The N64 is upgradeable, you know that little slot in front of the cart slot? Last December, Nintendo released a 4 meg Ram upgrade.. Doesn't do much for older games, but it does increase preformace on newer ones, allows for better graphics, higher frame rates and what not. Only one game I know of requires it(DK64) so most of your arguments are still valid, but PC aren't the only ones that can be upgraded. The Saturn also had a ram upgrade for the slot behind the CD. I believe there was a 1 meg released in the US and a 4 meg was released in Japan. A lot of the Capcom OTT 2-d fighters needed this. Look at the Japanese Marvel vs. Capcom for Saturn and the PSX version.
ok, i've been reading some of the responses to this and have been shocked and amazed at how much everyone believes that they know. (don't be offended our society has taught us some of the wrong things about these people)
To begin, I want to ask a question: assuming that the Nazis would have had this information, what exactly would they have done with it? Breed out the "race poison" that had been infecting the German people? Make a whole race of Super Aryan Men(actually there were umm... farms in the German countryside that excellent soldiers could attend so as to better spread the good German genes onward)? Realize that there is no real difference between the race(there are only 3 races on earth: Caucaziod, Mongolid, and Negriod I hope I spelled those right)? Assuming the technology that was needed to gain this knowledge existed at the time, all Hitler could have used it for was propaganda. Without the major diffrences in the races(which in his mind was really ethnicity see above) to create some form of anti-race germ(if that's possible) THERE WOULD BE NO REAL USE FOR IT. Also might I add that it was not Hitler's orignal idea to exterminate any of the peoples the German Army squished, why not use them for slave labor and spare German lives the strain? In fact, the Final Solution was not inacted until 1942, when German was losing the war. Oh, and Hitler didn't even make the decision. The head of the SS(I can't remember his name, was attempting to forge a new use for his orginization. Hitler only gave the final word) History has already shown us what the Nazi's would have done.
And now onward to the problem of China. What if every family in China had boys? The population growth of the nation would continue for a while, but what happens when all those boys come of age and want to start families of their own? Given the restrictive society that China is importing women would most likely prove difficult therefore, and I know this sounds very cruel, the most efficient form of population control I've ever heard of would take place! Granted a very rich society and culture would die out, but they brought it upon themselves right? Nature(as I believe would be the correct force here) normally finds a way for correcting its mistakes. Now for a few of the smaller points I came accross while reading. Someone mentioned ETHNOCENTRICITY, what do you think he's talking about? American culture is about as elitist as they come. American has become its own ethnicity. in the begining we might have been a melting pot, but after the Revolutionary War almost all who immigrated, assemilated themselves into our society. Just look at American English and the amaglam of foregin words that are not in used in England(of course vise versa, but their words do not come from Mexico and what not).
I've been ranting too much, but if one would engage brain before speaking so as to not place foot in mouth it would extremely help these "conversations(I can't think of a better term)" Once again, I don't mean to offend anyone, but facts are facts attempt to get them straight
Someone before mentioned that this would allow the Dreamcast to have diffrent configurations (somewhat like 3DO but not). isn't Dolphin also going to be this way??? Nintendo is parterning with (forgive the spelling) Mashuita, Panasonic's parent company, to make the DVD units and Mashuita under hte Panasonic name will be allowed to make Dolphin compatable DVD units, i.e. the Nintendo Dolphin system won't have DVD movie capabiliies built in, but for another $100, the Panasonic Dolphin compatable player will (think nuon only good).
I just want to point this out, For what I know nintendo has already licensed Dolphin to Mashuita, making it's deals way before Sony. (oh and supposedly the Nintendo Dolphin will debut for $99 and the PSX2 wasn't orignally supposed to have built in DVD movie playback, look at the problems because of region codes with it)
Like the subject says, haven't these pics and movies been oput since before E3?
Also, the xbox is not that impressive. Let me repeat that, the xbox is not that impressive. Firstly, the system is not scheduled to come out for more than a year, Christmas 2001. PSX2 comes out on October 26. PSX2 will be out almost a year before xbox, look what this did for the N64, Microsoft and Sony are aiming at two diffrent markets. Sony at its installed base of Playstation owners, and Microsoft at the die-hard PC game addicts who wouldn't normally buy a home console. Secondly, these are VERY diffucult promises for MS to deliver upon. No home system has ever been announced this early in its dev cycle, at least not with this many details. The N64 was supposed to ship with the PSX and Saturn(remember that?). It was also supposed to blow the others out of the water with SGI quality graphics and whatnot. It didn't deliver. Personally I don't think that MS can deliver upon all these wishes (the real time demos I've seen aren't that impressive compared to the PSX2 stuff I've seen anyway).
