Sony promised customers and Square that they would support the HDD with a "Virtual Jukebox" at the very least. You know... so people wouldn't spend the extra $50 for the PS2 version for nothing. Sony didn't make any games for it, didn't keep any of their promises for it, and decided it wasn't worth supporting.
Square stepped up to the plate for the HDD. Sony kicked them in the nuts and ran away. That's enough to make a "gaffe of 2004" without even considering the consumer.
If you ever wonder why Square can't seem to complete Final Fantasy XII and are buddies with Nintendo again, this may be the reason, at least in part.
Case in point: Arguably the best US DS launch title was Sega's Feel the Magic, but despite positive impressions almost everywhere you went, it was criminally undersold compared to Super Mario 64 DS, a remake of an old game that really wasn't all that suited for the DS to begin with.
I own them both, and the minigames in SuperMario 64 DS beat Feel the Magic by themselves. FTM is an OK game, and it has a lot of personality, but SM64DS has more lasting value. I've spent more time on the Mario trampoline mini-game then the entirety of FTM.
If you've ever met a real astronomer or read his work, you would know that astronomers almost never use regular units.
First off they prefer CGS(centimeters, grams, seconds) to SI. Then they throw in units like Astronomical Units, Parsecs, and other natural units, because 1 AU is easier to work with than 1.49 * 10^13 cm.
You have no idea how many times I have approximated the Speed of Light as 1 at the direction of my professor.
That kind of stuff usually doesn't work. In an Astronomy class (toward an Astronomy major, not that gen-ed crap) the professor did not tell us we would have to remember constants, and he asked them as questions. They were short questions, and weren't worth a lot.
One of them was: What is the orbital period of Saturn? (2 pts/100)
I started thinking about Bode's law and the posibility I could calculate it from an approximate radius I would get from that law... if I could remember it. But when you expect a 72% to be an A on a test, you have bigger fish to fry.
Then I got it. It was right, it should work, and no one would have to be nailed to anything.
I wrote: One Saturn-Year
I didn't get credit for it. A couple years later a sophmore was telling me about this funny question he had in the same class. He showed it to me. It read:
What is the orbital period of Saturn? (Do not put one Saturn-Year)
I was so right that it had to be guarded against. Yet those were 2 points I would never have.
PSP fanboys stop calling the DS "kiddie," "virtual boy," "a gimmick," and "ugly," and we DS fans will stop harassing the PSP about its "load times," "battery life," "price," and "defects."
When I was studying Astronomy a Penn State, I saw a couple of grad students working on a paper. I asked them what they were working on and they said that they were triple checking their data and calculations before submitting it to a respected journal.
I said, "Why don't you publish it now? That would be the quickest way to find any mistakes."
It was a joke, because if they had, it could cost them their careers.
I'm not saying that Sony has done it in this case, but no one should ever release an unfinished product. Those companies that do deserve every bit of criticism they get, whether they get it right later or not.
There is no doubt that the SP is a great system, but the DS doesn't really have any problems, and really the PSP remains to be seen.
I'm not getting rid of my SP, but I own a DS. If you haven't yet, get your hands on a DS and Mario 64 DS, and play the mini-games, especially the Mario trampoline game and the Wario slingshot game. It's like being wisked away to the days of asteroids and galaga again. It has been a very long time since I've been this excited about videogames.
But you are right, the SP is great, and I hope Nintendo does continue to support it, but this DS thing is nothing to be scoffed at.
That isn't true, some other games supported it like Resident Evil Outbreak.
When you add the fact that Sony promised customers (and Square, mind you) that it would ship with the ability to play movies and music, didn't tell anyone the features weren't there before it shipped, promised the features would be available later, then removed all support from future hardware revisions, the Hard Drive was a MASSIVE embarrasment.
Of course there are pros and cons. All I am saying is that IGN didn't exactly go out of their way to test the battery. I Spong reports 2:40 out of Ridge Racers at medium brightness, no wireless play, and no headphones. 3:10 with headphones.
If you are willing to accept 3 hours for a game like this, that's fine. I don't own the DS because it has better battery life, but 3 hours would be troublesome. I mean hell, my town flooded a couple of months ago, and I couldn't go back home for a night. My GBA SP hadn't been charged in a while and it still lasted a few hours as I waited in my car for the water to recede.
To me a portable system is about versatility, and a shorter battery life means more maintainance and less versatility.
Another part of this debate is that Sony breaks their promises, and everyone lets them get away with it. The PSP does not last 10 hours. The PS2 cannot render Toy Story in real time. The PS2 HDD cannot download music and movies. And so on.
Really vinyl isn't that hard to rip. You probably already have a sound card with a "Line-in" jack. Then just get a double male headphone-style audio cable and software that can record that line-in feed directly to mp3. Then you can connect your turntable to the comp and record.
I'll admit it is harder than just getting it online, but it may be worth it to save your vinyl some wear. This method also has the benefit of allowing you to record copy-protected CDs, digital music channels on TV, and radio if you connect the applicable appliance.
