Here's where your argument falls apart: the later NES carts actually had very, VERY different internal electronics. Many of the later games actually employed the NES as simply an I/O controller and did a lot of calculations/etc. on onboard chips.
Look at the SNES, as well, and its "SuperFX" titles. The added polygon-"crunching" chip/engine onboard enabled games like StarFox to be produced.
Methinks the Big N will have a bit more trouble fitting integrated circuits onto the mini-DVDs they're using...
Currently digging for some good info on this, I'll check back in when/if I find it.
PS2 not able to read burned CDs? Bollocks, I say! I burn CDs all the time and then test out their success by playing a few tracks on my PS2. Not a problem.
Kernel probably gets loaded into memory anyways, so you could eject the boot media and pop something else in.
What really excites me about this though is the concept of doing an NFS mount back to my PC in my home office and playing back my music collection through my stereo (which is hooked up to the PS2 via an optical cable). Now that's what I call slick.
Rumor places the HD/BBA releases in the first quarter 2002, in time for Final Fantasy X, which will require the Hard Drive. ps2.ign.com pegs FFX's release as January 2002. We'll see.
You can buy a USB e-net adaptor right now; unfortunately, the only game that can take advantage of it yet is Tony Hawk 3. Supposedly FFXI will be utilizing the BBA, as well as an upcoming game called SOCOM, with a release date of February 14th, 2002.
Last night was a terrible night for TV! Scrubs and The Tick were runing concurrently, so I ended up trying to watch both, comprehending neither! *sigh* What I did see of the Tick renewed my faith that the show will at least be decent...
As for the Will & Grace spot, I almost wanted to vomit. Microsoft should be punished in the marketplace (by consumers) for such blatant, badly done plugs.
I haven't seen anything on that scale of cheese since Fred Savage played Super Mario 3 with the Power Glove in The Wizard . Sheesh.
Amen, brother! MGS2 is far and away the best game I've played in a long, long time. The production values are incredible, the detail is phenomenal and I love leaving nudie magazines behind for the commando search teams to ogle *grin*
Re:Salon's biased look at innovative games...
on
XBox Released
·
· Score: 2
Feh. Shenmue sucked, IMHO. Maybe Shenmue 2 will be better, who knows?
Sega has repeatedly stated their intention to remain "platform agnostic". They are going to be doing time-limited exclusives out the wazoo (see JSRF, Panzer Dragoon, Super Monkey Ball, Virtua Fighter 4, Shenmue 2, etc.) but (for the most part) each and every one of these games will be seeing face time on each of the consoles (GC, PS2, XB). It will just depend on when the exclusivity arrangements expire.
To be fair, the PS2 has a lot of add-ons requried to get to where the XBox is too. You need a Multi-tap ($25-$35) in order to play with 4 players (whereas XBox has 4 ports natively). 'Course, my multitap has 5 ports, which should come in handy for the next Madden...
Also, the broadband adaptor will be retailing for ~$40 in the spring, as well as the harddrive (price unknown), both of which the XBox has already. Of course, the PS2's BBA also has a built-in modem, unlike the XBox, which leaves HPBs out in the cold. And the HD is likely to be a 40GB model, unlike the XBox's 8GB HD.
You can buy a USB ethernet adaptor ($45-$50) for the PS2 right now and play Tony Hawk 3 online (which I would highly reccomend) and you can also use existing USB keyboards and mice with the PS2, while M$ has eschewed the standard USB form factor in order to make you buy more XBox controllers at $40 a pop.
Making the DVD functionality an additional cost for consumers is actually pretty savvy of M$. Think about it: who controls/produces the majority of the content out there? AOL/Time Warner and Sony. Why giv people an excuse to drop money into the pockets of your competitors?
Re:You're not looking in the right places, then.
on
XBox Released
·
· Score: 1
Errrm, LART, rather. (LARP == Live Action Role Playing. LART == Luser Attitude Readjustment Tool). Been reading Player vs. Player too much lately, I guess.
You're not looking in the right places, then.
on
XBox Released
·
· Score: 2
Have you witnessed Metal Gear Solid 2? Absolutely one of the most riveting games, ever. My wife (who normally detests any videogame other than Bejeweled) is now addicted to watching me play! It's that engrossing...
