games have a fair amount of addictiveness as well, though they're much harder than KD. (I've STILL never gotten to the Expert Extra or Master levels in SMB1.)
And don't forget about venerable arcade classic Marble Madness!
No, I'm knocking Nintendo because, increasingly, games like Katamari Damacy, and Animal Crossing and Pikmin, are the only things that get me excited about video games anymore. I *expect* cool things like this from Nintendo, but there hasn't been as many of them this generation as I had hoped. From Namco it was more unexpected, and thus all the cooler when it happened.
Again, you could interpret it as a knock against Nintendo. I rather think of it as a knock against the entire damn video game industry.
I went in halfsies on a PS2 specifically for *this game*, making its effective cost to me $85, and it was worth it. I've ranted a number of times about how Nintendo is practically the sole source of originality in the game industry anymore, but their release schedule has been so *light* lately....
And Katamari Damacy is simply great, it beats anything Nintendo has come up with this generation, even their more original stuff this time around, Pikmin and Animal Crossing. Here's hoping other developers take a hint from its success.
But even with all this... I wouldn't have bought a PS2 by myself for it. $170 is too much for one game.
Miguzi is Cartoon Network's (relatively) new weekday afternoon block. It turns out that Toonami has been relocated to weekends exclusively now on CN. Miguzi's bumper segments are more technicolor than Toonami's slick, dark feel. (Well, originally it was slick and dark, later on it looked like they were trying too hard. The days when Toonami was hosted by Moltar and "dared" to show Big O during the middle of the day are long over.)
Miguzi is also friendlier to American cartoons like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the lamer anime imports.
I've not watch Cartoon Network other than for Adult Swim for a while now, but isn't Toonami still on, just before Miguzi? But you're right, Toonami is just a shell of its Moltar-hosted days. Man, it used to be so cool....
Once upon a time Howard Phillips ("President of the Nintendo Fun Club" and the real-life inspiration for one half of the Howard and Nester comic) was the public face of Nintendo to its primary customers. He was a bow-tie-wearing emblem of an era when Nintendo gave away free newsletters (Fun Club Times, the free predecessor to Nintendo Power), when Nintendo Power itself didn't suck (their articles were sometimes as complete as a full player's guide these days - NP published full maps for Metroid and the original Zelda) and ran a fully-staffed "game councilor" hotline that was an ordinary toll call instead of one of those 1-900 things.
After he quit, sometimes Nintendo Power would publish a blurb whenever he changed jobs. I got the sense that there was some real fondness for him behind the scenes at Nintendo. What he's doing now, however, I have no idea.
As for Nester... when Phillips left Nintendo, the strip was retitled Nester's Adventures and continued, but it didn't last long. (Thankfully... the H&N comics, while not awful, weren't actually what I'd call good, either, and they didn't improve after Phillips left.)
There were actually a grand total, to my knowledge, of two video game references to the strip: 1. When Nintendo published Dragon Warrior in this country, they also handled the translation job from the original Dragon Quest. They actually rewrote some of the dialogue, including renaming two slightly-hard-to-find characters "Howard" and "Nester," each looking for the other on the outermost, opposite corners of one of the towns. (Don't try looking for them in the GBA release of the game, as it was completely retranslated.) 2. One of the few titles released for the ill-fated Virtual Boy system was a Nester-starring game, Nester's Funky Bowling. I've never played it, but even if it was pure gaming gold, it still spiraled on down the commode when the Virtual Boy tanked.
Selling out is no excuse. It's *one* demo unit that's needed, it's not going to hurt sales that much to put one on display. Evem when the DS sold out in various places, they still had demo units on display.
I suspect that Nintendo actually sends dedicated demo units out to stores (which would explain why the DS was playable in stores a couple of months before its release) while Sony simply neglected to do so, or assumes stores will use one of their stock for that purpose. Which would be a mistake on Sony's part -- if the PSP had been on display ahead of time like the DS was, things might have turned out differently.
Yeah, I was wondering about the Kirby game, it looks like it's got a similar playstyle, though without the egg-throwing, but with more of a kinetic feel to it.
I can see Ping Pals being cool in a certain (Pokemon-loving) context. It's just not a context that includes myself.
Why doesn't it have impulse sales? The answer is simple.
No. Demo. Units.
The DS was on demo at our local WalMart running Metroid First Hunt for two months before its release. On the other hand, I've yet to see a PSP out of its box.
Slashdot Mirror
it's always amazing how people who have absolutely no knowledge of the problem at hand come up with silver bullet solutions that contribute nothing but only attest to their ignorance.
Oh, well that's a fine how-do-you-do.
The problem of the patent system today is too many obvious patents, too many patents where there was prior art. Requiring prototypes does absolutely nothing to avoid those, NOTHING!
