Unlicensed peripherals have been a thriving business for years for manufacturers like InterAct, Mad Catz, Nuby, Redant, Innovation, and countless others. Nintendo, Sega, and Sony have never had a problem with them; they just endorse licensed peripherals and allow licensees to use the Nintendo/Sega/etc. logo in their advertising and packaging. Call Nintendo about the GBA, and they will direct you to the Sun Seibu Light Boy Advance light, not the Shark Light or Worm Light or whatever. They just ignore the unlicensed third parties, because they're not doing anything illegal or particularly harmful to the console manufacturers' businesses.
For MS to counter this trend (by enforcing their license and discriminating against unlicensed hardware) would be a first. Region discrimination on software is one thing. License discrimination on software is another. But region and license discrimination on peripheral hardware makes little business sense to me. If they've set up mechanisms by which this could happen, they'd be foolish to implement them. I doubt that they would have, though.
The uproar doesn't come because MS was apparently trying to lock out "cheap Taiwainese knockoffs" (not to mention high-quality Japanese third-parties like Ascii), the uproar was over the possibility that American software was required by Microsoft to ignore the USB IDs of Japanese controllers, made by Microsoft or not.
If this is actually the case (I find it doubtful that even MS could be so stupid as to discriminate against such a harmless practice as importing a controller), it is the first time that _any_ console manufacturer has ever intentionally region-locked a controller. Nintendo, Sega, and Sony have never done this (good thing...playing fighting games on my Dreamcast and Playstation would be infinitely less fun without the loose d-pad and firm buttons on my Capcom and SNK Ascii FT pads).
yerricde's own Game Gear Advance joke implies otherwise. You did not read his post responsibly.
Please don't put words in intelligent people's mouths, especially incorrect ones, anonymously. From his posts, it seems that yerricde is largely familiar with the gaming business; however, the fact that there is no backlit GBA stands.
You of all people should know that the screen isn't the problem (it uses little power, looks better in sunlight than a backlit screen would, etc.); it's the fact that Nintendo didn't include a switchable internal front light of their own. I'm fine with it, but I keep hearing about how the screen sucks, and it just doesn't IMO.
Unless, by "travesty," you mean, "travesty relative to other reflective LCD screens," I think there's a little bit of an oversight being made here. IMO, the PCE-GT/TurboExpress screen sucked (because individual pixels burned out easily and the backlit LCD drew lots of power), but I'm willing to bet that there are people here that would claim the opposite, just because they could play the thing in the dark. Same thing goes for the GameGear and Nomad, although I've never seen either with a dead pixel.
The existing screen isn't bad. It's fantastic in sunlight, better than a backlit screen would be.
The only thing that's bad about it is that everybody expects to use it in the dark or near-dark. People are using it in less-than-ideal lighting conditions, which is bad for your eyes anyway, like trying to read a fine-print book in the dark, only the words are in different colors and are moving around the page. With a front-mounted internal light, you get the best of both worlds, for reasons I stated in another post.
There is no backlit GBA yet either, and I hope there never is one. Since the GBA screens are reflective they require an external (front) light source. The internal lights that portablemonopoly.com and portablemonopoly.net (different folks!) are talking about are front light sources, although for a while.NET and.COM were using different technologies (the.NET guy has since ended his plans of competing with the.COM guy...dumb story).
Basically, a GBA __with its current reflective screen__ and an internal switchable front light is the ideal portable gaming solution for many reasons, far better than a backlit system. Reflective screens fare better in sunlight than backlit screens, reflective LCD screens use less power than backlit LCDs and are inexpensive, and in the presence of ample lighting, you can turn the internal light off to conserve power (you can't turn the backlight in a backlit LCD off and really expect to be able to see anything). Nintendo perhaps should have done this from the beginning, but they made the trade-off in order to cut manufacturing, design, and support costs.