Yeah, but if you read the manual, that green full battery will only change when the light on the DS changes. It doesn't give you any more of a "time remaining" than that.
I own a DS. I seem to get 8-10 hours from Super Mario 64 DS. I have heard as much as 12 hours, but I suspect that may be from someone using mainly GBA carts. I have also heard as little as 6-7 hours, and that would include some wireless play.
A quote: "I managed 7-1/2 hours of battery life on a single charge, playing graphics-intensive games, blasting the music through the stereo speakers and connecting online with another DS."
Though it does not say if the wireless was used the entire time.
Considering that Gamespot used the most graphically intensive release game and IGN didn't, I'm more inclined to trust Gamespot's numbers. Gamespot said it depended what you were doing, so they used a graphically intensive game to get the low end.
IGN played freaking music files for one hour and played a puzzle game for one hour and forty-five minutes.
Going by what IGN said, they spent 2 hours playing games likely to drain the battery quickly and spent 2:45 doing things that aren't likely to drain the battery quickly.
I imagine that if you stick to the rigorous itenerary IGN gave precisely, you will get 4.5 hours. But if you want to play Ridge Racers single-player, you will get 1.5 - 3 hours.
Either way, it is a far cry from the 10 hours Sony promised us at E3.
Perhaps Google should have searched for "scholar" before they decided to name their new progeny? It is the 8th result in the search, after all.
You're kidding, right?
Fine. If you are willing to allow this shit to continue and turn a blind eye to corporate extortion, go ahead. Be my guest. But if you are on the business end of one of these disputes, you had better not come crying to the EFF, ACLU, or any other organization that helps people protect their rights and freedoms.
You'd better bend over and take that big corporate cock with a smile.
Slashdot Mirror
Sony promised customers and Square that they would support the HDD with a "Virtual Jukebox" at the very least. You know... so people wouldn't spend the extra $50 for the PS2 version for nothing. Sony didn't make any games for it, didn't keep any of their promises for it, and decided it wasn't worth supporting.
Square stepped up to the plate for the HDD. Sony kicked them in the nuts and ran away. That's enough to make a "gaffe of 2004" without even considering the consumer.
If you ever wonder why Square can't seem to complete Final Fantasy XII and are buddies with Nintendo again, this may be the reason, at least in part.
Yes, because they are all the same game. I want Id to make something new and deserve the "accolades" they get from the media.
Case in point: Arguably the best US DS launch title was Sega's Feel the Magic, but despite positive impressions almost everywhere you went, it was criminally undersold compared to Super Mario 64 DS, a remake of an old game that really wasn't all that suited for the DS to begin with.
I own them both, and the minigames in SuperMario 64 DS beat Feel the Magic by themselves. FTM is an OK game, and it has a lot of personality, but SM64DS has more lasting value. I've spent more time on the Mario trampoline mini-game then the entirety of FTM.
So much of a risk that they have threatened to nuke us, and we didn't take it seriously.
That's right, North Korea threatened to attack us a month BEFORE we attacked Iraq.
Today is a red-letter day!
No matter how incidentally or innaccurately, I was favorably compaired to Neils Bohr.
If you've ever met a real astronomer or read his work, you would know that astronomers almost never use regular units.
First off they prefer CGS(centimeters, grams, seconds) to SI. Then they throw in units like Astronomical Units, Parsecs, and other natural units, because 1 AU is easier to work with than 1.49 * 10^13 cm.
You have no idea how many times I have approximated the Speed of Light as 1 at the direction of my professor.
If the guy was a jerk, I might have. But it was a great class, and I learned a lot.
I also got an A. It is rude when you get an A to argue for 2 points you didn't really deserve in front of people who struggled for a C.
That kind of stuff usually doesn't work. In an Astronomy class (toward an Astronomy major, not that gen-ed crap) the professor did not tell us we would have to remember constants, and he asked them as questions. They were short questions, and weren't worth a lot.
One of them was: What is the orbital period of Saturn? (2 pts/100)
I started thinking about Bode's law and the posibility I could calculate it from an approximate radius I would get from that law... if I could remember it. But when you expect a 72% to be an A on a test, you have bigger fish to fry.
Then I got it. It was right, it should work, and no one would have to be nailed to anything.
I wrote: One Saturn-Year
I didn't get credit for it. A couple years later a sophmore was telling me about this funny question he had in the same class. He showed it to me. It read:
What is the orbital period of Saturn? (Do not put one Saturn-Year)
I was so right that it had to be guarded against. Yet those were 2 points I would never have.
I suggest a truce.
PSP fanboys stop calling the DS "kiddie," "virtual boy," "a gimmick," and "ugly," and we DS fans will stop harassing the PSP about its "load times," "battery life," "price," and "defects."
The thing that amazes me is the volume of DSs that Nintendo has been able to crank out without much more than a few dead pixel complaints.
A DS was fixed in 4 days.
Nintendo payed for shipping, and the man sent it out on November 29, just 8 days after release.
This kind of service you get with Nintendo for one dead pixel.
