OK, I always knew Atari, even in its day, had awful graphics. I remember playing the NES game "Total Recall" and thinking (as an 8 year-old) "wow, what a crappy attempt to recreate Arnold."
Ninja Gaiden, the cut scenes at least, had "awesome" graphics at the time but I knew they were just really good cartoons. But when I played Wheel of Fortune on the SNES one time, and it had a near-photo quality still-picture of Vanna White on the title screen, I thought that "well, this is the best it can be... because you can't do better than photos!"
Flash forward to 1997 when I first saw Mario 64. I walked into my friend's house and I seriously did not even take off my jacket. I was standing there for like 10 minutes just marveling it. Amazing, I thought. They did it. They peaked. Can't get any better.
Once again, I was wrong. Super Mario Sunshine is much prettier.
Stupid me, here I go again. Just 5 minutes ago I finished watching a preview for EA mvp baseball 2004 for gamecube and I thought again "Wow, this is a looooong way from Bases Loaded on NES. look how awesome this looks! Seriously, how get much better than this!?!?"
Something tells me that I'll laugh at that statement once again in 2008...
they wanted to plutonium. there was a brief flirting with that idea. One of my profs is a mission leader for the MERs and one word for why it didn't get made (simplified and more humorous, but it's the truth):
I can't think of a single mission in which everything was sucessful:
-Hubble had it's famous initial "disaster." -Galileo had it's near-catastrophic antenae failure (which made the mission produce like 10% of the intended science/pictures). -The Voyager Probes had various instruments which conked out before Neptune (granted the mission was only engineered to work for Jupiter and Saturn) -Mars Express's Lander has presumably failed (but it's primary mission appears to have already found some evidence of it's main goal - finding water) -The Soviet Venera Probes each had problems (one mission in particular returned no pictures due to an unremoved lens cap!) -Pathfinder, like Spirit, had periods of breached-communications (including a much-longer delay in communcating with Earth after touching down on the surface).
Yet each of the above missions were HUGE sucesses in their own regard. NASA (and ESA and USSR) all has problems with them, but they were all very much redeemed themselves. It's like having a kid who turns out to be a hero firefigher/scientist or something. Just cuz he/she had a few temper tantrums doesn't mean that they're a failure. Look at the big picture...
Or is the press just dying for some bad news? I mean, everyone knows the news saying "You report the one house on fire, no one reports the 10,000 that didn't burn today" (or something like that).
For the media, bad news is good news (storywise). Here we have unprecidented sucesses of the MERs (and Mars Express - within DAYS of working it has found evidence of it's top mission objective), and now there's all this press about the "failures."
Or has NASA been "asking for it," as they keep saying how "amazingly perfect" things are going, setting themselves up for scrutiny when they fail? My opinion: no, but what about you?
you may be right (seriously), but I didn't think consoles work like that. I'm pretty sure NES, Genesis, SNES, Playstation and Gameboy were all popular from their launches. I can't think of a sucessful console that wasn't sucessful at launch and then later was.
Did anyone else get from this article that it was basically an article actually titled "just about every one of the 10 handhelds that were available in the last 15 years (except nintendo)... which includes one from the late 70's most have never heard of?"
Well except for the Gameboy line Nintendo hasn't done to well with portable devices
It's much more than that. The statement "other than the gameboy line" is not fair. Look at what they did...
1989 - Gameboy is released, selling tens of millions of systems, despite three vastly superior (graphically) portables being available. 1995 - Nintendo gets millions of people to buy their "Play it Loud" series of Gameboys - basically the EXACT same thing as the Gameboys that had been out for more than half a decade, but in "cool colors." 1996 - Nintendo gets millions more to buy still-uncolored Gameboy Pocket systems. They are graphically identical to the 1989 Gameboy and their only new features are that they are thinner and use 2 batteries, not 4 (though the original Gameboy wasn't terrible with batteries. Not great, but not terrible). 1997 - Millions more are sold when the "Gameboy (Pocket) Color" is released. This system, released a year after Super Mario 64's graphics shocked the gaming world, features games which (besides a few colors) are not much different than games released a decade earlier. 2000 - The 100 millionth Gameboy system is sold. 2001 - Gameboy Advance is released. Despite a huge engineering flaw (no backlight) it sells millions of units. 2002 - The Gameboy Advance SP is released. Millions of units are sold, presumably many to people who have already given Nintendo money when they bought the identically-powerful original Gameboy Advance systems.