You've got some good points. But I see 3 problems with your arguments.
1. Ridge Racer 5 was the first killer app, are more are comming. Sony has to beat Sega's 18 games at lauch the October and they have the THIRD-party developer support to do it
2. No system starts out with developers using the whole power of the system. It happened on the NES, the SNES, Genesis, Gameboy, is starting to happen on the Playstation, Saturn, and N64. Learning a new system takes time. PC's have been on x86 for years now, deelopers know the platform. Are new apps gonna be able to take advantage of Itanium (or whatever its called) or Sledgehammer? No. . Look at Donkey Kong Country for the SNES. 5 years after the system came out here was a game displaying graphics that were thought to be reserved for the next-gen system. Give it time.
3. The PSX has over 800 games,this is a small thing but it is worth noting that the PS is the first system since the NES to have this many.
I'll admit that most of the stuff for PSX right now sucks, but on it we've seen some fo the most innovative games ever. Tobal #1, Devil Dice, FF VII (8 sucked admit it)Twisted Metal, Gran Tursimo. Just because a game isn't a best seller doesn't mean it will suck. There are thousands of droids that will follow the crowd, that doesn't mean the crowds are right.
Oh and the PSX2 will play PSX games from the start. The I/O chip for the PSX2 is the same main processor used in the original PSX.
Last May, I was taking an introductory philosophy class over Plato's Republic. And instead of having class one day. The prof treated the class to the movie. and of course it matched the class exactly. All of book seven in the Republic parallels the Matrix. This is a great way to introduce those peoples that would not normally take a philosophy class to do so. I my mind the more people who are able to question what makes us human and apply that to society the better.
you gotta like something that lets you have wireless on your Palm. Of course I'm also assuming that this isn't like the Palm VII? I know this uses CDPD packets, but then how does the Palm VII work? Excuse the ignorace but what are the differences between this and the Palm VII?
the G3 doesn't support multiprocessing. That's one of the big differences between the G3 and G4. Altivec, SMP support, and higher clock speeds. At same speeds G4's benchmark(Norton) almost exactly the same as a G3. Add it altivec and the difference is much more(like 2.5x)
Nice focused rioters, strange situations. The internet being the source for this "revolt" against coporate bigness. Too bad the internet has promoted and is now fueling increased coporate bigness with the whole IPO thing.
Granted only a small fraction of internet IPO's actually become the behemoths that promote this bigness, but all of the IPO's are trying. I wonder how many of these people are still tring to get in on these amazing "opportunites"
I'm sorry but, a monopoly is a price setter, but it cannot charge more than a market will allow. The people do keep a monopoly in check, by not allowing the monopoly to charge whatever it wants. If the price was too high the consumers would not buy it. And the _College_ defination that I have is taht a monopolistic market has ONe(1) firm. If firms have the ability to set somewhat the price they charge they are in momopolistic competition(its not an oxymoron). Getting away from the MicroSatan verdict. The local phone companies are monopolies. Lays Potato Chips are in monopolistic competion. They can set their price, but they cannot charge too much because of their competiting products. Monopolistic competitive firms have non-homogenous goods, that is how they can set price, yet still be bound buy the other (albeit few) firms in the industry.
Economics states that for a monopoly there can be only one firm. If a firm is monopolisticly competitive liek you sugest, then it cannot be a monopoly.
Ok, I just read through about 15 comments and they were pretty wrong, so I thought I'd lend my knowledge of this subject.
THe Saturn started out at $400 in america. I forget what the Playstation started at, but it was pretty close. 4 years later you can get one for $99. The orignal 8-bit Nintendo(god bless its soul) started out at I think $300 with 3 games, 2 controllers, a light gun, and the ROB. value these days.
