When something breaks, that unit is defective. This allows you to assert "my unit is defective". Now you asserted all PS2 were defective. To asser "All" or "many" of the PS2's are defective you have to either show "every PS2" is broken, or statistically prove most are. Now, if you can show a report on failure statistics of the top 3 consoles and see if the ps2 has a significantly higher fail rate.
PS. Most new models of electronics have a higher fail rate then later generations.
Well, I know 3 people with PS2s that ended up not working, and it has nothing to do with modding. It has to do with watching dvds on them. The damn lasers in the PS2 are worthless, the new models are better, but the old ones are horrible. First gen PS2 was a huge pile of crap in a lot of ways (it was noisy and the laser sucked to name a few). After a while, these PS2s quit loading DVD based PS2 games and DVD movies. The still seem to load CD based (blue backed games) without issue in most cases, even though the laser is extremely noisy when loading blue games. Enough evidence for you? Don't get me wrong - I own a PS2, and will also own a PS3. Why? Backwards compatibility. Xbox won't have it, Nintendo never has it, so PS3 it is.
This is called an anecdote, statistical value : little.
Now grab a set of 1000 users and find how many of those untis failed. Adhear to standard data collection methodology. Otherwise it's just a story.
Also, the possibility that the russians (who were advancing into manchuria) would have taken parts of japan as well. Personally I think the Japanese deserved it. Each and every civillian. After what they did to my native china I don't think droping 2 A-bombs is too much. 20-30 million dead chinese, through numerous means and numerous times during their occupation of china. Thats the estimates. Compare that to a piddle few hundred thousand. They tested bullet ballistics on live chinese prisoners as well. They haven't said a single word about it, haven't apologized for it, and haven't really been punished for it liek the germans did. We all hear about the holocaust but this was worse.
Everyone here syas it's a mistake but lets look at their cost:
Game player: PS2 R&D paid off long ago HD: cheap commodity product DVD bruner: Cheap commodity product (when it's realeased) Television signal recorder: Fairly cheap product little R&D
Over all the product isn't a lot of work to put together, has alright margins and has a niche market apeal. I don't think they can lose much in this proposition. And if it's successful the next PS might have more of the same features. I'm sure Sony would like a thicker margine on it's Machines. The razor blade model has bankrupted many many many of it's predicessors.
On the price issue, I'm right there with you. Considering I could score a dual-tuner HDTV (both OTA and satellite) PVR for $999, it's not a good deal, and as you point out much better deals can be hand at the cheap end. I will note, though, that the prices you gave for TiVo didn't include the price of monthly or lifetime subs, so it's not QUITE as disproportionate as you make it out.
When has sony ever been on the cheap end? Not for the last 20 or so years. $999 may be a lot for generic recorder/burner/dvd player, but the equivilent sony products likly add up to somewhere in that neighborhood.
Actually, you could have users 23098203, 20934865, 94832029, and 12893573 all share the exact same nick. You wouldn't need to differentiate between "FragBastard" and "Frag_Bastard". You wouldn't need to exclude spaces from names, either. Imagine that... you could actually name yourself "Frag Bastard" and not fear the total breakdown of XBox Live's user database when the game puts your name up in lights.
They don't allow complete duplication. I think the user name is a candidate key, as it is important to other players to ID you. The db key is less important to your user base.
Vietiful Joe is a 2d side scroller with 3d cell shaded graphics. Sorta like Street fighter EX is a 2d fighter with 3d graphics and thus gets the go ahead by SCEA.
I really hate when companies ignore the realities of what they're saying when they blame piracy for their ills. Did people pirate Neo Geo games because they're scum sucking asses, or because the games cost >$200 a piece? If piracy suddenly became impossible, they would have been lucky to see a few more bucks land their way.
The piracy their speaking of is not like here in North America. Down in asia the pirate "Sell" the pirated goods. Copies of the roms and the hardware sell for some none zero sum in asia. Those buyers may never have paid full price for SNK's work but someone is profiting off of SNK's backs. The cost of $200 a peice is the American price. The price in japan would be similiar but they would have reduced it for other markets. You also have to remember that an average arcade board will run you $600 + so $200 isn't tht unreasonable for an arcade machine, even though it's old. Have you ever shopped around for an arcade cabinent? Games like 1942 and double dragon and so on will still go for $800+ for the cabinent and the board. (all totals in CND).
See the game industry in the late 80's. You'll see why. Poor quality games dilute the perception of your system. While a merely unispired game like chaos legion or the lattest harry potter crap is one thing, having ET on your system is something else. It killed the game industry, and it killed many of the potential systems liek the jaguar and the 3do.
