I've used my PS2 to play DVDs. It's akin to using my Dreamcast to surf the web; It just isn't worth the effort. Granted I don't have a PS2 DVD remote kit, but the navigation system is terrible out of the box. Better chalk up an extra $15 for the PS2 remote once you realize that it's practically needed.
You're right though. For sixtymore than the price of a Gamecube, you can get a DVD player. Heck, you can even get one muchcheaper than that if you want. Think about that, a $30 that comes with a remote! You'll pay that much for the Xbox remote alone.
The GC is capable of doing 480p for those HDTV owners. I'm also thinking that anyone who spends the big bucks on an HDTV set will get a decent DVD player instead of relying on their game console to do it for them.
I was referring to the Dreamcast's plight in particular.
Yes, Sega screwed up by releasing an add-on called the Sega CD and turned around and made the same mistake with the 32X. The Saturn failed because it was designed rather quickly under the pressure of Sony's new Playstation and developers said it was too hard to program for. There was much mismanagement in Sega for years before the Dreamcast, but that's not what killed it.
The Dreamcast was a solid piece of hardware that was very powerful but still easy to program for. A modem was included with every dreamcast sold in North America, as well as most other markets, making any online game playable out of the box. It had several early first party games like Crazy Taxi and NFL2k that were killer apps as well as a few third party pixel perfect arcade ports like Soul Calibur, Power Stone, and Marvel vs. Capcom. It even had interesting features like an out-of-the-box web browser, four controller ports for multiplayer action, a true VGA adapter, and a Visual Memory Unit that could function on it's own or as a screen on the controller. In short, the Dreamcast was a beautiful system.
The problem was that giants like Electronic Arts, who couldn't compete with NFL2k at the time by releasing a DC version of Madden, pronounced the system dead before it even was launched. Several other publishers followed suit comparing it to the Saturn as yet another colossal Sega flop.
The self-fulfilling prophecy was that there was little third party support, so the system had few games. Few games meant that consumers were less likely to buy the system. Smaller installed base meant that third party publishers weren't interested. This is what killed the DC.
It's a shame too. It was the little console that couldn't. Sony's hype machine caused people to rush out and buy the PS2 and forget about the DC, and Sega killed it shortly after.
BTW, when people cite that the Saturn was hard to program for as why it failed, I like to point to the PS2 as it is the most difficult of all three current consoles to develop on.
I've been seeing this same "Nintendo is dead" article over and over again, wondering exactly what people are trying to prove. Why do we continually see this over and over?
Let me stop for a moment and state that I consider myself to be a hardcore video game fanatic. I've been a gamer since my aunt handed me a Bally Arcade controller when I was 5 in the late 70s. My collection includes every mainstream console as well as many others. Heck, I've been with the industry longer than some of these pundits who write about where the market is going. I guess I just feel I know a little about gaming.
I would also like to state that my Gamecube gets more play than my PS2 and Xbox combined, and when there are some great games on these systems, that's saying quite a bit. I am pleased that Gamespot, a reasonable mainstream VG news source, gave "Metroid Prime" the Game of the Year award in 2002 and "Wind Waker" in 2003. For a system that's only 3 years old, it has quite a legacy. So why is it that we continue to profess that it's dead?
The wonderful fun part about making a prediction that "Nintendo is dead" is if you say it enough, it will come true. The recent Dreamcast market struggle ended with Sega leaving the hardware business behind simply because of this type of self-fulfilling prophecy. Will this happen to Nintendo with their Gamecube? Possibly. Probably. What will happen to them? They will go on or they won't. Do we (Slashdot) have to participate in this problem with the furthering of FUD? No.
We here at Slashdot, which is a community news source, hate all three current gaming console companies. Sony and Microsoft stomp on our rights at every possible turn, from anti-trusts to Aibos, broadcast flags, worms, DeCSS, proprietary file formats, or P2P shutdowns, these corporate behemoths are always up to the task of taking up the DMCA sword and smiting our fellow hackers.
Nintendo isn't exactly a saint, I'll agree. There's proof of them engaging in price fixing and they've taken a stance against emulation. They aren't as evil as the other two but they aren't as big either.
Here's the issue though: We can only hurt Nintendo in the video game arena. This is why we see so much anti-Nintendo FUD on games.slashdot.org. Slashdot isn't anti-Nintendo, it's just anti-corporation. Nintendo just gets it's fair slaps here because we've already complained about the other guys elsewhere.
