It never was on the official Square sites, and still isn't. Someone on one of the gaming sites (perhaps in one of the forums, I don't remember) even made a list of all the flaws in the image that pointed out how it is extremely unlikely to be from Square, since no one can verify its source, despite the 2001 Square copyright printed on the picture.
You may be confusing this image with the promo FFXI illustrations (still available on the Square sites) that detail the different races in that game.
If your Geforce works with full HW acceleration, you probably applied the TNT update from Eidos. If FF7PC itself works perfectly fine on w2k/wxp (including the chocobo races), you probably installed the unofficial (non-Eidos) w2k patch.
If you haven't applied the w2k patch and aren't seeing problems, you probably either haven't gotten to Gold Saucer yet, or you are playing with saved game files from after the mandatory race, and haven't gone back to race again.
Bandai and Sony are not competitors. Sony has no handheld systems of their own (Pocketstation doesn't count), and Bandai hasn't had a home console for a long time.
Bandai is considered a partner of Sony, actually. The Swan Crystal is listed in the hardware section of the Japanese Sony site, even.
More like, "systems that succeed have different strengths than systems that fail."
PSX pushes polys far faster than Sega Saturn. Same with PS2 (although textures aren't as good) vs. Dreamcast. 2-D graphics on Sega's consoles far surpass those of Sony's, but nowadays, the trend is 3-D games (to the point that it's more common to find 2-D emulated in 3-D via cel-shading than it is to see a home console game that uses only 2-D graphics).
But most importantly, hype over Sony's offerings in the American market killed both systems here. In Japan, Saturn did very well against the PSX, as would have the Dreamcast against PS2, had Sega not been bleeding money, forcing them out of the hardware business.
In short, PSX and PS2 have the Sony name to thank for their success, as well as Sony's ability to gauge market trends better than Sega. Too bad for me, since both of these Sega systems tie with SNES as my all-time favorite consoles.
Brilliant. Let's all bankrupt MS by giving them $200 and inflating the sales figures that they show to developers and investors. That'll learn 'em!
< tofuhead >
Nintendo, Rare come out ahead; MS breaks even
on
Microsoft Buys Rare
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Nintendo sells their shares in Rare and top-off their coffers. They win.
Rare makes off with MS money, the finest money that money can buy. They win too.
MS gets a development house that used to turn out hits, but has floundered in recent years. Tim and Chris Stamper are leaving. That leaves Conker, Perfect Dark, and that's about it. No Donkey Kong or anything else owned by Nintendo.
About the only _real_ downside to Nintendo consumers (IMO) is that any sort of RC Pro-Am sequel will be an xbox exclusive. Boohoo. On a lot of the gamer website forums, this has been a huge non-issue for the past few days, since Rare hasn't been playing with the big boys in terms of game quality/quantity for quite a while.
The last entry is no joke. The kids you'll find in Hawaiian and Californian arcades (in my experience) just don't mess around.
I guess every generation needs its killer app arcade game. Back in my day (said the ancient 20-something), it was 2-D fighters like Street Fighter II et al. Seeing my nieces and nephews dominate the DDR machines reminds me of when _I_ was the little Asian punk keeping everyone else off the SF2 machine. =P I guess the difference (actual non-violent physical activity vs. non-physical fantasy violence) is a good one, but I'm too set in my fuddy-duddy fighter ways ever to give DDR a shot.
I'll take a joystick or Ascii Pad FT over a dance mat/platform any day.
< tofuhead >
Re:What nintendo etc needs to do to END illegal ro
on
Borrowing ROMs
·
· Score: 2
You're missing the point. Sega could do what people are discussing, and release 20 roms on a CD, earning them next to nothing. Or, they could take 4 or 5 of those games, re-hash them on a home console (not a PC), and earn $20-$40, easy. To make the same kind of profit (about $5 per game) on a PC release, they'd have to charge $100 for 20 games. That will never happen.
I haven't been articulate enough in pointing this out. But realistically, there is next to no reason for anyone to do this, not when the prices that console games can demand is so lucrative compared to the PC games market. I can buy 5 emulated Genesis/Sega CD Sonic games for Windows for $5. The Gamecube release of these games, plus a few others, will initially earn Sega about ten times as much as that, and that price may someday fall to as low as $20-$30. Which of these two releases do you think Sega will be more pleased with?