So as you can see, Nintendo is a shrewd player. To say "they were able to sell a bunch of gameboys" is a huge understatement.
Now if these people were skum that we wanted to get rid of, I wouldn't object to a starvation trip.
I would object! Hell, I don't want some child-raping death row murderer (who admits/100% proven he did it) being remembered for all of history! The word "hero" is thrown out way too often, but Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrein were heroes for the human race. I don't need every 11 year-old for the rest of history remembering the name of Rapy McRape alongside Armstrong, Glenn and Gagarin.
If this "DS" portable is not to replace the GBA, it will ultimately be its rival
I wouldn't be surprised it it turns out that the DS's release date is 1 week before the PSP. Maybe Nintendo is willing to cut a little of GBA's market in order to get into a LOT of PSP's market share. Consider this:
Today: GBA = 95% of the portable market Others (Swan, NGPC) = 5%
In a GBA vs. PSP war (after say one year): GBA = 80% PSP = 18% Others = 2%
But with THREE systems (2 of which are nintendo) then with the $150 people have to spend on a new console, very few will buy both, and at least some will buy a DS over a PSP): GBA = 80% PSP = 11% DS = 7% Other = 2%
So is it possible that DS is perhaps sort of like a "kamakaze machine," in that maybe it isn't meant to do well itself (although that would be nice), but it's real goal is to hurt the PSP, even if it causes its own demise? Hell, if PSP only has 10% of the game market then that's NOTHING! I mean, the Turbo Grafx 16 and Saturn probably had that much at one point! And let's not forget, if DS is a sucess, great. If it isn't and the PSP gets a foothold, then there's still the GBA2 coming out in a few years to hurt the PSP, since the DS has been said (over and over) to NOT be a sequel to the GBA.
Nintendo is, at best, a HUGELY profitable company, and at worst a company like Apple - it will ALWAYS have it's loyal followers who will buy the Nintendo 256, 512, 1024 etc.
It doesn't matter how good playstation 5 is, there will still be millions who will want to play Zelda 12. True, they may (or may not!) ever have another 50-million selling title like Super Mario Bros 3 (not sure of that exact number).
So they're not going anywhere (despite what slashdot says every other week)...
I'm saying they WERE amazing, and they're still nice to watch, but to say they're even near Battlefield 1942 levels is naive. It's like saying that the movie The Last Starfighter had great effects for it's time, you still recognize that they were great for the mid-80's but that perhaps a remake with good effects today might improve on the original. Just sayin...
What made Marathon so special? I mean, was it just a cool-for-it's-time FPS, or did it have awesome features/puzzles that would merit a remake? I mean, Doom2 was awesome for it's time, but I wouldn't want an updated-graphics version of it, since it isn't anything special compared to today's standards...
Slashdot Mirror
OK, I always knew Atari, even in its day, had awful graphics. I remember playing the NES game "Total Recall" and thinking (as an 8 year-old) "wow, what a crappy attempt to recreate Arnold."
Ninja Gaiden, the cut scenes at least, had "awesome" graphics at the time but I knew they were just really good cartoons. But when I played Wheel of Fortune on the SNES one time, and it had a near-photo quality still-picture of Vanna White on the title screen, I thought that "well, this is the best it can be... because you can't do better than photos!"
Flash forward to 1997 when I first saw Mario 64. I walked into my friend's house and I seriously did not even take off my jacket. I was standing there for like 10 minutes just marveling it. Amazing, I thought. They did it. They peaked. Can't get any better.