Devil May Cry is also the game that every 3D version of Castlevania has ever tried to be. Give it a play and tell me you're not impressed and I'll kindly give you a whap with the closest handy LARP.
Gran Turismo 3 not impressive? Guess that depends on if you like driving games or not.
How about Tony Hawk 3? Great game. Splashdown? No? How about SSX Tricky, the first game to ship with in-game DTS 5.1 support?
As a minorly tangential aside, what's it like working with Tim Curry? Poor fellow seems to end up in just about every cheesy villain role out there these days.
M$ is relying upon prerelease hype as a way of moving initial boxes. Thus far, it looks like they've done a good job of eating up all available preorder boxes. They thus recoup at least a portion of their capital outlay on each of those boxes.
Their advertising campaign, which is going to cost them $500 Mil. before it's all said and done, is a fixed cost. They will make that cost up on software sale residuals.
While the supply of XBoxes will depend upon demand, I would look to Sega's experiences - namely, the lackluster performance of their system caused most retailers to stock a significant surplus of consoles, thus costing both Sega and the retailers significant amounts of money.
I would advocate not buying an XBox, thus leaving M$ with a smaller target base of systems, making it a less attractive target for developers, which will shrink the number of available games, lessening potential software revenues, thus costing M$ the price of the XBox, as well as pissing off the retailers with merchandise that they can't move.
Besides, quite a few "tech-pundits" have speculated that M$ is already writing the XBox off as a loss and simply hoping to use it as a "foot-in-the-door" for the XBox2 (egads!)
Heh. Only, as I hear it, they're having trouble even manufacturing a million units for launch, so we ought to be seeing 6B Xboxes around the time that the copyright expires on Britney Spear's latest claptrap.
As I've gleaned from other sources, XBox's HDTV mode also allows you to use and adaptor and hook the aircraft carrier, errrm, XBox, up to your monitor, thus accounting for the hi-res nature of the screenshots.
I know your comment had just a *twinge* of sarcasm, but what kind of sense does it really make? Reports have stated that it costs M$ approximately $320-$400 per XBox to manufacture those ungainly hunks of plastic. This being the case, why help M$ recoup any of that cost? If you pay them $300, they're only losing between $20 and $100. Leave the XBox on the shelf and you're costing M$ $320-$400 a pop.
My buddies and I have all decided that someone needs to release a sequel to Rise of the Triad (perhaps using the Serious Sam engine?)
That, Duke Nukem and Descent accounted for the majority of my old-sk00l modem-to-modem gaming.
I would so love to whoop on some people online with the super-firebomb (you know, the one that would shake the whole level?). Plus, the "unlimited bullet weapon" slant was pretty cool.
I swear I still hear "Where arrrrre youuu?" "Behind you!" "Over heeeeeere." in my sleep. Some of the next-gen FPS's better have audio taunts (Duke Nukem Forever, I'm looking in your direction...).
I'd take a look at Devil May Cry, if you're pining for the old days. A few reviews that I've seen have called it "the best next-generation Castlevania title not actually manufactured by Konami, or name Castlevania, for that matter"(tm). I'd have to agree.
Straight up action and great graphics make for a cool gaming experience. This really is the game the Evil Dead game should have been (to those who ahve played both: am I not right?).
The "expandability" and "mod-ability" factor will actually be coming to the PS2 early next year (and to the XBox whenever M$ gets its online act together).
And if you like the thought of playing others online with a console, grab a PS2, a Linksys USB e-net adaptor and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, plug the adaptor into something with a DHCP setup and have fun with people the world over.
Gates told the Associated Press: "It's a value for consumers. Why are there headlights in cars? Why don't they make you go and buy those things separately?
"If you look at the value of the stuff that's in Windows XP, compared to the stand-alone packages you'd have to buy for the equivalent, that's many hundreds of dollars," Gates said.
"And all you have to do is understand that to understand why consumers like it and why a competitor would say, 'Hey, it's too good a deal, you know, why are they offering people such a good deal?"'
Why does a car come with headlights? Well, does GM manufacture its own headlights? Nope. It "bundles" headlights from "GM-certified" suppliers, so those suppliers are still getting their money in the deal. If MS were bundling Norton Ghost or EasyCD Creator or RealPlayer or BlackIce Firewall with XP, then maybe the analogy might hold.