The whole idea of releasing cheap roms as an alternative to illegal internet rom trading sounds fine and dandy, until you look at it from the publisher's standpoint. Nintendo will never go for it, the same way Sony will never sell $3 CD albums just to combat the popularity of MP3s.
< tofuhead >
Re:What nintendo etc needs to do to END illegal ro
on
Borrowing ROMs
·
· Score: 2
But cheap and better for some other reason will always be preferable to free.
But that's the thing...there would be no point in doing this if they were going to do it for cheap. And even if people were willing to pay for such convenience, I insist that they wouldn't pay high enough for any publisher to consider this -- not while Sega et al. can re-hash their games in groups of four or five on one disc for $20-40 every time a new system comes out. How many people would pay $100 for a 20 rom compilation CD? $500 for 100 roms? It's like I said in my last post, there's too little reward in selling such discs.
OTOH, Capcom did something similar in Japan and Europe on home consoles (Sega Saturn and PSX I believe, with non-emulated games), and capitalized on it very well. They released Capcom Generations 1-5, with about 3-5 classic games in each collection, for about the price of one new game each. They could never had made that much on a rom compilation for the PC, where there is a risk of redistribution of individual roms and games typically cost very little.
< tofuhead >
Re:What nintendo etc needs to do to END illegal ro
on
Borrowing ROMs
·
· Score: 2
You're ignoring the fact that "free" is infinitely less expensive than "cheap." The same people that won't spend a couple of bucks to snag the actual carts used and cheap are the same ones that wouldn't pay a couple of bucks for a rom dump. Of course there are exceptions, but publishers don't necessarily profit on exceptions.
Meanwhile, publishers would be forced to support their emulators for actual customers.
I'm fairly confident that this is the reason why we don't see more emulated Sega PC releases. There's too little reward. Those Smash Pack and Sonic collection CDs for Windows go for pennies in the bargain bin.
< tofuhead >
Re:Why not a partnership?
on
Borrowing ROMs
·
· Score: 2
Exactly. Sega Smash Pack for GBA is already out (or coming out soon, depending on where you are). Also, Namco, Konami, Midway, and Atari, among others, seem to put out classic compilations for almost every platform now and then.
The fact is, even though not everybody is smart enough to cash in on their older titles, pretty much every smart company reserves the right to do this. The only real shame is when good game licenses are owned by people who are content just to let the classics die.
Don't forget the kick-ass XG MIDI soundtrack and the free Yamaha S-YXG70 softsynth for w9x. Anybody who ever considered actually buying one of Yamaha's softsynths back then was better off buying FF7PC for $10-$20 instead.
Load times on the first NGCD were so bad that SNK revamped the system and released an updated model with a faster CD-ROM soon after releasing the first. Reliability was also an issue, since the first model's drive crapped out fairly often, but most bought the updated model for its faster drive, not for its improved reliability.
Actually, that's not the only way. One other is to get thyself down to a decent arcade and drop some quarters into THEIR Neo Geos. Gameplay on Neo Geo arcade and home cartridge games is identical.
The VMU wasn't made "mainly" as a private second screen. It was made mainly to be used as I assume this phone is supposed to be used...as a memory unit that also acts as a detached game playing device. The VMU was also designed with the private screen function, but really it's a glorified memory card that can play simple games; that's why it's detachable from the controller, and not just an LCD built standard into every controller.
(Don't tell me you've never heard of people raising their pet Chaos from Sonic Adventure on their VMUs, or baby Godzillas. What do you think the D-pad and buttons on VMUs are for? Such portable game data could then be used by games, since the VMU is just a memory interface any way.)
And while you can't use the VMU as a mic, there is a Dreamcast mic that comes with some games (domestically: Alien Front Online, Seaman) that acted this way. So yes, this phone is a glorified VMU/mic combo, with a phone at its foundation (making this thing expensive). Please also note that in the article, the Sony Ericsson exec mentioned that this thing would likely be connected to the PS2 via USB...I seriously doubt you will be dialing into or remotely accessing your PS2 remotely, not when you consider the hassles it would be trying to deal with the as-yet non-bundled PS2 modem or BBA.