I'd say it's more FF6, FFX, FF7, FF4, FFXI, FFVIII, FFV, FF3, FF2, FF1
Not inclusing FFXI because, common thats not really a FF RPG. That might be nostalgia talking, but FF7 certainly had more flaws then FF6, and at that level you mark down for flaws not up for features (FF7:bad translation, broken plot due to bad translation, unsatisfying ending, easy beyond belief, lack of any emotional attachment to main character no matter how hard I tried, They killed Aeris, You bastards.)
Time compression is also a factor. Games 1-3 years apart in release seem to get lumped in to our brains as "the good old days". How often does a true classic come around? Zelda is pretty fun, even by todays standard. A link to the past is amazing by even todays standard. And we get a contemporary zelda thats just as fun once every 3-4 years. So "modern" gaming is just as good. Because for every wind walker we must endure a "tomb raider 9: we need more cash".
Personally, the era of "classic gaming" is over rated. Many of the great classics are both a bore and unrelentingly hard. Rygar was good. Pac man was dumb. Gradius was good, centipede was dumb. Break trough(Akranoid) was good, missle command was dumb.
The truth of the matter is, today, a random sample of 20 NES/MS/SNES/MegaDrive games, would probobly fare better than a random sample of 20 PS2/GC/XBox titles.
There was A LOT of crap for the nes/snes/ms/megadrive. You might have a tough time proving that.
Remember there weren't game cheats on those old titles, most of the games relied on basic hand eye coordination and quick reflexes. In my not so humble opinion this is why Pong takes more talent than say Mortal Kombat or . You can't say that I am overkilling with that special move in pong. With pong I don't have to suffer through a poorly made movie loosely based on the game.
Really depends on what level you playing at. I bet you a top Street fighter player/ mortal combat player (I don't think they exsist anymore) will annihalte you at pong because they also happen to have incredible hand eye coordination on top of their ability to memorize complex button combos.
One mans golden age is another mans utter crap. Common, pac man was the shit at it's time but it's about as fun as playing chess by yourself. Super mario was revolutionary, but today it wouldn't hold my attention for 15 min. And that one was one of the first games I ever finished and I loved it before. Some games don't age well. mortal combat is one, Kings Quest is ok but not that great while Space quest and Leassure suit larry hold up better, due to most of the fun being in the humor and not the "solving inane item combination" puzzles.
Facts. I'm not American so I'd hardly figure it's Xenophobia. The Americans are ravenous consumers and spend more easily then most any other nationaility.
Keep in mind that although they only make 1$/day, it probably costs a whole lot less to live in those countries, us americans have the highest cost of living in the world
No. That would either be Japan or some places in europe. Americans have a generally low cost of living in comparison to the rest of te developed world. Food and nessecities are a relativly small % of take home pay. In absolute dollars, Americans pay less then most europeans and japanese. In japan a plain dress can be $100+ usd and a nice dinner can be 50$-120$ while the same dress would be $20 and the same dinner would be $30 in America.
lol. Still not immune. Immune means under no circumstances will you ever dial out. Resistant means it's hard to near impossible to dial out. thus even you are nto Immune, merely resistant. Now you coudl be immune if you unplugged the modem. They could still get you is they knew yoru root password. Unlikly but still not immune. I on the other hand am immune despite suing IE here at work because I have the modem un-plugged.
You forgot the step where they get the program onto your computer...
Lets see, they attach it to cron on a shared server. They label it sdl 44.1.5.1 and bundle it with a game. they figure out your root password is "iluvlinus" and place it there.
Linux is more secure, but not immune. Your only as secure as your dumbest user. Given a dumb enough user, even linux can be fucked.
When was the last time you did a data call to Guyana? List soem legitamate reasons. BBS's? that about it. and odn't tell me Gayana is a BBS mecha that all geeks must dial once in their life times or face eternal damnation in the microsoft campus.
Linux is resitant. Resistant and immune are two different things. If you have a working modem in a linux box and someone out of boredom writes a C program that dials 1900-rand-prn. You'd be just as vulnerable is you left the line in.
voice conversations are very very tolerant of small disruptions while data is not. So just introduce random noise once at the beggining (to interrupt the initial handshake) and once every minute of so. a small change in pitch and modulation 1/2 second out of a minute won't affect voice calls very much but data lines won't take it too well.
Not that many people place Long distance data calls on land lines. Some geek BBS'ers but their pretty rare in this age of telenet. So there'd be very very little disruption of normal service.
Slashdot Mirror
When something breaks, that unit is defective. This allows you to assert "my unit is defective". Now you asserted all PS2 were defective. To asser "All" or "many" of the PS2's are defective you have to either show "every PS2" is broken, or statistically prove most are. Now, if you can show a report on failure statistics of the top 3 consoles and see if the ps2 has a significantly higher fail rate.