The thing is, most J6P's will look at Gates' statement and say "Yeah! I agree with that!" without even giving it any thought.
In order for his statement to work, GM cars would have to: 1) come with GM headlights 2) use non-standard eletrical connections for said lights so that if you decided to replace them with a competitor's superior lights, they would either break or function in a reduced capacity 3) disable the starter if you changed your lights, floormats, muffler and tires at the same time, forcing you to call GM's hotline in order to have a new set of keys sent out to you.
Redmond, WA - Microsoft, in what is being regarded as a bold move, has hired Vince Glortho, Keymaster of Gozer the Gozarian as Vice President in Charge of Keeping the Internet Gateway.
This move is viewed as pivotal for Microsoft's.Net OccultXP(TM) program.
In related news, rumor has it that Larry Ellison is pursuing a Papal endorsement of all Oracle products as a way to counter Microsoft's new initiatives.
Milwaukee, WI: The editors of The Onion, long considered one of America's best sources of satirical news, surprised the world today by retracting a story entitled "Freedoms Curtailed in Defense of Liberty".
One Onion staffmember spoke on the condition of anonymity. "It was just too realistic. People actually thought this was a real story! I guess that's kind of scary." He continued: "I mean, what do we have to do to, label every page with 'WARNING: Contains Satire, Witty Postmodern Observations and a General Sense of Cynicism'? Why don't people get it?"
"I mean, sheesh, we regularly run stories that anthropomorphise animals and quote God as using the f-bomb. How much more obvious can we be?"
The internet community was unavailable for comment.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's where your argument falls apart: the later NES carts actually had very, VERY different internal electronics. Many of the later games actually employed the NES as simply an I/O controller and did a lot of calculations/etc. on onboard chips.
Look at the SNES, as well, and its "SuperFX" titles. The added polygon-"crunching" chip/engine onboard enabled games like StarFox to be produced.
Methinks the Big N will have a bit more trouble fitting integrated circuits onto the mini-DVDs they're using...
Currently digging for some good info on this, I'll check back in when/if I find it.
Then you'll enjoy Jak & Daxter for the PS2. Give it a go, it's a hoot.
Also, Rayman Revolution for the oh-so-cheap DC should be a goodly entertaining platformer.
Oooh, and Bomberman Online just came out for the DC! Now there's some colorful, mindless fun!
PS2 not able to read burned CDs? Bollocks, I say! I burn CDs all the time and then test out their success by playing a few tracks on my PS2. Not a problem.
Kernel probably gets loaded into memory anyways, so you could eject the boot media and pop something else in.
What really excites me about this though is the concept of doing an NFS mount back to my PC in my home office and playing back my music collection through my stereo (which is hooked up to the PS2 via an optical cable). Now that's what I call slick.
Namely, running XBoxGW on your PS2 to enable you to play Halo online. Betcha Billy G. would pitch a hissy fit *grin*
I do believe he meant "politically correct", not "personal computer".
Have you tried Serious Sam? Quite a bit of "mob the player" action in that title. A bit like old sk00l player-created Doom levels...
Rumor places the HD/BBA releases in the first quarter 2002, in time for Final Fantasy X, which will require the Hard Drive. ps2.ign.com pegs FFX's release as January 2002. We'll see.
You can buy a USB e-net adaptor right now; unfortunately, the only game that can take advantage of it yet is Tony Hawk 3. Supposedly FFXI will be utilizing the BBA, as well as an upcoming game called SOCOM, with a release date of February 14th, 2002.
So I'd peg the BBA release as early next year.
Last night was a terrible night for TV! Scrubs and The Tick were runing concurrently, so I ended up trying to watch both, comprehending neither! *sigh* What I did see of the Tick renewed my faith that the show will at least be decent...
As for the Will & Grace spot, I almost wanted to vomit. Microsoft should be punished in the marketplace (by consumers) for such blatant, badly done plugs.
I haven't seen anything on that scale of cheese since Fred Savage played Super Mario 3 with the Power Glove in The Wizard . Sheesh.