The new domestically-released Arc the Lad Collection likewise includes the Arc III Pocketstation game, translated into English by the Working Designs crew, _just_ for those people who own imported Pocketstations. BTW, I have two of these (white and clear)...now I'm trying to hunt down a clear Sony-brand PSOne dual shock, so both controller ports on my PSOne are color-coded.
So what? It's a phone with a built-in Pocketstation/VMU-type device, with the additional bonus that you can use it talk to your games. It's just a jumble of traditional accessories (VMU & microphone) integrated into a phone that will likely be prohibitively expensive for gamers who don't need new phones. They also mention customizing phones with Jennifer Lopez digital goodies like ringtones, photos, and website bookmarks (or something like that), which tells me that they're just hyping this thing up to anybody who's interested in any of Sony's other products (PS2, J.Lo, they're all just Sony products to tie-in). Some of the latter paragraphs in the article add up to almost exactly that, quite blatantly.
I don't foresee many game developers chasing this idea down to include in their games, at least, not in ways that can't also be played by using a standard Pocketstation and mic (read: using a physical interface like USB). I doubt remote PS2 access is even being considered for these things; what game developer would ever want to tackle the issue of allowing your PS2 to act as a dial-up or web server for your low-res, low-bandwidth phone any way? Rather, I see some Sony Ericsson execs trying to tie the popularity of the Sony PS2 with their new phone line (bad pun not intended), and that's it.
Oh, bite your tongue. =P Any shmup fan wil tell you that Ikaruga alone is enough reason to place the DC on the alive and kicking end of the scale. Treasure's shooters have a history of doing this: Radiant Silvergun for Sega Saturn, Sin and Punishment for N64 (okay, rail shooter), and now Ikaruga for DC are just recent examples.
KoF2K is likewise a BFD for me. It means that SNK/Playmore, a 3rd party, feel they can profit from porting/enhancing games for the supposedly dead system. Although Sakura Taisen's numbers are impressive, Sega released it themselves, so the fanboys alone will buy it just for the melancholy Sega kitsch value, while many will see KoF2K as YA-2-D fighter (and thus more of a risk). Add to that the fact that I don't particularly care for the series...frankly, the closest I've come to enjoying Sakura Taisen is watching the first few of the OAVs and playing a friend's copy of Sakura Taisen Hanagumi Columns for Saturn.;)
And now, a late warning from me: You may not own a Dreamcast, but I (a non-retailer and fellow gaming addict) own 14, all new and unopened. This doesn't count the two I use regularly as my own, and is down from the 16 I had last week -- and I'm now up $200 because of the difference. I'm talking about unmodified, non-bundle, made in China, Samsung-driven, U.S. systems with Indonesian controllers. Not ideal by anyone's measurement, but still well worth buying for anyone who doesn't have a Dreamcast yet.
I still think that 8-bit is the highest that I'll emulate. For SNES, I prefer the actual console. I remember playing the original Final Fantasy VI for the first time under emulation, and hearing the wind sound effects under the lackluster audio emulator of whatever emu I was using at the time (snes9x or zsnes) really had me wishing I was playing on my actual SNES. (BTW, playing it on Playstation has me feeling the same way, since the SNES midi synth sounded much better than whatever was used to make the PSX tracks...which don't even loop seamlessly -- very disconcerting!)
Knock-off NES clones are very true to the original, come in unique shapes (Playstation-shaped, GameBoy size, etc.), and can be had for next to nothing. The electronics that go into one are really cheap.
Or, you could have the PC emulate almost any vintage system of this era with impressive accuracy, to the point where you wouldn't need to hack any hardware at all (unless you wanted to use the system's actual game cartridges and not ROM files).
I know. As a Dreamcast-or-die kind of fellow, it feels like someone's physically slapped my face.
An update for the U.S.-only gaming folk: SNK's King of Fighters 2000 and Treasure's Ikaruga, two of the hottest 2-D arcade games in recent history among the gamerati, are coming out for SEGA DREAMCAST. The thing refuses to die, and damn if I'll let anyone snub its memory as Sega's pinnacle console gaming achievement. It's thinking.
...Aw, geez. Friday night, and I'm at home posting in defense of a video game console. I used the words "gamerati" and "It's thinking," for Heaven's sake. Truly a new low.
You're thinking of Streamline Pictures, founded by Carl Macek, the man who took Ichijou Hikaru and presented him to the U.S. as red-blooded American "Rick Hunter."