PS. Most new models of electronics have a higher fail rate then later generations.
Well, I know 3 people with PS2s that ended up not working, and it has nothing to do with modding. It has to do with watching dvds on them. The damn lasers in the PS2 are worthless, the new models are better, but the old ones are horrible. First gen PS2 was a huge pile of crap in a lot of ways (it was noisy and the laser sucked to name a few). After a while, these PS2s quit loading DVD based PS2 games and DVD movies. The still seem to load CD based (blue backed games) without issue in most cases, even though the laser is extremely noisy when loading blue games. Enough evidence for you? Don't get me wrong - I own a PS2, and will also own a PS3. Why? Backwards compatibility. Xbox won't have it, Nintendo never has it, so PS3 it is.
This is called an anecdote, statistical value : little.
Now grab a set of 1000 users and find how many of those untis failed. Adhear to standard data collection methodology. Otherwise it's just a story.
Also, the possibility that the russians (who were advancing into manchuria) would have taken parts of japan as well. Personally I think the Japanese deserved it. Each and every civillian. After what they did to my native china I don't think droping 2 A-bombs is too much. 20-30 million dead chinese, through numerous means and numerous times during their occupation of china. Thats the estimates. Compare that to a piddle few hundred thousand. They tested bullet ballistics on live chinese prisoners as well. They haven't said a single word about it, haven't apologized for it, and haven't really been punished for it liek the germans did. We all hear about the holocaust but this was worse.
Everyone here syas it's a mistake but lets look at their cost:
Game player: PS2 R&D paid off long ago
HD: cheap commodity product
DVD bruner: Cheap commodity product (when it's realeased)
Television signal recorder: Fairly cheap product little R&D
Over all the product isn't a lot of work to put together, has alright margins and has a niche market apeal. I don't think they can lose much in this proposition. And if it's successful the next PS might have more of the same features. I'm sure Sony would like a thicker margine on it's Machines. The razor blade model has bankrupted many many many of it's predicessors.
On the price issue, I'm right there with you. Considering I could score a dual-tuner HDTV (both OTA and satellite) PVR for $999, it's not a good deal, and as you point out much better deals can be hand at the cheap end. I will note, though, that the prices you gave for TiVo didn't include the price of monthly or lifetime subs, so it's not QUITE as disproportionate as you make it out.
When has sony ever been on the cheap end? Not for the last 20 or so years. $999 may be a lot for generic recorder/burner/dvd player, but the equivilent sony products likly add up to somewhere in that neighborhood.
A set of satalites would make probes more effective because they could conevy telemetry 24/7 not just when the probe is facing earth.
Actually, you could have users 23098203, 20934865, 94832029, and 12893573 all share the exact same nick. You wouldn't need to differentiate between "FragBastard" and "Frag_Bastard". You wouldn't need to exclude spaces from names, either. Imagine that... you could actually name yourself "Frag Bastard" and not fear the total breakdown of XBox Live's user database when the game puts your name up in lights.
They don't allow complete duplication. I think the user name is a candidate key, as it is important to other players to ID you. The db key is less important to your user base.
What cost them some developers is the difficulty of their system. Their licencing and aproval isn't any different from MS or Nintendo.
Vietiful Joe is a 2d side scroller with 3d cell shaded graphics. Sorta like Street fighter EX is a 2d fighter with 3d graphics and thus gets the go ahead by SCEA.
I really hate when companies ignore the realities of what they're saying when they blame piracy for their ills. Did people pirate Neo Geo games because they're scum sucking asses, or because the games cost >$200 a piece? If piracy suddenly became impossible, they would have been lucky to see a few more bucks land their way.
The piracy their speaking of is not like here in North America. Down in asia the pirate "Sell" the pirated goods. Copies of the roms and the hardware sell for some none zero sum in asia. Those buyers may never have paid full price for SNK's work but someone is profiting off of SNK's backs. The cost of $200 a peice is the American price. The price in japan would be similiar but they would have reduced it for other markets. You also have to remember that an average arcade board will run you $600 + so $200 isn't tht unreasonable for an arcade machine, even though it's old. Have you ever shopped around for an arcade cabinent? Games like 1942 and double dragon and so on will still go for $800+ for the cabinent and the board. (all totals in CND).
See the game industry in the late 80's. You'll see why. Poor quality games dilute the perception of your system. While a merely unispired game like chaos legion or the lattest harry potter crap is one thing, having ET on your system is something else. It killed the game industry, and it killed many of the potential systems liek the jaguar and the 3do.