But the problem mentioned, IN THIS STORY Mr. Capslock, concerns Sony's patenting something that doesn't even exist, or may never exist. That may be a subset of a larger patent problem (which I don't consider to be merely obvious patents, but includes business method patents, software patents, and other things too), but it's still a problem, and one that prototypes would solve. (Of course, bringing a business method prototype to the patent office would be impossible, and a software prototype is a virtual construct anyway, but those'd be plusses in my book.) Further, it is an especially egregious example -- I don't see how anyone could justify this patent as anything except an attempt to restrain the progress of technology for anyone but Sony, who hasn't even progressed to that level yet. "Theoretical patents," phooey! What's to stop science fiction writers from patenting whatever things they cook up in their heads?
As for my "ignorance," well I will not profess to my own knowledge, but I do know better to flame someone unnecessarily, especially just for only moaning that prototypes would have caught this situation.
An application seeking to patent a concept that the applicant has no clear idea how to implement will always be very broad and it is very likely to be shot down because broadness is something even an inexperienced patent examiner can usually spot.
The key words here are "very likely." That's not a 100% chance. It'll still give serious pause to anyone attempting to create a real invention in this area. The great majority of patents are never stricken down, including some real doozies, and once the patent is granted the burden of proof is on the challenger, meaning *someone* has to pay money to get it overturned, whether that be a big company or the EFF, with the ever-present danger of failure. That's some bad mojo.
More often than not, very broad patents, if they are granted, are considered unenforcible.
Like one-click shopping, hyperlinks, internationalizing domain names, pop-up windows, targeted banner ads and browser frames? Oy! Just the chance that this patent could survive is dangerous. It should never have been granted in the first place, but eh, there are lots of patents like that. These days I tend to think more ill of patents, *any* patents, than good, but I don't think I'd be kvetching if Sony at least had actually invented the damn thing.
Hmmm, true. My bad.
Still, it doesn't look *that* bad for the DS, for other reasons listed in the article.
Hmmm... I stand corrected then, though it may be true (as another poster said) that it didn't sell more because there weren't more to sell.
Your list of reasons seem to give both reasons for it selling well, and for it *not* selling well. Weird, that.
All things considered, they came into a market dominated by Nintendo and are outselling the Nintendo DS by I'd say a margin very close to 2:1. That, by any measurement, is monstrous success.
Except it's a new release, and the DS sold much better during the same period of its release. So the PSP is not a monstrous success "by any measurement."
While it's difficult to argue against the potential selling power of GTA on the PSP, remember that the PSP is less powerful than the PS2, and Rockstar's first true-3D GTA was for that system. It's almost as much up in the air as how well that will work as it is how Katamari Damacy will work on the DS. (I've got my fingers crossed on that one....) And Nintendo *does* have some interesting DS software in the works, like Nintendogs, Meteos, a new 2D Super Mario Bros., Advance Wars, and other things.
Anyway, none of this means that the PSP won't win out in the long run... but neither does it mean the DS won't. It'll be more competitive than the PS2/Gamecube fight.
You can't impose a hard *limit* on ball length, but pinball tends to be quite tough with how long games last. This is the entertainment that gave us tilts, SDTM ("straight down the middle") drains, and outlanes. There are advanced defenses against all of these things (slap saves, bang backs, deathsaves), but they're usually not completely reliable, or easy to perform (I've never accomplished any of them). Overall, with pinball, there are far more ultra-short games than ultra-long ones. That's why many machines have "ball savers," grace periods during which if you lose a ball it's immediately returned. (Pat Lawlor games by the way, like Addams Family, Twilight Zone and Monopoly, tend to *not* have this feature turned on by default.)
And pinball machines also tend to have their own ways of reducing play length when in the hands of a gifted player -- decreasing or eliminating ball savers as the game continues, activating playfield toys that make drains more likely, and restricting available extra balls are old favorites.
Remember, earnings on a for-pay amusement machine are only decreased from long games if they preclude another person from putting money in, that is, if it results in fewer coins being inserted that day than otherwise. Too short games actually *decrease* earnings because the player doesn't feel like he's been given his money's worth. In my opinion, *that's* one of the reasons arcades are ailing as of late, not the opposite.
That's exactly what I was thinking too. "Really? For X-box 2? This sounds unusually foresighted (and hindsighted) of Microsoft, there's gotta be some kind of--"
"Yep, it's another ILoveBees. Go back to sleep, doesn't concern you."
"Zzzzzzz..."
If a requirement to produce a working prototype was introduced, it would make things even worse because the already overworked patent examiners would now also have to examine the prototype and there would likely follow a tendency to grant any application as long as the prototype appears to do what the specification says it does.