Meh. Nintendo will live or die. It's beginning to not matter much to me anymore. When all that's left in the video gaming area is companies like Microsoft and Electronic Arts who care more about exploting money from gamers than making good entertainment, the industry will stagnate. The mainstream will dismiss video games as a fad yet again and we'll have another crash. Video games will be a small hobby once again.
Not being a literature geek, even I was able to deduce that this was an trailer for a movie and not an actual robot product.
While there was several mumblings in the audience after the trailer ran; enough for me to shout out to the confused that it was a movie instead of whatever they thought. It didn't have me fooled for a second. It reminded me of Bicentennial Man, and sadly I didn't even get the Asimov correlation until later.
It's understandable. This is probably what happens when most of the movie going public is seeing RotK for Liv Tyler and Orlando Bloom. That's why I tell people that I was there to see Viggo.
I love how GameSpy continually puts out these best gaming etcetera opinion pieces to simply spark the fanboy debates. The last page even has some useful essential links (scroll to the bottom) that must not be missed.:)
I am not immune, however. So...
Nintendo rules the artificial demand department with the "chip shortage" of 1988 which affected Zelda II more than any other title. Hmmm.... They also seemed to have a low supply of N64 consoles in 1996. One of my fondest Christmas-ish moments was walking into a toy store on Black Friday and asking if they had any N64s. The clerk told me that he had just got off the phone with someone who had to cancel their layaway and asked if I wanted it. I simply said "no thanks."
Sony had the hype/demand machine chugging in 2000 when they launched the PS2 at more than twice the price of the Dreamcast that had a bigger library of quality games. Those lucky enough to get a PS2 that year were treated with marginal titles, a way to play their PS1 games and DVDs and not much else. Majora's Mask came out in 2000. This is one of the most misunderstood games of all time. Most players hated it due to it's manipulation of time, but it is a very fine game.
My personal favorite holiday gaming season would have to be 2002. Some of the finest games of all time came out during this season. GTA: Vice City and Metroid Prime are must have games for any (mature) gamer. Platform lovers who usually stuck with Nintendo systems would be shocked as Super Mario Sunshine proved to be a slightly above average game. The PS2 meanwhile had the incredibly superb Ratchet and Clank. Even the Xbox had a slight edge as Jet Set Radio Future was being shipped with the system, unfortunately, the only other platform game for the Xbox was the terrible Blinx so it didn't have that big of an edge.:)
Yep, I second...er.. third this statement. I am not a Mac fan but I did appreciate the Newton.
When my Newton MP120 passed on to the/dev/null device in the sky, I was forced to replace it. My options were:
1. Going back to my MP110 which had the earlier 1.3 OS. Good, but I was too used to the newer features.
2. Fixing it. Very expensive as the few shops that would try wanted an exhorbitant amount just to look at it.
3. Buying another PDA.
I eventually chose option 3 and got an iPAQ PocketPC. After using it for a few months, I was fed up and bought a used MP2100 off of eBay. Even with Transcriber, the iPAQ was tedious to use. Editing was terrible; if you made a mistake, you had to jump through hoops to fix it. It didn't even have a scratchpad built in. This was like a step backwards.
It's really a shame that Apple discontinued the Newton. My only hope is that they will eventually make good on their promise to do a tablet computer running the Mac OS. Apple has already proven to me that they know how to build a pen operated OS.
Just take a pen and swap 'N' with 'S' and 'S' with 'N'.
Just a bit of advice: You may also want to relabel the East and West indicators or you will find yourself being very confused. Granted, in the case of Magnetic Reversal, you may end up more than just confused.
I thought that Mario Kart 64 was alright. A cute little racing game staring Nintendo mascot characters that was fun for a bit. After a few times playing it, you could see a couple flaws.
1. Multiplayer is where it's at. If you don't have 2 or 3 friends that will squint at their own corner of the screen, don't bother. Single player suffers from cheating computer opponents that are always a few mishaps away. It doesn't matter if your driving is average or perfect, once they are behind you, they will pass you the moment you make a mistake. Not fun at all.
2. Items are overpowering. Once you find out which items do what, you'll always go for the god-like lightning bolt. The items that require some skill to use are shoved to the side.
Mario Kart: Double Dash is supposed to support LAN play. that would be nice for people that already have Gamecubes and BBAs so it's a step in the right direction. I'll give it a chance before condemning it. Sure it's more of the same, but there are so many knock-offs that want to be.
Actually, you may at the moment but you will not in the future. You may have had them before but you won't in the future. That's the way things go. You are losing rights as you read this.