I predicted the early 2002 launch and $200 price of the PSOne LCD combo unit in a/. post last year, but I've come to realize that it's still not worth it for the price, especially if it's being compared to the GBA or Dreamcast. It's about 4x bulkier than a GBA without a battery (walkman-sized unit, screen w/speakers, controller(s), and power cable), it has problems with shock, and if you consider that the 5" screen costs $130 on its own, the PSOne in the combo is still $70 (which is $20 more than a superior Dreamcast base system).
Sony's marketing mantra of "wherever, whenever, forever" regarding the PSOne seems to be indication that Sony really wants the PSOne to remain a competitive platform, but IMO it's just a ploy to milk as much from this now obsolete platform as possible. (By "obsolete," I refer to the fact that PS2s are backwards-compatible, just as GBA is backwards-compatible with GBC, another "obsolete" platform.)
Hold on. The games are great, fine, but many are saying that the screen was bad (I don't think so). That's a valid reason for some people not to buy one. I personally have several, because this issue, while valid for others, is irrelevant to me.
Will I be buying an add-on screen? Maybe, but I want to witness one in action first (and use other people's experiences as QA). Would I buy a new officially-released GBA with a switchable light already built-in? Yes, but not because I'm dissatisfied with my old units...I'd buy it for the additional ability to play in otherwise total darkness. If people want to wait until such mechanisms are standard before making their buying decision, that sounds sensible to me.
He may also have been confused by the fact that the NeoGeo Pocket Color could also hook up to the Dreamcast (Capcom/SNK games, etc), similar to what the original poster had thought about the WSC and PSX.
Locally, two major retailers have the GBA at $69.99, and one of them is throwing in a free case on top of that too. GBA is already extremely successful, and the price is dropping so drastically so soon after launch? I've heard nothing officially about a new modified model, but something is getting me excited over the prospect of these babies coming out some time soon.
Personally, I'm very satisfied with my current GBAs...they have worked great under reasonable lighting conditions (someone else posted this: reading light is more than adequate), even with the older first-generation screen. I've heard rumors that the neweer GBAs come with Panasonic (not Sharp) LCDs, and are somewhat brighter, but I've never noticed any difference in screen quality between newer Japanese black/orange GBAs and my older models.
Still, on a totally unrelated note, Golden Sun is a great game. <snicker>
I'm not arguing that the DC didn't die from having to compete with Sony and co.; in fact, that's exactly what my previous post implied...Sega switched into a 100% software house to tap into this market, and therefore they killed the DC prematurely to cut their losses (meaning, the DC would have had a fine future otherwise, just as the Saturn did in the face of the PSX for so long). Notice, most third parties moved away from the DC _only after_ Sega's announcement of its EOL. Multi-platform development is not uncommon for games developers - as recent as 1998 many games were being released for both Saturn and PSX. If Sega hadn't done that, Capcom (for one) would have likely gone on producing titles for it. This is the company that released Street Fighter Zero 3 for the Sega Saturn, _after_ they released the DC version, and that game is relatively recent (my Saturn SFZ3 box says 1999)! (BTW, the Saturn version is easily superior to the PSX and DC versions.)
Finally, the DC was/is relatively more popular in Japan than it was here, despite the fact that Americans love the Sega Sports titles. There are too many easily-impressed Sony fanboys here in the U.S.
2) Quite a few systems on your list only failed in the U.S. due to poor American management...their Japanese counterparts were very successful, entirely supported by Japanese software development. PC Engine, Sega Saturn, and Dreamcast were not failures, with the exception that Sega killed the DC prematurely due to their transition to 100% software development.
For 3-D games, God yes. Saturn was underpowered in this regard -- one can only wonder what a modern-day Azel Panzer Dragoon RPG would look like (maybe we'll find out).
For 2-D games, well, let's just say that it will forever remain tied with the Super Famicom and Sega Dreamcast as my favorite console of all time, because of Capcom's 2-D fighter releases on it, the innumerable selection of high-quality shooters like Radiant Silvergun and Battle Garegga, and the incredible variety of other Japanese RPGs, sims, and puzzle games. IMO, even the Japanese PS1 game selection is relatively uninteresting compared to the Saturn's line-up (fewer blockbusters, more obscure high-quality titles).