Old-school fans like to punk him at every chance they get. I'm not too much of a fan nowadays (my main hobby is import console gaming now), but old habits die hard, so here goes:
I hope Carl Macek finds himself overdosing on "protoculture" while getting shot down by stray fire from "veritech" fighters in "guardian" mode, piloted by "Ben Dixon" and "Maximilian Sterling."
I don't mean any disrespect against you, but it's hard to determine whether you're serious.
I'm a gamer too. I have nothing but loathing for MS's business practices, and few of their products ever appeal to me (although my list of exceptions is reasonably sane). However, my bet is on Sony to win the race, with Nintendo pulling the most profits from a respectable second place. From what I can tell your argument boils down to this: MS will counter the incredible software and hardware developers, creative minds, and popular franchises of Nintendo and the excellent software lineup of Sony's PS1/PS2 by throwing $LARGE at the xbox, because they want to control the view from your sofa and have enough money to do it.
Let's extrapolate this reasoning and apply it to other markets where MS competes:
- Throw away your Macs and Suns, and delete your Linux partitions, because MS has enough money to make Windows exactly what you need. (proof negative: the devolution of W2K into the bloated/resource-intensive WXP)
- Junk your Pilots, Visors, and Clies away, because MS has the resources to make Pocket PCs the perfect alternative to anything made by lesser PDA producers.
- Recycle your IBM keyboards, Logitech mouses, and Gravis gamepads, MS hardware is funded by the most successful software company in history.
- Uninstall WordPerfect and StarOffice, MS Office has been designed to take advantage of Windows to the fullest by the world's #1 software developers, makers of the Windows OS itself.
Sorry, I know that list is tedious, but the sarcasm is meant only in jest. But it's important to notice that MS's strongarming tactics really only involve use of their size and financial savvy as leverage against quality and innovation. In the conolse industry, such a strategy involves forcing gamers to ignore the games themselves, of which there the numbers and quality fall heavily in Sony's favor, with Nintendo's games guaranteed to rock the boat the way only Nintendo can (Two words: Ocarina, 1998).
Slashdot Mirror
It never was on the official Square sites, and still isn't. Someone on one of the gaming sites (perhaps in one of the forums, I don't remember) even made a list of all the flaws in the image that pointed out how it is extremely unlikely to be from Square, since no one can verify its source, despite the 2001 Square copyright printed on the picture.
You may be confusing this image with the promo FFXI illustrations (still available on the Square sites) that detail the different races in that game.
< tofuhead >
If your Geforce works with full HW acceleration, you probably applied the TNT update from Eidos. If FF7PC itself works perfectly fine on w2k/wxp (including the chocobo races), you probably installed the unofficial (non-Eidos) w2k patch.
If you haven't applied the w2k patch and aren't seeing problems, you probably either haven't gotten to Gold Saucer yet, or you are playing with saved game files from after the mandatory race, and haven't gone back to race again.
< tofuhead >
Bandai and Sony are not competitors. Sony has no handheld systems of their own (Pocketstation doesn't count), and Bandai hasn't had a home console for a long time.
Bandai is considered a partner of Sony, actually. The Swan Crystal is listed in the hardware section of the Japanese Sony site, even.
< tofuhead >
The alleged image of the FFXII girl in the flower field that you are probably talking about is a hoax. It doesn't come from Square.
< tofuhead >
More like, "systems that succeed have different strengths than systems that fail."
PSX pushes polys far faster than Sega Saturn. Same with PS2 (although textures aren't as good) vs. Dreamcast. 2-D graphics on Sega's consoles far surpass those of Sony's, but nowadays, the trend is 3-D games (to the point that it's more common to find 2-D emulated in 3-D via cel-shading than it is to see a home console game that uses only 2-D graphics).
But most importantly, hype over Sony's offerings in the American market killed both systems here. In Japan, Saturn did very well against the PSX, as would have the Dreamcast against PS2, had Sega not been bleeding money, forcing them out of the hardware business.
In short, PSX and PS2 have the Sony name to thank for their success, as well as Sony's ability to gauge market trends better than Sega. Too bad for me, since both of these Sega systems tie with SNES as my all-time favorite consoles.
< tofuhead >
Brilliant. Let's all bankrupt MS by giving them $200 and inflating the sales figures that they show to developers and investors. That'll learn 'em!