Or, they could just reject patents without a working prototype out of hand, simultaneously freeing up the system and destroying a lot of junk patents -- junk patents like this one.
But fighting games are the base level of video games right now.
They're still one of the primary attractions in *arcades*, which was my point. Animal Crossing is cool in a good number of ways, but it's not an arcade game. Pinball is uniquely arcade-suited.
Imagine...you're going through a level, see a glimmer off in a dark corner, go pick it up, and a hidden video clip plays, featuring sean connery in celebrity jeopardy!
Or! Or! You find a tiny floating stone head in the corner of one of the levels and unlock the special "Zardoz" costume, with Connery in a red loincloth.
Oh, that wacky Electronic Arts, forever searching for new ways to make players gouge out their eyes.
Here's the details about the ceramic pinball found in most Twilight Zone machines.
First thing, it doesn't have to have one. The operator can adjust the game so that it doesn't require one. This is good because the ceramic pinball has become a rather expensive part, going, I've been told, for over a hundred dollars on eBay. It's bad because many of the game's features rely upon this ball, and turning it off in settings will disable one or two of its special features, and result in arbitrary metal balls being labeled the Powerball for purposes of Powerball Mania.
The primary physical effects of the ball upon the game are:
* It's lighter than a standard pinball, and thus tends to be shot around a bit faster and is thus a little more difficult to react to, and is more likely to go down the outlanes.
* It's very slightly larger than a standard pinball, and thus it's a tiny bit more difficult to make some shots with it, including the Slot Machine.
* Most importantly, since it's not made of metal, magnets do not affect it, and the game can use its different electromagnetic characteristics to detect when it's in one of the holes on the board, and thus it knows when it's in play or when a certain shot (Piano) has been made with it.
The magnets thing is important because Twilight Zone, like Addams Family, has magnets beneath the table that turn on at special times in order to influence the ball. But while the magnets in Addams Family are there to mess up the player during multiball ("Feeeeeel the power!"), all the magnets in Twilight Zone help the player. The magnets in the orbits stop the ball when the Camera is lit or a Piano shot is ready, allowing the ball to slowly fall down over an upper flipper, greatly increasing the chances of making those difficult shots. They also turn on during multiball, where these shots are of even greater importance. And since orbit shots are the ones that get stopped, the ball is rarely sent blasting around and down towards the lower flippers at full speed, resulting in fewer drains on an otherwise drain-happy table. (Also, the ceramic ball is useless on the mini playfield, with the magnetic flippers, so the game will try to keep it out of there.)
The ceramic pinball, also known as the "Powerball," is subject to none of these effects. Because of this, left orbit shots are worth extra points, and a shot to the right orbit loads it into the gumball machine, starting "Powerball Mania," one of the more lucretive modes in the game. Powerball Mania takes one ball out of the gumball machine (guarenteed not to be the powerball since it just went in) and two out of the trough and challenges players to win the mini playfield *during* multiball.
More interestingly, it's possible to lock the Powerball for multiball, and start it too. If a jackpot is made with the powerball (rather difficult because the player doesn't get the benefit of the magnet setting him up for a Piano shot), the game "knows" it, and doubles the jackpot award for doing so!
But from a design stance, the most interesting thing about the Powerball is that it's a special pinball that the game can identify. At the start of a game it can either be in the gumball machine, in the trough, or even up in the lock. It's one more non-deterministic element for the game, one more aspect that carries over from game to game, like progressive jackpots. These features are part of what gives pinball its enduring charm, the idea that games are part of a larger continuity instead of starting completely over from an unvarying initial state each time.
The ceramic pinball, it should be said, isn't hollow like a teacup but solid, and is not at all fragile. It can take about as much punishment as the metal balls in the table.
That's about it. Any questions?
Yeah, Addams Family was cool, though for my money his next game, Twilight Zone, was even cooler.
Have you seen Monopoly yet? Lawlor designed that one for Stern. Pretty nifty design, though Stern's relatively low production values are a problem.
Now you sound to me like a man who would like the wizard mode on Twilight Zone. Six pinballs on the table at once, one made of ceramic instead of metal, almost every award on the table on at once, a small magnet-flip playfield on the site is also active, and for 45 seconds, infinite balls. Perhaps the most brain-burning thing ever seen on a pinball machine.
(For the record: the Apollo 13 pinball machine had a 13 ball multiball.)
I agree, I started to get rather good at pinball after playing a few games. It almost got to the point where Tour The Mansion (Addams Family) was a foregone conclusion with me. (Even so, I only ever got Rule The Universe on Attack From Mars once.)
These days, pinball is much more interesting than arcade video games for me. I'd rather play a mediocre pin table than any fighting game....
But Katamari is the only ball rolling game that's horribly addictive.