I've said it before and I'll say it again; the system doesn't work.
The gene for colorblindness is tied to the Xchromosome and is recessive. The reason that more males have colorblindness is that the Y chromosome is treated as having the gene.
On topic; Color difficulties usually come into play with puzzle games. I wish that Capcom would release a playable version of Super Puzzle Fighter II X someday. I've been able to play Puzzle Bobble and Columns by using shapes and got pretty good with Klax by using sound as an assistance, but SPFIIX is completely unplayable. For a game that only uses 4 different colors they could at least make them somewhat different.
For a better solution, check out Triptych which has a color select mode. I personally think that they should list that as one of their main features.
BTW, I am a colorblind female who plays games and frequents Slashdot. (How's that for rare)
I implore you to not liken the Nokia N-Gage to the Atari Lynx.
The Lynx was a technical marvel for it's time. It had a backlit color screen and was capable of doing hardware scaling and rotation. The original 4 shades of green Nintendo Gameboy was the only competition and beat the Lynx simply because of Tetris and Atari's terrible mismanagement.
Heck, the Lynx was hands-down superior to the Game Gear and the Gameboy Color. It could even outperform the Turbo Express and the Nomad!
If you want to compare this to a similar flop, you might want to use the Tiger game.com. That sounds like a good history lesson that Nokia is going to repeat.
you agree not to attempt to
decipher, decompile, disassemble or
reverse engineer the Software or allow
others to do so It also goes on to disallow derivative works.
So, I can use these ROMs in an emulator (MAME) but if I have received said ROMs through your service, I cannot participate in development of any emulator. I'm sure that this was written for Atari's benefit but it's rather limiting.
I think they definately have a good idea, they just need to smooth out the implementation.
The GBA is a game console, albeit a portable one. I can turn a functioning GBA into something not a game console, but turning one into a game console when it's already one is -1 Redundant.
These people are the ones who translated Phantasy Star games to the GBA.
The GBA does not have the power to emulate the Mega Drive (Genesis) even with a JIT compiler. Hence, a different method would be needed. Either simulation, recompilation, or translation. Translation was the best option given what they had to work with.
Emulation is wonderful and all but it certanly doesn't work in all situations.
FYI, I believe that PS1 was emulated and PS2,3 were translated in Phantasy Star Collection. They're not saying to use this as a replacement, they're just telling you how they did it. I'm letting you know why.
The people who are going to buy Madden buy it with Live support or not. Many reviewers have already said that Sega's ESPN (2k4) is better than it plus it has Live and people aren't biting.
EA is upset that they would have to spend development costs to make MS money from a Live enabled Madden. They would rather develop a solution that makes them money on the PS2 and possibly make the definitive console leader Sony happy.
EA is also the video game 500lb gorrila which does not give in easily. Remember that EA and Sega have had an interesting past with them giving no support for the Dreamcast because a DC Madden couldn't compete with Sega's NFL2k. This eventually added to the DC's death.
When MS ponies up a portion of Live profits to EA, we'll see Live enabled Madden.
Situation 1: EA would either be advertising it's own games, which is not a big deal as many companies do it. They could easily plug games that are in the pipeline thus not needing online support to get the ads. Why go with Live?
Situation 2: EA advertises for other company's games. Since EA has practically every genre covered, they would be promoting competitor's products! This sounds like a bad idea.
EA's gripe is that for them to make money with Live enabled Madden, they would have to charge a fee above the standard Live fee. Players could then choose to play NFL Fever for $10 or Madden for $10+$x. Which do you think most gamers would choose? If they charge $5 for online PS2 Madden, they not only make $5 per user but they also undercut MS' price.
Slashdot Mirror
Pikmin has to be one of the best games ever made. Unfortunately, it came out in 2001.
From one armchair analyst to another:
I've used my PS2 to play DVDs. It's akin to using my Dreamcast to surf the web; It just isn't worth the effort. Granted I don't have a PS2 DVD remote kit, but the navigation system is terrible out of the box. Better chalk up an extra $15 for the PS2 remote once you realize that it's practically needed.
You're right though. For sixty more than the price of a Gamecube, you can get a DVD player. Heck, you can even get one much cheaper than that if you want. Think about that, a $30 that comes with a remote! You'll pay that much for the Xbox remote alone.
The GC is capable of doing 480p for those HDTV owners. I'm also thinking that anyone who spends the big bucks on an HDTV set will get a decent DVD player instead of relying on their game console to do it for them.