The Sega Saturn lived quite a healthy life in Japan until 1998, during the later years of which it was considered the venerable also-ran (somewhat like the American N64 in 2000 and 2001).
Yeah, DOA2 was even a Dreamcast game first. DOA2 Hardcore was the PS2 release, which was almost identical in play, just as DOA3 is just a prettier DOA2HC.
I think it would amuse me greatly to see Microsoft fall flat on their faces after spending as much money as they did on the xbox. The Japanese release teasers on xbox.jp look quite lame, and almost all of them come from puny no-name development teams that seem as if they are just trying to make names for themselves on the xbox, while the big boys play wait-and-see with the thing. I even hear that the only people interested in the special edition xbox package are Americans. Hehehe.
BTW, WTH is up with the Japanese controller? It's smaller but definitely not saner -- the buttons are laid out in a very odd manner.
Don't forget that the PC wasn't hackable by design. IBM used off-the-shelf parts because that was the cheapest way to go. If it hadn't been for Compaq reverse-engineering the BIOS, IBM would have been happy to leave the platform closed (until somebody else came along and did it). Don't forget the IBM PS/2 either, their attempt to reinstate their control over the PC architecture.
Hardware companies are just much more sophisticated nowadays than they were then, just like consumers. There now exist many more tools (technological, ideological, financial, legal) with which to fight their competitors/consumers and keep proprietary technologies closed. To big business, proprietary = $$$. Apple knows relatively well when and when not to apply this concept, and I hardly think they consider it "the wrong lesson" learned, since their attempt to open the Macintosh really just ended up biting them in the wallet while not really expanding the market.
In light of my post above as well as this one, I think I should clarify.
You'll find that Sony devices typically use the 4-pin connectors on their iLink devices. These plugs do not carry power. FireWire plugs with 6 pins can carry power. So, if you throw a 4-6 pin adapter in the mix somewhere, you just have to make sure that no device connected in that fashion needs to draw power from the bus.
Nope, they're slightly different, FireWire being the more flexible of the two.
Firewire provides power over the bus. iLink doesn't. So, any FireWire _or_ iLink device can be plugged into a FireWire port and should theoretically work fine, but FireWire devices that draw power from the bus won't work from an iLink port.
I always suspected that this was one of the reasons Sega's Dreamcast Jump Pack was so much weaker than the third-party vibrators. That, plus the fact that overly-strong vibrations can be too much of a distraction. You have to HOLD these things, after all.
I included in-depth info on the GP32 as part of my last story submission (originally titled, "Wireless Handheld Gaming"), but apparently Taco didn't think it was too interesting, so the whole GP32 section was snipped out. Somehow discussion about wireless GBA via add-on peripherals doesn't seem as interesting without a point of reference, such as a handheld that icludes such capabilities built-in from the start.
I'm personally watching Korea as far as Japanese-style games development goes. Nowadays it's not uncommon to see huge Japanese fan bases for Korean games, mostly RPGs and sim games. Not only is a Korean company now the home of SNK's venerated King of Fighters series, but original games like Tomak are coming out and impressing Japanese fans.
Slashdot Mirror
Some Naomi arcade games could use the Dreamcast VMS/VMU for storage. Similarly, NeoGeo arcade and home systems used the same memory card.
< tofuhead >
That's exactly the point I was making to the parent post, as well as what I posted earlier. Thanks for the clarification attempt, though.
< tofuhead >
Unlicensed peripherals have been a thriving business for years for manufacturers like InterAct, Mad Catz, Nuby, Redant, Innovation, and countless others. Nintendo, Sega, and Sony have never had a problem with them; they just endorse licensed peripherals and allow licensees to use the Nintendo/Sega/etc. logo in their advertising and packaging. Call Nintendo about the GBA, and they will direct you to the Sun Seibu Light Boy Advance light, not the Shark Light or Worm Light or whatever. They just ignore the unlicensed third parties, because they're not doing anything illegal or particularly harmful to the console manufacturers' businesses.