I don't know about these problems and how true they are, but I don't consider using a game system on a carpet to be reckless.
I agree with you, but now that Nintendo has moved their manufacturing to china, I hope the same problems don't arise.
It should be a function of the company's tolerance of problems, but still.
When I was studying Astronomy a Penn State, I saw a couple of grad students working on a paper. I asked them what they were working on and they said that they were triple checking their data and calculations before submitting it to a respected journal.
I said, "Why don't you publish it now? That would be the quickest way to find any mistakes."
It was a joke, because if they had, it could cost them their careers.
I'm not saying that Sony has done it in this case, but no one should ever release an unfinished product. Those companies that do deserve every bit of criticism they get, whether they get it right later or not.
There is no doubt that the SP is a great system, but the DS doesn't really have any problems, and really the PSP remains to be seen.
I'm not getting rid of my SP, but I own a DS. If you haven't yet, get your hands on a DS and Mario 64 DS, and play the mini-games, especially the Mario trampoline game and the Wario slingshot game. It's like being wisked away to the days of asteroids and galaga again. It has been a very long time since I've been this excited about videogames.
But you are right, the SP is great, and I hope Nintendo does continue to support it, but this DS thing is nothing to be scoffed at.
That isn't true, some other games supported it like Resident Evil Outbreak.
When you add the fact that Sony promised customers (and Square, mind you) that it would ship with the ability to play movies and music, didn't tell anyone the features weren't there before it shipped, promised the features would be available later, then removed all support from future hardware revisions, the Hard Drive was a MASSIVE embarrasment.
Of course there are pros and cons. All I am saying is that IGN didn't exactly go out of their way to test the battery. I Spong reports 2:40 out of Ridge Racers at medium brightness, no wireless play, and no headphones. 3:10 with headphones.
Here's the link.
If you are willing to accept 3 hours for a game like this, that's fine. I don't own the DS because it has better battery life, but 3 hours would be troublesome. I mean hell, my town flooded a couple of months ago, and I couldn't go back home for a night. My GBA SP hadn't been charged in a while and it still lasted a few hours as I waited in my car for the water to recede.
To me a portable system is about versatility, and a shorter battery life means more maintainance and less versatility.
Another part of this debate is that Sony breaks their promises, and everyone lets them get away with it. The PSP does not last 10 hours. The PS2 cannot render Toy Story in real time. The PS2 HDD cannot download music and movies. And so on.
Really vinyl isn't that hard to rip. You probably already have a sound card with a "Line-in" jack. Then just get a double male headphone-style audio cable and software that can record that line-in feed directly to mp3. Then you can connect your turntable to the comp and record.
I'll admit it is harder than just getting it online, but it may be worth it to save your vinyl some wear. This method also has the benefit of allowing you to record copy-protected CDs, digital music channels on TV, and radio if you connect the applicable appliance.
To be fair, I would use a PSP for puzzle games if I had one. I like puzzle games. ^_^
Yeah, but if you read the manual, that green full battery will only change when the light on the DS changes. It doesn't give you any more of a "time remaining" than that.
No, we are talking 1 game for 1.5-3 hours. Specifically Ridge Racers. Hell THEY played Lumines IN THAT ARTICLE for 1.75 hours straight.
Believe me when I say that I have played Super Mario 64 DS for more than 3 hours straight since I got my DS.
I own a DS. I seem to get 8-10 hours from Super Mario 64 DS. I have heard as much as 12 hours, but I suspect that may be from someone using mainly GBA carts. I have also heard as little as 6-7 hours, and that would include some wireless play.
Here is an AP review
A quote:
"I managed 7-1/2 hours of battery life on a single charge, playing graphics-intensive games, blasting the music through the stereo speakers and connecting online with another DS."
Though it does not say if the wireless was used the entire time.
Considering that Gamespot used the most graphically intensive release game and IGN didn't, I'm more inclined to trust Gamespot's numbers. Gamespot said it depended what you were doing, so they used a graphically intensive game to get the low end.
IGN played freaking music files for one hour and played a puzzle game for one hour and forty-five minutes.
Going by what IGN said, they spent 2 hours playing games likely to drain the battery quickly and spent 2:45 doing things that aren't likely to drain the battery quickly.
I imagine that if you stick to the rigorous itenerary IGN gave precisely, you will get 4.5 hours. But if you want to play Ridge Racers single-player, you will get 1.5 - 3 hours.
Either way, it is a far cry from the 10 hours Sony promised us at E3.
Penn State is an excellent school. I'm sorry you are bitter about your rejection.
Perhaps Google should have searched for "scholar" before they decided to name their new progeny? It is the 8th result in the search, after all.
You're kidding, right?
Fine. If you are willing to allow this shit to continue and turn a blind eye to corporate extortion, go ahead. Be my guest. But if you are on the business end of one of these disputes, you had better not come crying to the EFF, ACLU, or any other organization that helps people protect their rights and freedoms.
You'd better bend over and take that big corporate cock with a smile.