I'd say it's more FF6, FFX, FF7, FF4, FFXI, FFVIII, FFV, FF3, FF2, FF1
Not inclusing FFXI because, common thats not really a FF RPG. That might be nostalgia talking, but FF7 certainly had more flaws then FF6, and at that level you mark down for flaws not up for features (FF7:bad translation, broken plot due to bad translation, unsatisfying ending, easy beyond belief, lack of any emotional attachment to main character no matter how hard I tried, They killed Aeris, You bastards.)
Time compression is also a factor. Games 1-3 years apart in release seem to get lumped in to our brains as "the good old days". How often does a true classic come around? Zelda is pretty fun, even by todays standard. A link to the past is amazing by even todays standard. And we get a contemporary zelda thats just as fun once every 3-4 years. So "modern" gaming is just as good. Because for every wind walker we must endure a "tomb raider 9: we need more cash".
Personally, the era of "classic gaming" is over rated. Many of the great classics are both a bore and unrelentingly hard. Rygar was good. Pac man was dumb. Gradius was good, centipede was dumb. Break trough(Akranoid) was good, missle command was dumb.
The truth of the matter is, today, a random sample of 20 NES/MS/SNES/MegaDrive games, would probobly fare better than a random sample of 20 PS2/GC/XBox titles.
There was A LOT of crap for the nes/snes/ms/megadrive. You might have a tough time proving that.
Remember there weren't game cheats on those old titles, most of the games relied on basic hand eye coordination and quick reflexes. In my not so humble opinion this is why Pong takes more talent than say Mortal Kombat or . You can't say that I am overkilling with that special move in pong. With pong I don't have to suffer through a poorly made movie loosely based on the game.
Really depends on what level you playing at. I bet you a top Street fighter player/ mortal combat player (I don't think they exsist anymore) will annihalte you at pong because they also happen to have incredible hand eye coordination on top of their ability to memorize complex button combos.
One mans golden age is another mans utter crap. Common, pac man was the shit at it's time but it's about as fun as playing chess by yourself. Super mario was revolutionary, but today it wouldn't hold my attention for 15 min. And that one was one of the first games I ever finished and I loved it before. Some games don't age well. mortal combat is one, Kings Quest is ok but not that great while Space quest and Leassure suit larry hold up better, due to most of the fun being in the humor and not the "solving inane item combination" puzzles.
Facts. I'm not American so I'd hardly figure it's Xenophobia. The Americans are ravenous consumers and spend more easily then most any other nationaility.
The US makes up a larger slice of the market then the EU + the rest of europe + russia + africa combined.
Keep in mind that although they only make 1$/day, it probably costs a whole lot less to live in those countries, us americans have the highest cost of living in the world
No. That would either be Japan or some places in europe. Americans have a generally low cost of living in comparison to the rest of te developed world. Food and nessecities are a relativly small % of take home pay. In absolute dollars, Americans pay less then most europeans and japanese. In japan a plain dress can be $100+ usd and a nice dinner can be 50$-120$ while the same dress would be $20 and the same dinner would be $30 in America.
lol. Still not immune. Immune means under no circumstances will you ever dial out. Resistant means it's hard to near impossible to dial out. thus even you are nto Immune, merely resistant. Now you coudl be immune if you unplugged the modem. They could still get you is they knew yoru root password. Unlikly but still not immune. I on the other hand am immune despite suing IE here at work because I have the modem un-plugged.
mecca
You forgot the step where they get the program onto your computer...
Lets see, they attach it to cron on a shared server. They label it sdl 44.1.5.1 and bundle it with a game. they figure out your root password is "iluvlinus" and place it there.
Linux is more secure, but not immune. Your only as secure as your dumbest user. Given a dumb enough user, even linux can be fucked.
When was the last time you did a data call to Guyana? List soem legitamate reasons. BBS's? that about it. and odn't tell me Gayana is a BBS mecha that all geeks must dial once in their life times or face eternal damnation in the microsoft campus.
"Linux is immune "
Linux is resitant. Resistant and immune are two different things. If you have a working modem in a linux box and someone out of boredom writes a C program that dials 1900-rand-prn. You'd be just as vulnerable is you left the line in.
Better solution:
voice conversations are very very tolerant of small disruptions while data is not. So just introduce random noise once at the beggining (to interrupt the initial handshake) and once every minute of so. a small change in pitch and modulation 1/2 second out of a minute won't affect voice calls very much but data lines won't take it too well.
Not that many people place Long distance data calls on land lines. Some geek BBS'ers but their pretty rare in this age of telenet. So there'd be very very little disruption of normal service.