For MS to counter this trend (by enforcing their license and discriminating against unlicensed hardware) would be a first. Region discrimination on software is one thing. License discrimination on software is another. But region and license discrimination on peripheral hardware makes little business sense to me. If they've set up mechanisms by which this could happen, they'd be foolish to implement them. I doubt that they would have, though.
< tofuhead >
The uproar doesn't come because MS was apparently trying to lock out "cheap Taiwainese knockoffs" (not to mention high-quality Japanese third-parties like Ascii), the uproar was over the possibility that American software was required by Microsoft to ignore the USB IDs of Japanese controllers, made by Microsoft or not.
If this is actually the case (I find it doubtful that even MS could be so stupid as to discriminate against such a harmless practice as importing a controller), it is the first time that _any_ console manufacturer has ever intentionally region-locked a controller. Nintendo, Sega, and Sony have never done this (good thing...playing fighting games on my Dreamcast and Playstation would be infinitely less fun without the loose d-pad and firm buttons on my Capcom and SNK Ascii FT pads).
< tofuhead >
We were waiting for each other? Surely this is love.
yerricde's own Game Gear Advance joke implies otherwise. You did not read his post responsibly.
Please don't put words in intelligent people's mouths, especially incorrect ones, anonymously. From his posts, it seems that yerricde is largely familiar with the gaming business; however, the fact that there is no backlit GBA stands.
< tofuhead >
Hiya Lawrence,
You of all people should know that the screen isn't the problem (it uses little power, looks better in sunlight than a backlit screen would, etc.); it's the fact that Nintendo didn't include a switchable internal front light of their own. I'm fine with it, but I keep hearing about how the screen sucks, and it just doesn't IMO.
Unless, by "travesty," you mean, "travesty relative to other reflective LCD screens," I think there's a little bit of an oversight being made here. IMO, the PCE-GT/TurboExpress screen sucked (because individual pixels burned out easily and the backlit LCD drew lots of power), but I'm willing to bet that there are people here that would claim the opposite, just because they could play the thing in the dark. Same thing goes for the GameGear and Nomad, although I've never seen either with a dead pixel.
< tofuhead >
The existing screen isn't bad. It's fantastic in sunlight, better than a backlit screen would be.
The only thing that's bad about it is that everybody expects to use it in the dark or near-dark. People are using it in less-than-ideal lighting conditions, which is bad for your eyes anyway, like trying to read a fine-print book in the dark, only the words are in different colors and are moving around the page. With a front-mounted internal light, you get the best of both worlds, for reasons I stated in another post.
< tofuhead >
There is no backlit GBA yet either, and I hope there never is one. Since the GBA screens are reflective they require an external (front) light source. The internal lights that portablemonopoly.com and portablemonopoly.net (different folks!) are talking about are front light sources, although for a while .NET and .COM were using different technologies (the .NET guy has since ended his plans of competing with the .COM guy...dumb story).
Basically, a GBA __with its current reflective screen__ and an internal switchable front light is the ideal portable gaming solution for many reasons, far better than a backlit system. Reflective screens fare better in sunlight than backlit screens, reflective LCD screens use less power than backlit LCDs and are inexpensive, and in the presence of ample lighting, you can turn the internal light off to conserve power (you can't turn the backlight in a backlit LCD off and really expect to be able to see anything). Nintendo perhaps should have done this from the beginning, but they made the trade-off in order to cut manufacturing, design, and support costs.
< tofuhead >
I predicted the early 2002 launch and $200 price of the PSOne LCD combo unit in a /. post last year, but I've come to realize that it's still not worth it for the price, especially if it's being compared to the GBA or Dreamcast. It's about 4x bulkier than a GBA without a battery (walkman-sized unit, screen w/speakers, controller(s), and power cable), it has problems with shock, and if you consider that the 5" screen costs $130 on its own, the PSOne in the combo is still $70 (which is $20 more than a superior Dreamcast base system).