I was referring to the Dreamcast's plight in particular.
Yes, Sega screwed up by releasing an add-on called the Sega CD and turned around and made the same mistake with the 32X. The Saturn failed because it was designed rather quickly under the pressure of Sony's new Playstation and developers said it was too hard to program for. There was much mismanagement in Sega for years before the Dreamcast, but that's not what killed it.
The Dreamcast was a solid piece of hardware that was very powerful but still easy to program for. A modem was included with every dreamcast sold in North America, as well as most other markets, making any online game playable out of the box. It had several early first party games like Crazy Taxi and NFL2k that were killer apps as well as a few third party pixel perfect arcade ports like Soul Calibur, Power Stone, and Marvel vs. Capcom. It even had interesting features like an out-of-the-box web browser, four controller ports for multiplayer action, a true VGA adapter, and a Visual Memory Unit that could function on it's own or as a screen on the controller. In short, the Dreamcast was a beautiful system.
The problem was that giants like Electronic Arts, who couldn't compete with NFL2k at the time by releasing a DC version of Madden, pronounced the system dead before it even was launched. Several other publishers followed suit comparing it to the Saturn as yet another colossal Sega flop.
The self-fulfilling prophecy was that there was little third party support, so the system had few games. Few games meant that consumers were less likely to buy the system. Smaller installed base meant that third party publishers weren't interested. This is what killed the DC.
It's a shame too. It was the little console that couldn't. Sony's hype machine caused people to rush out and buy the PS2 and forget about the DC, and Sega killed it shortly after.
BTW, when people cite that the Saturn was hard to program for as why it failed, I like to point to the PS2 as it is the most difficult of all three current consoles to develop on.
I've been seeing this same "Nintendo is dead" article over and over again, wondering exactly what people are trying to prove. Why do we continually see this over and over?
Let me stop for a moment and state that I consider myself to be a hardcore video game fanatic. I've been a gamer since my aunt handed me a Bally Arcade controller when I was 5 in the late 70s. My collection includes every mainstream console as well as many others. Heck, I've been with the industry longer than some of these pundits who write about where the market is going. I guess I just feel I know a little about gaming.
I would also like to state that my Gamecube gets more play than my PS2 and Xbox combined, and when there are some great games on these systems, that's saying quite a bit. I am pleased that Gamespot, a reasonable mainstream VG news source, gave "Metroid Prime" the Game of the Year award in 2002 and "Wind Waker" in 2003. For a system that's only 3 years old, it has quite a legacy. So why is it that we continue to profess that it's dead?
The wonderful fun part about making a prediction that "Nintendo is dead" is if you say it enough, it will come true. The recent Dreamcast market struggle ended with Sega leaving the hardware business behind simply because of this type of self-fulfilling prophecy. Will this happen to Nintendo with their Gamecube? Possibly. Probably. What will happen to them? They will go on or they won't. Do we (Slashdot) have to participate in this problem with the furthering of FUD? No.
We here at Slashdot, which is a community news source, hate all three current gaming console companies. Sony and Microsoft stomp on our rights at every possible turn, from anti-trusts to Aibos, broadcast flags, worms, DeCSS, proprietary file formats, or P2P shutdowns, these corporate behemoths are always up to the task of taking up the DMCA sword and smiting our fellow hackers.
Nintendo isn't exactly a saint, I'll agree. There's proof of them engaging in price fixing and they've taken a stance against emulation. They aren't as evil as the other two but they aren't as big either.
Here's the issue though: We can only hurt Nintendo in the video game arena. This is why we see so much anti-Nintendo FUD on games.slashdot.org. Slashdot isn't anti-Nintendo, it's just anti-corporation. Nintendo just gets it's fair slaps here because we've already complained about the other guys elsewhere.
Meh. Nintendo will live or die. It's beginning to not matter much to me anymore. When all that's left in the video gaming area is companies like Microsoft and Electronic Arts who care more about exploting money from gamers than making good entertainment, the industry will stagnate. The mainstream will dismiss video games as a fad yet again and we'll have another crash. Video games will be a small hobby once again.
Yep, DMA Design also used to be part of Nintendo's "Dream Team" back in the day.
Most people just remember them for the Psygnosis published games like Blood Money and the Lemmings series.
BTW, don't expect Rockstar to release Lemmings anytime soon. I think Psygnosis still owns it.
Come on, people. Are you really this gullible?
Not being a literature geek, even I was able to deduce that this was an trailer for a movie and not an actual robot product.