The Playstation 2 is much more powerful than all of those linux boxes you all are running(hell, its way more powerful than my G3). Game systems are designed to play games. The new game systems are designed to play pretty games. The main processor in all of the next-gen systems, is a little more advanced than you video card. just because it says CPU doesn't mean that it is an all purpose processor like a pentium. THe amin processor alone can probally beat the pants of of a high end computer right now, not to mention the fact that it has an extral graphics processor(and in the case of the PSX2 two extra VPUs and 2 extral FPUs). You will never run word on one of these, but you'll get quake at 640x480(limitation of TV screens)at least with 60fps probally more. It has 32 megs of ram. That is more than is in all of the current generation(including the dreamcast) have combined(PSX1 4, N64 8 at most, dreamcast 16(shared between processor and graphic chips) nintendo's next system will have 16 megs just for the graphic chip and probally 32 for the system to make use of. If you don't belive me on the raw power that these things have, imaging your system playing something like NFL2K for dreamcast with 1 megs of ram, or better lets go with something we all know and love Quake 2. You can't buy(you can make not buy) a computer with 16 megs of ram. And if you could it sure as hell couldn't play quake 2 at 640x480 with all the OpenGL extentions on, at 60 fps.(even windows would boot in like a half hour)
Second, the playstation 2 CANNOT play DVD movies. Well, technically it can, but there is no ability to do this built into the system. I'm not sure what will happen, but the PSX2 has no way to navigate the menus on DVDs. It will be added as a thingie that fits on the back, and will probally cost about $70 bucks extral(the price is spectulation, I know that there will be no movies initally).
I think those are the only glaring errors that I saw. just remember that Consoles are not full-blown computers. They don't need to be.
impossible. A card being able to push that many triangles while possible, doesn't take into account the other factors of a game. Sony's PS2 can possibly real-time render objects, but that doesn't take into consideration AI or game-physics or anything else, if you only are displaying the graphics then fine you might get 800 fps(I still doubt it) but you won't get it in quake
Anybody seen RealJukebox? When you install it it asks if you want copyright protection built in to the mp3's you rip with it. Basicly it makes it only able to play the mp3s you make yourself. I assume they would do something like that.
Slashdot Mirror
The N64 is upgradeable, you know that little slot in front of the cart slot? Last December, Nintendo released a 4 meg Ram upgrade.. Doesn't do much for older games, but it does increase preformace on newer ones, allows for better graphics, higher frame rates and what not. Only one game I know of requires it(DK64) so most of your arguments are still valid, but PC aren't the only ones that can be upgraded. The Saturn also had a ram upgrade for the slot behind the CD. I believe there was a 1 meg released in the US and a 4 meg was released in Japan. A lot of the Capcom OTT 2-d fighters needed this. Look at the Japanese Marvel vs. Capcom for Saturn and the PSX version.
ok, i've been reading some of the responses to this and have been shocked and amazed at how much everyone believes that they know. (don't be offended our society has taught us some of the wrong things about these people)
To begin, I want to ask a question: assuming that the Nazis would have had this information, what exactly would they have done with it? Breed out the "race poison" that had been infecting the German people? Make a whole race of Super Aryan Men(actually there were umm... farms in the German countryside that excellent soldiers could attend so as to better spread the good German genes onward)? Realize that there is no real difference between the race(there are only 3 races on earth: Caucaziod, Mongolid, and Negriod I hope I spelled those right)? Assuming the technology that was needed to gain this knowledge existed at the time, all Hitler could have used it for was propaganda. Without the major diffrences in the races(which in his mind was really ethnicity see above) to create some form of anti-race germ(if that's possible) THERE WOULD BE NO REAL USE FOR IT. Also might I add that it was not Hitler's orignal idea to exterminate any of the peoples the German Army squished, why not use them for slave labor and spare German lives the strain? In fact, the Final Solution was not inacted until 1942, when German was losing the war. Oh, and Hitler didn't even make the decision. The head of the SS(I can't remember his name, was attempting to forge a new use for his orginization. Hitler only gave the final word) History has already shown us what the Nazi's would have done.