Actually, the Super Monkey Ball games have a fair amount of addictiveness as well, though they're much harder than KD. (I've STILL never gotten to the Expert Extra or Master levels in SMB1.)
And don't forget about venerable arcade classic Marble Madness!
No, I'm knocking Nintendo because, increasingly, games like Katamari Damacy, and Animal Crossing and Pikmin, are the only things that get me excited about video games anymore. I *expect* cool things like this from Nintendo, but there hasn't been as many of them this generation as I had hoped. From Namco it was more unexpected, and thus all the cooler when it happened.
Again, you could interpret it as a knock against Nintendo. I rather think of it as a knock against the entire damn video game industry.
But... but... b-but...
I thought we were going to Mars! Time for NASA to work that "better and cheaper" policy into overdrive, I'd say.
I went in halfsies on a PS2 specifically for *this game*, making its effective cost to me $85, and it was worth it. I've ranted a number of times about how Nintendo is practically the sole source of originality in the game industry anymore, but their release schedule has been so *light* lately....
And Katamari Damacy is simply great, it beats anything Nintendo has come up with this generation, even their more original stuff this time around, Pikmin and Animal Crossing. Here's hoping other developers take a hint from its success.
But even with all this... I wouldn't have bought a PS2 by myself for it. $170 is too much for one game.
Miguzi is Cartoon Network's (relatively) new weekday afternoon block. It turns out that Toonami has been relocated to weekends exclusively now on CN. Miguzi's bumper segments are more technicolor than Toonami's slick, dark feel. (Well, originally it was slick and dark, later on it looked like they were trying too hard. The days when Toonami was hosted by Moltar and "dared" to show Big O during the middle of the day are long over.)
Miguzi is also friendlier to American cartoons like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the lamer anime imports.
I've not watch Cartoon Network other than for Adult Swim for a while now, but isn't Toonami still on, just before Miguzi? But you're right, Toonami is just a shell of its Moltar-hosted days. Man, it used to be so cool....
Seconded!
Unlikely we'll get it though, it was not cheap to produce and while its ratings weren't bad, they weren't good enough.
But hey! At least we're getting Season Two of Venture Bros!
Once upon a time Howard Phillips ("President of the Nintendo Fun Club" and the real-life inspiration for one half of the Howard and Nester comic) was the public face of Nintendo to its primary customers. He was a bow-tie-wearing emblem of an era when Nintendo gave away free newsletters (Fun Club Times, the free predecessor to Nintendo Power), when Nintendo Power itself didn't suck (their articles were sometimes as complete as a full player's guide these days - NP published full maps for Metroid and the original Zelda) and ran a fully-staffed "game councilor" hotline that was an ordinary toll call instead of one of those 1-900 things.
After he quit, sometimes Nintendo Power would publish a blurb whenever he changed jobs. I got the sense that there was some real fondness for him behind the scenes at Nintendo. What he's doing now, however, I have no idea.
As for Nester... when Phillips left Nintendo, the strip was retitled Nester's Adventures and continued, but it didn't last long. (Thankfully... the H&N comics, while not awful, weren't actually what I'd call good, either, and they didn't improve after Phillips left.)
There were actually a grand total, to my knowledge, of two video game references to the strip:
1. When Nintendo published Dragon Warrior in this country, they also handled the translation job from the original Dragon Quest. They actually rewrote some of the dialogue, including renaming two slightly-hard-to-find characters "Howard" and "Nester," each looking for the other on the outermost, opposite corners of one of the towns. (Don't try looking for them in the GBA release of
the game, as it was completely retranslated.)
2. One of the few titles released for the ill-fated Virtual Boy system was a Nester-starring game, Nester's Funky Bowling. I've never played it, but even if it was pure gaming gold, it still spiraled on down the commode when the Virtual Boy tanked.
This must be the first article that came, out of the box, pre-slashdotted....
Selling out is no excuse. It's *one* demo unit that's needed, it's not going to hurt sales that much to put one on display. Evem when the DS sold out in various places, they still had demo units on display.
I suspect that Nintendo actually sends dedicated demo units out to stores (which would explain why the DS was playable in stores a couple of months before its release) while Sony simply neglected to do so, or assumes stores will use one of their stock for that purpose. Which would be a mistake on Sony's part -- if the PSP had been on display ahead of time like the DS was, things might have turned out differently.
Yeah, I was wondering about the Kirby game, it looks like it's got a similar playstyle, though without the egg-throwing, but with more of a kinetic feel to it.
I can see Ping Pals being cool in a certain (Pokemon-loving) context. It's just not a context that includes myself.
Why doesn't it have impulse sales? The answer is simple.
No. Demo. Units.
The DS was on demo at our local WalMart running Metroid First Hunt for two months before its release. On the other hand, I've yet to see a PSP out of its box.