Once again, I was wrong. Super Mario Sunshine is much prettier.
Stupid me, here I go again. Just 5 minutes ago I finished watching a preview for EA mvp baseball 2004 for gamecube and I thought again "Wow, this is a looooong way from Bases Loaded on NES. look how awesome this looks! Seriously, how get much better than this!?!?"
Something tells me that I'll laugh at that statement once again in 2008...
Diagnosis? Bad Babysitting!
yeah, like those "Winners don't do drugs! (Signed, FBI Director)" screens that were on all the early 90's arcade games (TMNT, Simpsons, etc)
Also, you are not supposed to put your dualshock on your head or limbs, nor to lay it on the floor during gameplay.
:)
So I can assume, then, that laying it on your genitals is a company-authorized use?
Which game?
Ironically, it was Dance Dance Revolution.
i'm here with ya...
(5 months till step 1...)
I think it's funny how the story creator, "Dr craig hall" (check out the email address) has a username called "Women's Health!"
Likely he's an ob/gyn (or possibly just weird), but it's still funny...
Actually the G stands for "Gordan," of "Gordan's Fish Sticks" fame.
(oh wait, maybe i should point out for the 482nd time that it's GEFFEN!)
your courage is atrocious, you anonymous "coward"
they wanted to plutonium. there was a brief flirting with that idea. One of my profs is a mission leader for the MERs and one word for why it didn't get made (simplified and more humorous, but it's the truth):
Hippies.
NASA seems to be having so much trouble with them
I can't think of a single mission in which everything was sucessful:
-Hubble had it's famous initial "disaster."
-Galileo had it's near-catastrophic antenae failure (which made the mission produce like 10% of the intended science/pictures).
-The Voyager Probes had various instruments which conked out before Neptune (granted the mission was only engineered to work for Jupiter and Saturn)
-Mars Express's Lander has presumably failed (but it's primary mission appears to have already found some evidence of it's main goal - finding water)
-The Soviet Venera Probes each had problems (one mission in particular returned no pictures due to an unremoved lens cap!)
-Pathfinder, like Spirit, had periods of breached-communications (including a much-longer delay in communcating with Earth after touching down on the surface).
Yet each of the above missions were HUGE sucesses in their own regard. NASA (and ESA and USSR) all has problems with them, but they were all very much redeemed themselves. It's like having a kid who turns out to be a hero firefigher/scientist or something. Just cuz he/she had a few temper tantrums doesn't mean that they're a failure. Look at the big picture...
Or is the press just dying for some bad news? I mean, everyone knows the news saying "You report the one house on fire, no one reports the 10,000 that didn't burn today" (or something like that).
For the media, bad news is good news (storywise). Here we have unprecidented sucesses of the MERs (and Mars Express - within DAYS of working it has found evidence of it's top mission objective), and now there's all this press about the "failures."
Or has NASA been "asking for it," as they keep saying how "amazingly perfect" things are going, setting themselves up for scrutiny when they fail? My opinion: no, but what about you?
you may be right (seriously), but I didn't think consoles work like that. I'm pretty sure NES, Genesis, SNES, Playstation and Gameboy were all popular from their launches. I can't think of a sucessful console that wasn't sucessful at launch and then later was.
Did anyone else get from this article that it was basically an article actually titled "just about every one of the 10 handhelds that were available in the last 15 years (except nintendo)... which includes one from the late 70's most have never heard of?"
Well except for the Gameboy line Nintendo hasn't done to well with portable devices
It's much more than that. The statement "other than the gameboy line" is not fair. Look at what they did...
1989 - Gameboy is released, selling tens of millions of systems, despite three vastly superior (graphically) portables being available.
1995 - Nintendo gets millions of people to buy their "Play it Loud" series of Gameboys - basically the EXACT same thing as the Gameboys that had been out for more than half a decade, but in "cool colors."
1996 - Nintendo gets millions more to buy still-uncolored Gameboy Pocket systems. They are graphically identical to the 1989 Gameboy and their only new features are that they are thinner and use 2 batteries, not 4 (though the original Gameboy wasn't terrible with batteries. Not great, but not terrible).