And now onward to the problem of China. What if every family in China had boys? The population growth of the nation would continue for a while, but what happens when all those boys come of age and want to start families of their own? Given the restrictive society that China is importing women would most likely prove difficult therefore, and I know this sounds very cruel, the most efficient form of population control I've ever heard of would take place! Granted a very rich society and culture would die out, but they brought it upon themselves right? Nature(as I believe would be the correct force here) normally finds a way for correcting its mistakes. Now for a few of the smaller points I came accross while reading. Someone mentioned ETHNOCENTRICITY, what do you think he's talking about? American culture is about as elitist as they come. American has become its own ethnicity. in the begining we might have been a melting pot, but after the Revolutionary War almost all who immigrated, assemilated themselves into our society. Just look at American English and the amaglam of foregin words that are not in used in England(of course vise versa, but their words do not come from Mexico and what not).
I've been ranting too much, but if one would engage brain before speaking so as to not place foot in mouth it would extremely help these "conversations(I can't think of a better term)" Once again, I don't mean to offend anyone, but facts are facts attempt to get them straight
Someone before mentioned that this would allow the Dreamcast to have diffrent configurations (somewhat like 3DO but not). isn't Dolphin also going to be this way??? Nintendo is parterning with (forgive the spelling) Mashuita, Panasonic's parent company, to make the DVD units and Mashuita under hte Panasonic name will be allowed to make Dolphin compatable DVD units, i.e. the Nintendo Dolphin system won't have DVD movie capabiliies built in, but for another $100, the Panasonic Dolphin compatable player will (think nuon only good).
I just want to point this out, For what I know nintendo has already licensed Dolphin to Mashuita, making it's deals way before Sony. (oh and supposedly the Nintendo Dolphin will debut for $99 and the PSX2 wasn't orignally supposed to have built in DVD movie playback, look at the problems because of region codes with it)
Like the subject says, haven't these pics and movies been oput since before E3?
Also, the xbox is not that impressive. Let me repeat that, the xbox is not that impressive. Firstly, the system is not scheduled to come out for more than a year, Christmas 2001. PSX2 comes out on October 26. PSX2 will be out almost a year before xbox, look what this did for the N64, Microsoft and Sony are aiming at two diffrent markets. Sony at its installed base of Playstation owners, and Microsoft at the die-hard PC game addicts who wouldn't normally buy a home console. Secondly, these are VERY diffucult promises for MS to deliver upon. No home system has ever been announced this early in its dev cycle, at least not with this many details. The N64 was supposed to ship with the PSX and Saturn(remember that?). It was also supposed to blow the others out of the water with SGI quality graphics and whatnot. It didn't deliver. Personally I don't think that MS can deliver upon all these wishes (the real time demos I've seen aren't that impressive compared to the PSX2 stuff I've seen anyway).
You've got some good points. But I see 3 problems with your arguments.
1. Ridge Racer 5 was the first killer app, are more are comming. Sony has to beat Sega's 18 games at lauch the October and they have the THIRD-party developer support to do it
2. No system starts out with developers using the whole power of the system. It happened on the NES, the SNES, Genesis, Gameboy, is starting to happen on the Playstation, Saturn, and N64. Learning a new system takes time. PC's have been on x86 for years now, deelopers know the platform. Are new apps gonna be able to take advantage of Itanium (or whatever its called) or Sledgehammer? No. . Look at Donkey Kong Country for the SNES. 5 years after the system came out here was a game displaying graphics that were thought to be reserved for the next-gen system. Give it time.
3. The PSX has over 800 games,this is a small thing but it is worth noting that the PS is the first system since the NES to have this many.
I'll admit that most of the stuff for PSX right now sucks, but on it we've seen some fo the most innovative games ever. Tobal #1, Devil Dice, FF VII (8 sucked admit it)Twisted Metal, Gran Tursimo. Just because a game isn't a best seller doesn't mean it will suck. There are thousands of droids that will follow the crowd, that doesn't mean the crowds are right.
Oh and the PSX2 will play PSX games from the start. The I/O chip for the PSX2 is the same main processor used in the original PSX.
Last May, I was taking an introductory philosophy class over Plato's Republic. And instead of having class one day. The prof treated the class to the movie. and of course it matched the class exactly. All of book seven in the Republic parallels the Matrix. This is a great way to introduce those peoples that would not normally take a philosophy class to do so. I my mind the more people who are able to question what makes us human and apply that to society the better.
you gotta like something that lets you have wireless on your Palm. Of course I'm also assuming that this isn't like the Palm VII? I know this uses CDPD packets, but then how does the Palm VII work? Excuse the ignorace but what are the differences between this and the Palm VII?
the G3 doesn't support multiprocessing. That's one of the big differences between the G3 and G4. Altivec, SMP support, and higher clock speeds. At same speeds G4's benchmark(Norton) almost exactly the same as a G3. Add it altivec and the difference is much more(like 2.5x)
Nice focused rioters, strange situations.