Amen, brother! MGS2 is far and away the best game I've played in a long, long time. The production values are incredible, the detail is phenomenal and I love leaving nudie magazines behind for the commando search teams to ogle *grin*
Feh. Shenmue sucked, IMHO. Maybe Shenmue 2 will be better, who knows?
Sega has repeatedly stated their intention to remain "platform agnostic". They are going to be doing time-limited exclusives out the wazoo (see JSRF, Panzer Dragoon, Super Monkey Ball, Virtua Fighter 4, Shenmue 2, etc.) but (for the most part) each and every one of these games will be seeing face time on each of the consoles (GC, PS2, XB). It will just depend on when the exclusivity arrangements expire.
To be fair, the PS2 has a lot of add-ons requried to get to where the XBox is too. You need a Multi-tap ($25-$35) in order to play with 4 players (whereas XBox has 4 ports natively). 'Course, my multitap has 5 ports, which should come in handy for the next Madden...
Also, the broadband adaptor will be retailing for ~$40 in the spring, as well as the harddrive (price unknown), both of which the XBox has already. Of course, the PS2's BBA also has a built-in modem, unlike the XBox, which leaves HPBs out in the cold. And the HD is likely to be a 40GB model, unlike the XBox's 8GB HD.
You can buy a USB ethernet adaptor ($45-$50) for the PS2 right now and play Tony Hawk 3 online (which I would highly reccomend) and you can also use existing USB keyboards and mice with the PS2, while M$ has eschewed the standard USB form factor in order to make you buy more XBox controllers at $40 a pop.
Making the DVD functionality an additional cost for consumers is actually pretty savvy of M$. Think about it: who controls/produces the majority of the content out there? AOL/Time Warner and Sony. Why giv people an excuse to drop money into the pockets of your competitors?
Errrm, LART, rather. (LARP == Live Action Role Playing. LART == Luser Attitude Readjustment Tool). Been reading Player vs. Player too much lately, I guess.
Have you witnessed Metal Gear Solid 2? Absolutely one of the most riveting games, ever. My wife (who normally detests any videogame other than Bejeweled) is now addicted to watching me play! It's that engrossing...
Devil May Cry is also the game that every 3D version of Castlevania has ever tried to be. Give it a play and tell me you're not impressed and I'll kindly give you a whap with the closest handy LARP.
Gran Turismo 3 not impressive? Guess that depends on if you like driving games or not.
How about Tony Hawk 3? Great game. Splashdown? No? How about SSX Tricky, the first game to ship with in-game DTS 5.1 support?
Methinks you need to expand your horizons a bit.
...Ummm, what were you thinking, exactly?
As a minorly tangential aside, what's it like working with Tim Curry? Poor fellow seems to end up in just about every cheesy villain role out there these days.
This is a rather critical point, I'll admit.
M$ is relying upon prerelease hype as a way of moving initial boxes. Thus far, it looks like they've done a good job of eating up all available preorder boxes. They thus recoup at least a portion of their capital outlay on each of those boxes.
Their advertising campaign, which is going to cost them $500 Mil. before it's all said and done, is a fixed cost. They will make that cost up on software sale residuals.
While the supply of XBoxes will depend upon demand, I would look to Sega's experiences - namely, the lackluster performance of their system caused most retailers to stock a significant surplus of consoles, thus costing both Sega and the retailers significant amounts of money.
I would advocate not buying an XBox, thus leaving M$ with a smaller target base of systems, making it a less attractive target for developers, which will shrink the number of available games, lessening potential software revenues, thus costing M$ the price of the XBox, as well as pissing off the retailers with merchandise that they can't move.
Besides, quite a few "tech-pundits" have speculated that M$ is already writing the XBox off as a loss and simply hoping to use it as a "foot-in-the-door" for the XBox2 (egads!)
Heh. Only, as I hear it, they're having trouble even manufacturing a million units for launch, so we ought to be seeing 6B Xboxes around the time that the copyright expires on Britney Spear's latest claptrap.
As I've gleaned from other sources, XBox's HDTV mode also allows you to use and adaptor and hook the aircraft carrier, errrm, XBox, up to your monitor, thus accounting for the hi-res nature of the screenshots.