Sony's marketing mantra of "wherever, whenever, forever" regarding the PSOne seems to be indication that Sony really wants the PSOne to remain a competitive platform, but IMO it's just a ploy to milk as much from this now obsolete platform as possible. (By "obsolete," I refer to the fact that PS2s are backwards-compatible, just as GBA is backwards-compatible with GBC, another "obsolete" platform.)
< tofuhead >
Hold on. The games are great, fine, but many are saying that the screen was bad (I don't think so). That's a valid reason for some people not to buy one. I personally have several, because this issue, while valid for others, is irrelevant to me.
Will I be buying an add-on screen? Maybe, but I want to witness one in action first (and use other people's experiences as QA). Would I buy a new officially-released GBA with a switchable light already built-in? Yes, but not because I'm dissatisfied with my old units...I'd buy it for the additional ability to play in otherwise total darkness. If people want to wait until such mechanisms are standard before making their buying decision, that sounds sensible to me.
< tofuhead >
He may also have been confused by the fact that the NeoGeo Pocket Color could also hook up to the Dreamcast (Capcom/SNK games, etc), similar to what the original poster had thought about the WSC and PSX.
< tofuhead >
Locally, two major retailers have the GBA at $69.99, and one of them is throwing in a free case on top of that too. GBA is already extremely successful, and the price is dropping so drastically so soon after launch? I've heard nothing officially about a new modified model, but something is getting me excited over the prospect of these babies coming out some time soon.
Personally, I'm very satisfied with my current GBAs...they have worked great under reasonable lighting conditions (someone else posted this: reading light is more than adequate), even with the older first-generation screen. I've heard rumors that the neweer GBAs come with Panasonic (not Sharp) LCDs, and are somewhat brighter, but I've never noticed any difference in screen quality between newer Japanese black/orange GBAs and my older models.
Still, on a totally unrelated note, Golden Sun is a great game. <snicker>
< tofuhead >
Sega hasn't been an American company since 1984 at the latest. This history is common knowledge, and you are flat-out wrong to call them an American company, putting it simply.
I'm not arguing that the DC didn't die from having to compete with Sony and co.; in fact, that's exactly what my previous post implied...Sega switched into a 100% software house to tap into this market, and therefore they killed the DC prematurely to cut their losses (meaning, the DC would have had a fine future otherwise, just as the Saturn did in the face of the PSX for so long). Notice, most third parties moved away from the DC _only after_ Sega's announcement of its EOL. Multi-platform development is not uncommon for games developers - as recent as 1998 many games were being released for both Saturn and PSX. If Sega hadn't done that, Capcom (for one) would have likely gone on producing titles for it. This is the company that released Street Fighter Zero 3 for the Sega Saturn, _after_ they released the DC version, and that game is relatively recent (my Saturn SFZ3 box says 1999)! (BTW, the Saturn version is easily superior to the PSX and DC versions.)
Finally, the DC was/is relatively more popular in Japan than it was here, despite the fact that Americans love the Sega Sports titles. There are too many easily-impressed Sony fanboys here in the U.S.
< tofuhead >
1) Sega is a Japanese company.
2) Quite a few systems on your list only failed in the U.S. due to poor American management...their Japanese counterparts were very successful, entirely supported by Japanese software development. PC Engine, Sega Saturn, and Dreamcast were not failures, with the exception that Sega killed the DC prematurely due to their transition to 100% software development.
< tofuhead >
For 3-D games, God yes. Saturn was underpowered in this regard -- one can only wonder what a modern-day Azel Panzer Dragoon RPG would look like (maybe we'll find out).