The internet being the source for this "revolt" against coporate bigness. Too bad the internet has promoted and is now fueling increased coporate bigness with the whole IPO thing.
Granted only a small fraction of internet IPO's actually become the behemoths that promote this bigness, but all of the IPO's are trying. I wonder how many of these people are still tring to get in on these amazing "opportunites"
Hypocritical? Prolly not, but hmmm nonetheless
T & L is all nice and good but all I want is a little hardware T & A
OK
V1 New Chip
V2 2 V1's
V3 overclocked banshee(remember that?)
V4/5 new chip
Dual boot???
I'm sorry but, a monopoly is a price setter, but it cannot charge more than a market will allow. The people do keep a monopoly in check, by not allowing the monopoly to charge whatever it wants. If the price was too high the consumers would not buy it. And the _College_ defination that I have is taht a monopolistic market has ONe(1) firm. If firms have the ability to set somewhat the price they charge they are in momopolistic competition(its not an oxymoron). Getting away from the MicroSatan verdict. The local phone companies are monopolies. Lays Potato Chips are in monopolistic competion. They can set their price, but they cannot charge too much because of their competiting products. Monopolistic competitive firms have non-homogenous goods, that is how they can set price, yet still be bound buy the other (albeit few) firms in the industry.
Economics states that for a monopoly there can be only one firm. If a firm is monopolisticly competitive liek you sugest, then it cannot be a monopoly.
Ok, I just read through about 15 comments and they were pretty wrong, so I thought I'd lend my knowledge of this subject.
THe Saturn started out at $400 in america. I forget what the Playstation started at, but it was pretty close. 4 years later you can get one for $99. The orignal 8-bit Nintendo(god bless its soul) started out at I think $300 with 3 games, 2 controllers, a light gun, and the ROB. value these days.
The Playstation 2 is much more powerful than all of those linux boxes you all are running(hell, its way more powerful than my G3). Game systems are designed to play games. The new game systems are designed to play pretty games. The main processor in all of the next-gen systems, is a little more advanced than you video card. just because it says CPU doesn't mean that it is an all purpose processor like a pentium. THe amin processor alone can probally beat the pants of of a high end computer right now, not to mention the fact that it has an extral graphics processor(and in the case of the PSX2 two extra VPUs and 2 extral FPUs). You will never run word on one of these, but you'll get quake at 640x480(limitation of TV screens)at least with 60fps probally more. It has 32 megs of ram. That is more than is in all of the current generation(including the dreamcast) have combined(PSX1 4, N64 8 at most, dreamcast 16(shared between processor and graphic chips)
nintendo's next system will have 16 megs just for the graphic chip and probally 32 for the system to make use of. If you don't belive me on the raw power that these things have, imaging your system playing something like NFL2K for dreamcast with 1 megs of ram, or better lets go with something we all know and love Quake 2. You can't buy(you can make not buy) a computer with 16 megs of ram. And if you could it sure as hell couldn't play quake 2 at 640x480 with all the OpenGL extentions on, at 60 fps.(even windows would boot in like a half hour)
Second, the playstation 2 CANNOT play DVD movies. Well, technically it can, but there is no ability to do this built into the system. I'm not sure what will happen, but the PSX2 has no way to navigate the menus on DVDs. It will be added as a thingie that fits on the back, and will probally cost about $70 bucks extral(the price is spectulation, I know that there will be no movies initally).
I think those are the only glaring errors that I saw. just remember that Consoles are not full-blown computers. They don't need to be.
apple?
ummm... 800fps?
impossible. A card being able to push that many triangles while possible, doesn't take into account the other factors of a game. Sony's PS2 can possibly real-time render objects, but that doesn't take into consideration AI or game-physics or anything else, if you only are displaying the graphics then fine you might get 800 fps(I still doubt it) but you won't get it in quake
Anybody seen RealJukebox? When you install it it asks if you want copyright protection built in to the mp3's you rip with it. Basicly it makes it only able to play the mp3s you make yourself. I assume they would do something like that.