While there was several mumblings in the audience after the trailer ran; enough for me to shout out to the confused that it was a movie instead of whatever they thought. It didn't have me fooled for a second. It reminded me of Bicentennial Man, and sadly I didn't even get the Asimov correlation until later.
It's understandable. This is probably what happens when most of the movie going public is seeing RotK for Liv Tyler and Orlando Bloom. That's why I tell people that I was there to see Viggo.
1.) Network play
Agreed. I consider Doom to be the birth of hobbyist networking. Just think about how many IT professionals got their start playing this game.
I love how GameSpy continually puts out these best gaming etcetera opinion pieces to simply spark the fanboy debates. The last page even has some useful essential links (scroll to the bottom) that must not be missed. :)
:)
I am not immune, however. So...
Nintendo rules the artificial demand department with the "chip shortage" of 1988 which affected Zelda II more than any other title. Hmmm.... They also seemed to have a low supply of N64 consoles in 1996. One of my fondest Christmas-ish moments was walking into a toy store on Black Friday and asking if they had any N64s. The clerk told me that he had just got off the phone with someone who had to cancel their layaway and asked if I wanted it. I simply said "no thanks."
Sony had the hype/demand machine chugging in 2000 when they launched the PS2 at more than twice the price of the Dreamcast that had a bigger library of quality games. Those lucky enough to get a PS2 that year were treated with marginal titles, a way to play their PS1 games and DVDs and not much else. Majora's Mask came out in 2000. This is one of the most misunderstood games of all time. Most players hated it due to it's manipulation of time, but it is a very fine game.
My personal favorite holiday gaming season would have to be 2002. Some of the finest games of all time came out during this season. GTA: Vice City and Metroid Prime are must have games for any (mature) gamer. Platform lovers who usually stuck with Nintendo systems would be shocked as Super Mario Sunshine proved to be a slightly above average game. The PS2 meanwhile had the incredibly superb Ratchet and Clank. Even the Xbox had a slight edge as Jet Set Radio Future was being shipped with the system, unfortunately, the only other platform game for the Xbox was the terrible Blinx so it didn't have that big of an edge.
Yep, I second...er.. third this statement. I am not a Mac fan but I did appreciate the Newton.
/dev/null device in the sky, I was forced to replace it. My options were:
When my Newton MP120 passed on to the
1. Going back to my MP110 which had the earlier 1.3 OS. Good, but I was too used to the newer features.
2. Fixing it. Very expensive as the few shops that would try wanted an exhorbitant amount just to look at it.
3. Buying another PDA.
I eventually chose option 3 and got an iPAQ PocketPC. After using it for a few months, I was fed up and bought a used MP2100 off of eBay. Even with Transcriber, the iPAQ was tedious to use. Editing was terrible; if you made a mistake, you had to jump through hoops to fix it. It didn't even have a scratchpad built in. This was like a step backwards.
It's really a shame that Apple discontinued the Newton. My only hope is that they will eventually make good on their promise to do a tablet computer running the Mac OS. Apple has already proven to me that they know how to build a pen operated OS.
Just take a pen and swap 'N' with 'S' and 'S' with 'N'.
Just a bit of advice: You may also want to relabel the East and West indicators or you will find yourself being very confused. Granted, in the case of Magnetic Reversal, you may end up more than just confused.
I thought that Mario Kart 64 was alright. A cute little racing game staring Nintendo mascot characters that was fun for a bit. After a few times playing it, you could see a couple flaws.
1. Multiplayer is where it's at. If you don't have 2 or 3 friends that will squint at their own corner of the screen, don't bother. Single player suffers from cheating computer opponents that are always a few mishaps away. It doesn't matter if your driving is average or perfect, once they are behind you, they will pass you the moment you make a mistake. Not fun at all.
2. Items are overpowering. Once you find out which items do what, you'll always go for the god-like lightning bolt. The items that require some skill to use are shoved to the side.
Mario Kart: Double Dash is supposed to support LAN play. that would be nice for people that already have Gamecubes and BBAs so it's a step in the right direction. I'll give it a chance before condemning it. Sure it's more of the same, but there are so many knock-offs that want to be.
There's an Action Replay code that unlocks Metroid here. They even use it as a selling point for the AR.
There will probably be a code that unlocks whatever GBA bonuses in PoP.
Actually, you may at the moment but you will not in the future. You may have had them before but you won't in the future. That's the way things go. You are losing rights as you read this.
I've said it before and I'll say it again; the system doesn't work.