For 2-D games, well, let's just say that it will forever remain tied with the Super Famicom and Sega Dreamcast as my favorite console of all time, because of Capcom's 2-D fighter releases on it, the innumerable selection of high-quality shooters like Radiant Silvergun and Battle Garegga, and the incredible variety of other Japanese RPGs, sims, and puzzle games. IMO, even the Japanese PS1 game selection is relatively uninteresting compared to the Saturn's line-up (fewer blockbusters, more obscure high-quality titles).
The Sega Saturn lived quite a healthy life in Japan until 1998, during the later years of which it was considered the venerable also-ran (somewhat like the American N64 in 2000 and 2001).
< tofuhead >
Yeah, DOA2 was even a Dreamcast game first. DOA2 Hardcore was the PS2 release, which was almost identical in play, just as DOA3 is just a prettier DOA2HC.
I think it would amuse me greatly to see Microsoft fall flat on their faces after spending as much money as they did on the xbox. The Japanese release teasers on xbox.jp look quite lame, and almost all of them come from puny no-name development teams that seem as if they are just trying to make names for themselves on the xbox, while the big boys play wait-and-see with the thing. I even hear that the only people interested in the special edition xbox package are Americans. Hehehe.
BTW, WTH is up with the Japanese controller? It's smaller but definitely not saner -- the buttons are laid out in a very odd manner.
< tofuhead >
Yeah? Well, color me enlightened. Never owned an original PC manual or heard this bit of lore before.
< tofuhead >
Don't forget that the PC wasn't hackable by design. IBM used off-the-shelf parts because that was the cheapest way to go. If it hadn't been for Compaq reverse-engineering the BIOS, IBM would have been happy to leave the platform closed (until somebody else came along and did it). Don't forget the IBM PS/2 either, their attempt to reinstate their control over the PC architecture.
Hardware companies are just much more sophisticated nowadays than they were then, just like consumers. There now exist many more tools (technological, ideological, financial, legal) with which to fight their competitors/consumers and keep proprietary technologies closed. To big business, proprietary = $$$. Apple knows relatively well when and when not to apply this concept, and I hardly think they consider it "the wrong lesson" learned, since their attempt to open the Macintosh really just ended up biting them in the wallet while not really expanding the market.
< tofuhead >
Right, thanks, I was a bit misleading. My reply to the AC below was meant to clarify this.
< tofuhead >
In light of my post above as well as this one, I think I should clarify.
You'll find that Sony devices typically use the 4-pin connectors on their iLink devices. These plugs do not carry power. FireWire plugs with 6 pins can carry power. So, if you throw a 4-6 pin adapter in the mix somewhere, you just have to make sure that no device connected in that fashion needs to draw power from the bus.
< tofuhead >
Nope, they're slightly different, FireWire being the more flexible of the two.
Firewire provides power over the bus. iLink doesn't. So, any FireWire _or_ iLink device can be plugged into a FireWire port and should theoretically work fine, but FireWire devices that draw power from the bus won't work from an iLink port.
< tofuhead >
I always suspected that this was one of the reasons Sega's Dreamcast Jump Pack was so much weaker than the third-party vibrators. That, plus the fact that overly-strong vibrations can be too much of a distraction. You have to HOLD these things, after all.
< tofuhead >
NO, not "Pok." And what's so surprising to learn that (gasp) the subtleties of the English language are available non-westerners?
In other news, I personally believe that there is a Sony employee named "Station-san."
< tofuhead >
I included in-depth info on the GP32 as part of my last story submission (originally titled, "Wireless Handheld Gaming"), but apparently Taco didn't think it was too interesting, so the whole GP32 section was snipped out. Somehow discussion about wireless GBA via add-on peripherals doesn't seem as interesting without a point of reference, such as a handheld that icludes such capabilities built-in from the start.
I'm personally watching Korea as far as Japanese-style games development goes. Nowadays it's not uncommon to see huge Japanese fan bases for Korean games, mostly RPGs and sim games. Not only is a Korean company now the home of SNK's venerated King of Fighters series, but original games like Tomak are coming out and impressing Japanese fans.
< tofuhead >