< tofuhead >
Nintendo sells their shares in Rare and top-off their coffers. They win.
Rare makes off with MS money, the finest money that money can buy. They win too.
MS gets a development house that used to turn out hits, but has floundered in recent years. Tim and Chris Stamper are leaving. That leaves Conker, Perfect Dark, and that's about it. No Donkey Kong or anything else owned by Nintendo.
About the only _real_ downside to Nintendo consumers (IMO) is that any sort of RC Pro-Am sequel will be an xbox exclusive. Boohoo. On a lot of the gamer website forums, this has been a huge non-issue for the past few days, since Rare hasn't been playing with the big boys in terms of game quality/quantity for quite a while.
< tofuhead >
http://www.somethingawful.com/article.php?id=378
The last entry is no joke. The kids you'll find in Hawaiian and Californian arcades (in my experience) just don't mess around.
I guess every generation needs its killer app arcade game. Back in my day (said the ancient 20-something), it was 2-D fighters like Street Fighter II et al. Seeing my nieces and nephews dominate the DDR machines reminds me of when _I_ was the little Asian punk keeping everyone else off the SF2 machine. =P I guess the difference (actual non-violent physical activity vs. non-physical fantasy violence) is a good one, but I'm too set in my fuddy-duddy fighter ways ever to give DDR a shot.
I'll take a joystick or Ascii Pad FT over a dance mat/platform any day.
< tofuhead >
You're missing the point. Sega could do what people are discussing, and release 20 roms on a CD, earning them next to nothing. Or, they could take 4 or 5 of those games, re-hash them on a home console (not a PC), and earn $20-$40, easy. To make the same kind of profit (about $5 per game) on a PC release, they'd have to charge $100 for 20 games. That will never happen.
I haven't been articulate enough in pointing this out. But realistically, there is next to no reason for anyone to do this, not when the prices that console games can demand is so lucrative compared to the PC games market. I can buy 5 emulated Genesis/Sega CD Sonic games for Windows for $5. The Gamecube release of these games, plus a few others, will initially earn Sega about ten times as much as that, and that price may someday fall to as low as $20-$30. Which of these two releases do you think Sega will be more pleased with?
The whole idea of releasing cheap roms as an alternative to illegal internet rom trading sounds fine and dandy, until you look at it from the publisher's standpoint. Nintendo will never go for it, the same way Sony will never sell $3 CD albums just to combat the popularity of MP3s.
< tofuhead >
But that's the thing...there would be no point in doing this if they were going to do it for cheap. And even if people were willing to pay for such convenience, I insist that they wouldn't pay high enough for any publisher to consider this -- not while Sega et al. can re-hash their games in groups of four or five on one disc for $20-40 every time a new system comes out. How many people would pay $100 for a 20 rom compilation CD? $500 for 100 roms? It's like I said in my last post, there's too little reward in selling such discs.
OTOH, Capcom did something similar in Japan and Europe on home consoles (Sega Saturn and PSX I believe, with non-emulated games), and capitalized on it very well. They released Capcom Generations 1-5, with about 3-5 classic games in each collection, for about the price of one new game each. They could never had made that much on a rom compilation for the PC, where there is a risk of redistribution of individual roms and games typically cost very little.
< tofuhead >
You're ignoring the fact that "free" is infinitely less expensive than "cheap." The same people that won't spend a couple of bucks to snag the actual carts used and cheap are the same ones that wouldn't pay a couple of bucks for a rom dump. Of course there are exceptions, but publishers don't necessarily profit on exceptions.
Meanwhile, publishers would be forced to support their emulators for actual customers.
I'm fairly confident that this is the reason why we don't see more emulated Sega PC releases. There's too little reward. Those Smash Pack and Sonic collection CDs for Windows go for pennies in the bargain bin.
< tofuhead >
Exactly. Sega Smash Pack for GBA is already out (or coming out soon, depending on where you are). Also, Namco, Konami, Midway, and Atari, among others, seem to put out classic compilations for almost every platform now and then.
The fact is, even though not everybody is smart enough to cash in on their older titles, pretty much every smart company reserves the right to do this. The only real shame is when good game licenses are owned by people who are content just to let the classics die.