I know your comment had just a *twinge* of sarcasm, but what kind of sense does it really make? Reports have stated that it costs M$ approximately $320-$400 per XBox to manufacture those ungainly hunks of plastic. This being the case, why help M$ recoup any of that cost? If you pay them $300, they're only losing between $20 and $100. Leave the XBox on the shelf and you're costing M$ $320-$400 a pop.
My buddies and I have all decided that someone needs to release a sequel to Rise of the Triad (perhaps using the Serious Sam engine?)
That, Duke Nukem and Descent accounted for the majority of my old-sk00l modem-to-modem gaming.
I would so love to whoop on some people online with the super-firebomb (you know, the one that would shake the whole level?). Plus, the "unlimited bullet weapon" slant was pretty cool.
I swear I still hear "Where arrrrre youuu?" "Behind you!" "Over heeeeeere." in my sleep. Some of the next-gen FPS's better have audio taunts (Duke Nukem Forever, I'm looking in your direction...).
I'd take a look at Devil May Cry, if you're pining for the old days. A few reviews that I've seen have called it "the best next-generation Castlevania title not actually manufactured by Konami, or name Castlevania, for that matter"(tm). I'd have to agree.
Straight up action and great graphics make for a cool gaming experience. This really is the game the Evil Dead game should have been (to those who ahve played both: am I not right?).
The "expandability" and "mod-ability" factor will actually be coming to the PS2 early next year (and to the XBox whenever M$ gets its online act together).
And if you like the thought of playing others online with a console, grab a PS2, a Linksys USB e-net adaptor and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, plug the adaptor into something with a DHCP setup and have fun with people the world over.
Anyways, my $.02
...has to be the following quote:
Gates told the Associated Press: "It's a value for consumers. Why are there headlights in cars? Why don't they make you go and buy those things separately?
"If you look at the value of the stuff that's in Windows XP, compared to the stand-alone packages you'd have to buy for the equivalent, that's many hundreds of dollars," Gates said.
"And all you have to do is understand that to understand why consumers like it and why a competitor would say, 'Hey, it's too good a deal, you know, why are they offering people such a good deal?"'
Why does a car come with headlights? Well, does GM manufacture its own headlights? Nope. It "bundles" headlights from "GM-certified" suppliers, so those suppliers are still getting their money in the deal. If MS were bundling Norton Ghost or EasyCD Creator or RealPlayer or BlackIce Firewall with XP, then maybe the analogy might hold.
The thing is, most J6P's will look at Gates' statement and say "Yeah! I agree with that!" without even giving it any thought.
In order for his statement to work, GM cars would have to: 1) come with GM headlights 2) use non-standard eletrical connections for said lights so that if you decided to replace them with a competitor's superior lights, they would either break or function in a reduced capacity 3) disable the starter if you changed your lights, floormats, muffler and tires at the same time, forcing you to call GM's hotline in order to have a new set of keys sent out to you.
Sheez, I hope no automakers are reading this...
Microsoft Announces New VP of Internet Operations
.Net OccultXP(TM) program.
Redmond, WA - Microsoft, in what is being regarded as a bold move, has hired Vince Glortho, Keymaster of Gozer the Gozarian as Vice President in Charge of Keeping the Internet Gateway.
This move is viewed as pivotal for Microsoft's
In related news, rumor has it that Larry Ellison is pursuing a Papal endorsement of all Oracle products as a way to counter Microsoft's new initiatives.
While I'd agree that Meetingmaker sucks, the Solaris client is not Java-based. Its Motif. Errrm, yeah, that's better, sort of...
Milwaukee, WI: The editors of The Onion, long considered one of America's best sources of satirical news, surprised the world today by retracting a story entitled "Freedoms Curtailed in Defense of Liberty".
One Onion staffmember spoke on the condition of anonymity. "It was just too realistic. People actually thought this was a real story! I guess that's kind of scary." He continued: "I mean, what do we have to do to, label every page with 'WARNING: Contains Satire, Witty Postmodern Observations and a General Sense of Cynicism'? Why don't people get it?"
"I mean, sheesh, we regularly run stories that anthropomorphise animals and quote God as using the f-bomb. How much more obvious can we be?"
The internet community was unavailable for comment.
New York Post (yes, take it with a grain of salt). Take a gander.