1997 - Millions more are sold when the "Gameboy (Pocket) Color" is released. This system, released a year after Super Mario 64's graphics shocked the gaming world, features games which (besides a few colors) are not much different than games released a decade earlier.
2000 - The 100 millionth Gameboy system is sold.
2001 - Gameboy Advance is released. Despite a huge engineering flaw (no backlight) it sells millions of units.
2002 - The Gameboy Advance SP is released. Millions of units are sold, presumably many to people who have already given Nintendo money when they bought the identically-powerful original Gameboy Advance systems.
So as you can see, Nintendo is a shrewd player. To say "they were able to sell a bunch of gameboys" is a huge understatement.
Yeah, and accoding to Gamespot (and IGN), Mario Kart 64 and Mario Kart Double Dash both SUCKED.
(shows what they know...)
Now if these people were skum that we wanted to get rid of, I wouldn't object to a starvation trip.
I would object! Hell, I don't want some child-raping death row murderer (who admits/100% proven he did it) being remembered for all of history! The word "hero" is thrown out way too often, but Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrein were heroes for the human race. I don't need every 11 year-old for the rest of history remembering the name of Rapy McRape alongside Armstrong, Glenn and Gagarin.
the viking landers, pathfinder and rover missions (as well as the Mars Polar Lander, technically) all have painted American flags on them.
If this "DS" portable is not to replace the GBA, it will ultimately be its rival
I wouldn't be surprised it it turns out that the DS's release date is 1 week before the PSP. Maybe Nintendo is willing to cut a little of GBA's market in order to get into a LOT of PSP's market share. Consider this:
Today:
GBA = 95% of the portable market
Others (Swan, NGPC) = 5%
In a GBA vs. PSP war (after say one year):
GBA = 80%
PSP = 18%
Others = 2%
But with THREE systems (2 of which are nintendo) then with the $150 people have to spend on a new console, very few will buy both, and at least some will buy a DS over a PSP):
GBA = 80%
PSP = 11%
DS = 7%
Other = 2%
So is it possible that DS is perhaps sort of like a "kamakaze machine," in that maybe it isn't meant to do well itself (although that would be nice), but it's real goal is to hurt the PSP, even if it causes its own demise? Hell, if PSP only has 10% of the game market then that's NOTHING! I mean, the Turbo Grafx 16 and Saturn probably had that much at one point!
And let's not forget, if DS is a sucess, great. If it isn't and the PSP gets a foothold, then there's still the GBA2 coming out in a few years to hurt the PSP, since the DS has been said (over and over) to NOT be a sequel to the GBA.
Nintendo is, at best, a HUGELY profitable company, and at worst a company like Apple - it will ALWAYS have it's loyal followers who will buy the Nintendo 256, 512, 1024 etc.
It doesn't matter how good playstation 5 is, there will still be millions who will want to play Zelda 12. True, they may (or may not!) ever have another 50-million selling title like Super Mario Bros 3 (not sure of that exact number).
So they're not going anywhere (despite what slashdot says every other week)...
I'm saying they WERE amazing, and they're still nice to watch, but to say they're even near Battlefield 1942 levels is naive. It's like saying that the movie The Last Starfighter had great effects for it's time, you still recognize that they were great for the mid-80's but that perhaps a remake with good effects today might improve on the original. Just sayin...
(and yes, Doom2 IS still fun to play)
I'm curious...
What made Marathon so special? I mean, was it just a cool-for-it's-time FPS, or did it have awesome features/puzzles that would merit a remake? I mean, Doom2 was awesome for it's time, but I wouldn't want an updated-graphics version of it, since it isn't anything special compared to today's standards...
First Color Photo is here!
anyone else not seeing spaceflightnow pictures (just text?)
Sorry about that, everyone.
:)
a rarity on slashdot, unfortunately
So now I'll keep with my agreement and check you out next time i visit iTunes...