< tofuhead >
Don't forget the kick-ass XG MIDI soundtrack and the free Yamaha S-YXG70 softsynth for w9x. Anybody who ever considered actually buying one of Yamaha's softsynths back then was better off buying FF7PC for $10-$20 instead.
< tofuhead >
Load times on the first NGCD were so bad that SNK revamped the system and released an updated model with a faster CD-ROM soon after releasing the first. Reliability was also an issue, since the first model's drive crapped out fairly often, but most bought the updated model for its faster drive, not for its improved reliability.
< tofuhead >
Actually, that's not the only way. One other is to get thyself down to a decent arcade and drop some quarters into THEIR Neo Geos. Gameplay on Neo Geo arcade and home cartridge games is identical.
< tofuhead >
The VMU wasn't made "mainly" as a private second screen. It was made mainly to be used as I assume this phone is supposed to be used...as a memory unit that also acts as a detached game playing device. The VMU was also designed with the private screen function, but really it's a glorified memory card that can play simple games; that's why it's detachable from the controller, and not just an LCD built standard into every controller.
(Don't tell me you've never heard of people raising their pet Chaos from Sonic Adventure on their VMUs, or baby Godzillas. What do you think the D-pad and buttons on VMUs are for? Such portable game data could then be used by games, since the VMU is just a memory interface any way.)
And while you can't use the VMU as a mic, there is a Dreamcast mic that comes with some games (domestically: Alien Front Online, Seaman) that acted this way. So yes, this phone is a glorified VMU/mic combo, with a phone at its foundation (making this thing expensive). Please also note that in the article, the Sony Ericsson exec mentioned that this thing would likely be connected to the PS2 via USB...I seriously doubt you will be dialing into or remotely accessing your PS2 remotely, not when you consider the hassles it would be trying to deal with the as-yet non-bundled PS2 modem or BBA.
< tofuhead >
The new domestically-released Arc the Lad Collection likewise includes the Arc III Pocketstation game, translated into English by the Working Designs crew, _just_ for those people who own imported Pocketstations. BTW, I have two of these (white and clear)...now I'm trying to hunt down a clear Sony-brand PSOne dual shock, so both controller ports on my PSOne are color-coded.
< tofuhead >
So what? It's a phone with a built-in Pocketstation/VMU-type device, with the additional bonus that you can use it talk to your games. It's just a jumble of traditional accessories (VMU & microphone) integrated into a phone that will likely be prohibitively expensive for gamers who don't need new phones. They also mention customizing phones with Jennifer Lopez digital goodies like ringtones, photos, and website bookmarks (or something like that), which tells me that they're just hyping this thing up to anybody who's interested in any of Sony's other products (PS2, J.Lo, they're all just Sony products to tie-in). Some of the latter paragraphs in the article add up to almost exactly that, quite blatantly.
I don't foresee many game developers chasing this idea down to include in their games, at least, not in ways that can't also be played by using a standard Pocketstation and mic (read: using a physical interface like USB). I doubt remote PS2 access is even being considered for these things; what game developer would ever want to tackle the issue of allowing your PS2 to act as a dial-up or web server for your low-res, low-bandwidth phone any way? Rather, I see some Sony Ericsson execs trying to tie the popularity of the Sony PS2 with their new phone line (bad pun not intended), and that's it.
< tofuhead >
Oh, bite your tongue. =P Any shmup fan wil tell you that Ikaruga alone is enough reason to place the DC on the alive and kicking end of the scale. Treasure's shooters have a history of doing this: Radiant Silvergun for Sega Saturn, Sin and Punishment for N64 (okay, rail shooter), and now Ikaruga for DC are just recent examples.
KoF2K is likewise a BFD for me. It means that SNK/Playmore, a 3rd party, feel they can profit from porting/enhancing games for the supposedly dead system. Although Sakura Taisen's numbers are impressive, Sega released it themselves, so the fanboys alone will buy it just for the melancholy Sega kitsch value, while many will see KoF2K as YA-2-D fighter (and thus more of a risk). Add to that the fact that I don't particularly care for the series...frankly, the closest I've come to enjoying Sakura Taisen is watching the first few of the OAVs and playing a friend's copy of Sakura Taisen Hanagumi Columns for Saturn. ;)
And now, a late warning from me: You may not own a Dreamcast, but I (a non-retailer and fellow gaming addict) own 14, all new and unopened. This doesn't count the two I use regularly as my own, and is down from the 16 I had last week -- and I'm now up $200 because of the difference. I'm talking about unmodified, non-bundle, made in China, Samsung-driven, U.S. systems with Indonesian controllers. Not ideal by anyone's measurement, but still well worth buying for anyone who doesn't have a Dreamcast yet.