It would still be possible for backwards compatibilty in some form or another. Remember, MS owns Virtual PC.
What I want to know is if it will be easy for cross development between Xbox2 and the Gamecube... seeing as how they both use a PPC/ATi setup.
The gene for colorblindness is tied to the X chromosome and is recessive. The reason that more males have colorblindness is that the Y chromosome is treated as having the gene.
On topic; Color difficulties usually come into play with puzzle games. I wish that Capcom would release a playable version of Super Puzzle Fighter II X someday. I've been able to play Puzzle Bobble and Columns by using shapes and got pretty good with Klax by using sound as an assistance, but SPFIIX is completely unplayable. For a game that only uses 4 different colors they could at least make them somewhat different.
For a better solution, check out Triptych which has a color select mode. I personally think that they should list that as one of their main features.
BTW, I am a colorblind female who plays games and frequents Slashdot. (How's that for rare)
So, if my Nokia phone explodes while I was driving, is that death attributed to the car crash?
Nokia, the company that brought you the smash hit phone game system; the N-Gage, announces a thrilling new way to talk anywhere; the Nokia Pinto.
I implore you to not liken the Nokia N-Gage to the Atari Lynx.
The Lynx was a technical marvel for it's time. It had a backlit color screen and was capable of doing hardware scaling and rotation. The original 4 shades of green Nintendo Gameboy was the only competition and beat the Lynx simply because of Tetris and Atari's terrible mismanagement.
Heck, the Lynx was hands-down superior to the Game Gear and the Gameboy Color. It could even outperform the Turbo Express and the Nomad!
If you want to compare this to a similar flop, you might want to use the Tiger game.com. That sounds like a good history lesson that Nokia is going to repeat.
you agree not to attempt to
decipher, decompile, disassemble or
reverse engineer the Software or allow
others to do so
It also goes on to disallow derivative works.
So, I can use these ROMs in an emulator (MAME) but if I have received said ROMs through your service, I cannot participate in development of any emulator. I'm sure that this was written for Atari's benefit but it's rather limiting.
I think they definately have a good idea, they just need to smooth out the implementation.
The GBA is a game console, albeit a portable one. I can turn a functioning GBA into something not a game console, but turning one into a game console when it's already one is -1 Redundant.
These people are the ones who translated Phantasy Star games to the GBA.
The GBA does not have the power to emulate the Mega Drive (Genesis) even with a JIT compiler. Hence, a different method would be needed. Either simulation, recompilation, or translation. Translation was the best option given what they had to work with.
Emulation is wonderful and all but it certanly doesn't work in all situations.
FYI, I believe that PS1 was emulated and PS2,3 were translated in Phantasy Star Collection. They're not saying to use this as a replacement, they're just telling you how they did it. I'm letting you know why.
The people who are going to buy Madden buy it with Live support or not. Many reviewers have already said that Sega's ESPN (2k4) is better than it plus it has Live and people aren't biting.
EA is upset that they would have to spend development costs to make MS money from a Live enabled Madden. They would rather develop a solution that makes them money on the PS2 and possibly make the definitive console leader Sony happy.
EA is also the video game 500lb gorrila which does not give in easily. Remember that EA and Sega have had an interesting past with them giving no support for the Dreamcast because a DC Madden couldn't compete with Sega's NFL2k. This eventually added to the DC's death.
When MS ponies up a portion of Live profits to EA, we'll see Live enabled Madden.
Wouldn't work.
Situation 1: EA would either be advertising it's own games, which is not a big deal as many companies do it. They could easily plug games that are in the pipeline thus not needing online support to get the ads. Why go with Live?
Situation 2: EA advertises for other company's games. Since EA has practically every genre covered, they would be promoting competitor's products! This sounds like a bad idea.
EA's gripe is that for them to make money with Live enabled Madden, they would have to charge a fee above the standard Live fee. Players could then choose to play NFL Fever for $10 or Madden for $10+$x. Which do you think most gamers would choose? If they charge $5 for online PS2 Madden, they not only make $5 per user but they also undercut MS' price.
I'm with EA on this decision.
This lawsuit is taking place in the US where people's usage of SI terms are usually used (incorrectly) by the tech sector.
Getting Americans to use the KiB, GiB, etc. terms instead of KB, GB, etc. that they are used to is going to be difficult if not impossible.
If Americans were wiling to change, we would've been on the metric system in the 70s.
Not if you buy your G5 Mac with ATi's Radon video card.
This is where the missing three percent of the game players comes from: People who aren't sure that they are playing a video game.