< tofuhead >
I still think that 8-bit is the highest that I'll emulate. For SNES, I prefer the actual console. I remember playing the original Final Fantasy VI for the first time under emulation, and hearing the wind sound effects under the lackluster audio emulator of whatever emu I was using at the time (snes9x or zsnes) really had me wishing I was playing on my actual SNES. (BTW, playing it on Playstation has me feeling the same way, since the SNES midi synth sounded much better than whatever was used to make the PSX tracks...which don't even loop seamlessly -- very disconcerting!)
< tofuhead >
Knock-off NES clones are very true to the original, come in unique shapes (Playstation-shaped, GameBoy size, etc.), and can be had for next to nothing. The electronics that go into one are really cheap.
Or, you could have the PC emulate almost any vintage system of this era with impressive accuracy, to the point where you wouldn't need to hack any hardware at all (unless you wanted to use the system's actual game cartridges and not ROM files).
< tofuhead >
I know. As a Dreamcast-or-die kind of fellow, it feels like someone's physically slapped my face.
An update for the U.S.-only gaming folk: SNK's King of Fighters 2000 and Treasure's Ikaruga, two of the hottest 2-D arcade games in recent history among the gamerati, are coming out for SEGA DREAMCAST. The thing refuses to die, and damn if I'll let anyone snub its memory as Sega's pinnacle console gaming achievement. It's thinking.
...Aw, geez. Friday night, and I'm at home posting in defense of a video game console. I used the words "gamerati" and "It's thinking," for Heaven's sake. Truly a new low.
< tofuhead >
You're thinking of Streamline Pictures, founded by Carl Macek, the man who took Ichijou Hikaru and presented him to the U.S. as red-blooded American "Rick Hunter."
Old-school fans like to punk him at every chance they get. I'm not too much of a fan nowadays (my main hobby is import console gaming now), but old habits die hard, so here goes:
I hope Carl Macek finds himself overdosing on "protoculture" while getting shot down by stray fire from "veritech" fighters in "guardian" mode, piloted by "Ben Dixon" and "Maximilian Sterling."
< tofuhead >
I don't mean any disrespect against you, but it's hard to determine whether you're serious.
I'm a gamer too. I have nothing but loathing for MS's business practices, and few of their products ever appeal to me (although my list of exceptions is reasonably sane). However, my bet is on Sony to win the race, with Nintendo pulling the most profits from a respectable second place. From what I can tell your argument boils down to this: MS will counter the incredible software and hardware developers, creative minds, and popular franchises of Nintendo and the excellent software lineup of Sony's PS1/PS2 by throwing $LARGE at the xbox, because they want to control the view from your sofa and have enough money to do it.
Let's extrapolate this reasoning and apply it to other markets where MS competes:
- Throw away your Macs and Suns, and delete your Linux partitions, because MS has enough money to make Windows exactly what you need. (proof negative: the devolution of W2K into the bloated/resource-intensive WXP)
- Junk your Pilots, Visors, and Clies away, because MS has the resources to make Pocket PCs the perfect alternative to anything made by lesser PDA producers.
- Recycle your IBM keyboards, Logitech mouses, and Gravis gamepads, MS hardware is funded by the most successful software company in history.
- Uninstall WordPerfect and StarOffice, MS Office has been designed to take advantage of Windows to the fullest by the world's #1 software developers, makers of the Windows OS itself.
Sorry, I know that list is tedious, but the sarcasm is meant only in jest. But it's important to notice that MS's strongarming tactics really only involve use of their size and financial savvy as leverage against quality and innovation. In the conolse industry, such a strategy involves forcing gamers to ignore the games themselves, of which there the numbers and quality fall heavily in Sony's favor, with Nintendo's games guaranteed to rock the boat the way only Nintendo can (Two words: Ocarina, 1998).
< tofuhead >
I got your joke. But how is it relevant to Square's announcement, _at all_?
< tofuhead >