MegaMan was the first game to give you the "Have it your way" gameplay coupled with much faster action than SMB typically had. With the exception of the warp-zones in SMB, no other game had the majority of its gameplay in a non-linear fashion. You could do the bosses in any order you wanted (although some orders were easier than others). A lot of the fun of a new MegaMan game was exploring a robot's world and seeing if you could take out the boss.
Castlevania 2 would be the other one worthy of mention because of its excellent action/RPG elements. I don't recall there being another 2D action RPG that was sidescrolling that was as fun. Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link was very close, but had a completely different feel because of the sword vs. whip and different universe.
" I just want to play games from Japan. If there were a modchip that allowed me to play legal imports, but not backup games, I'd get it."
So quite whinning and buy a Japanese PS2. North America is both NTSC and 110-120V AC. You can so buy a Japanese PS2 and play Japanese PS2 games, it's how my friend was able to legally obtain a lot more DDR songs. And best of all, you can get all the cool packages we won't see -- like the red Gundam PS2, or the white Gran Turismo 4 prologue PS2.
Whinning and whinning that there's no "legal" modchip when you can just import a Japanese PS2 is being nothing more than a whiney bitch. Yea, European people have this option as well, they just also have to get an NTSC display device and voltage adaptors.
"No one that I know wants to lug a 32"+ television around. 17" LCD, oh yeah. "
You do know that the awesome VGA boxes are cheap for the Xbox? You snag that, a 17" LCD, and the Xbox in an awesome G-Pack game'n'go case (which makes the Xbox more portable than a Shuttle mini-system!), and you're set for a Halo LAN party. Best of all, you don't have to worry about it running horribly on your Xbox. By having an Xbox, you meet the recommended system requirements!
Like a truly good object hierarchy (everything derives from a base class). Or the fact that memory management is automatic, which is a lot more beneficial. I hate how Mozilla is killed by the Linux kernel after I leave it open for a few weeks because of the persistent, slow memory leaks it has. If it were in C# or Java, it'd be very easy to find the problem and correct it.
Developer time is a constant. Over time, it still takes a set number of man hours to implement certain algorithms in a computer language (provided it's still in the same type of language [imperitive, functional, etc]).
Computer time is a flow. Every 18 months, hardware is roughly running twice as quickly.
Arguing that virtual machine based software is inefficient is like arguinig that MPEG layer 2 audio compression is supperior to MPEG layer 3 because it takes less CPU time to decode (or MP3 vs. OGG Vorbis). Maybe that mattered on a DX4 100 Mhz machine that couldn't decode an MP3 in realtime, but it certainly doesn't matter on my XP1700+ where the bottleneck is typically the O of the algorithm, not if it's interpretted (since VMs are as fast, now, as native code in the majority of cases).
" who wants to pay $30 for a GBA port of a SNES game when you can download the original for free and play it on the Zodiac?"
Exactly. Who wants to pay for a legal copy when you can just download one which doesn't give Nintendo recompense for their hard work? Woops, I guess that's why!
I can see if you own it, but chances are, most people don't own a Link to the Past.
Once you sit down and use VS.net, you'll know why it's the best development set.
It's not just the environment, it's that the IDE is so well designed to work with the language. You can pull up a dialog and create a new window easily. You can quickly modify the defaults for properties, and connect your callback code.
Should the exact argument order escape you, a quick tooltip will show you what's to be done. Plus, with the documentation being wedded into it, you can quickly explore related API areas and structures, allowing you to come up with more creative solutions.
It even does efficient code folding for you. And it's not a huge set of ctrl+key shortcuts like Emacs!
On a 200GB disk, the density of the data's pretty high. One tiny spec of dust could take out 20-30gb of data. The percentage of reservered space is always a percentage of the total rated drive capacity. It's not 100% (510gb from a 200gb disc? hah), but it is enough to give several gb for a 200gb disc.
"Microsoft seems to have made decent inroads, doubling Ninendo's market share."
I don't see how 10 million units shipping is double 11 million units shipped. Even if you're talking about North America, it's about 5 million to 5 million units. There is no market where Microsoft has doubled Nintendo's market share. Not even close.
Frankly, I feel failed by our benevolent friends whose corporate headquarters is located it Kyoto, Japan.
Clearly, they need to translate the "Battling Seizure Robots" video game adaptation so that North American children can share in the joy that is le petit mal!
It's XP. XP's VM is total shit. The moment you minimize a window, the VM will page it out to the swap space. When I was doing Windows development for 3 months, the trick I found was to use a third-party tool which allowed window shading, and then I just shaded windows which didn't require my immediate attention.
512mb of RAM was thus able to sustain VS.net, Mozilla, Firebird, WinAmp, and a couple of extra windows all at once without choking like a 5$ hooker.
Fuck, here I was buying stock for about 40$ and selling it for 20$. No wonder I kept running out of money -- these profit margins you describe, if I had them, I think I, too, could run a business!
Seriously.. if people are willing to buy the used one for 2$ less, then more power to the company. It's capitalism, pure and simple. Personally, I just wait for the prices to go down to where I'll buy them, I don't whine like a little bitch.
"Of course, that's provided that you buy new and your "new" game isn't simply a re-shrinked used game being sold as new."
They don't do this anymore, AFAIK, because they were sued over this in Canada.
"And so they maintain that their profiting from the illegal sale of stolen goods should be upheld."
From the article: "Their response? They will sell it back to her for what they paid the thief. As for the Playstation, she's simply out of luck."
What they paid the thief = a refund of their "profit," which makes it a loss to them since it did cost them shelve space and man hours to put it into and out of inventory.
But don't let facts stand in the way of your comment!
ELBO, with its stores in the USA, Europe, Canada, etc, doesn't care where games come from, only that they come in at one price and go out at a higher price. It's how they make the lion's share of their money.
Gamestop's the same way. Check it out sometime, they're all like it.
Is that text macros like, "enemy taking our flag" are totally obsolete with standardized voice chat. You free up the buttons you have for gaming, not for macros.
"Four, the DVD market has expanded fully. Back when the PS2 and later the Xbox was launched, "
The Xbox and GameCube launched within a week of each other in November, 2001. The the Xbox has very OPTIONAL DVD playback because the fact is, most people who care have about 3 or 4 things that can play DVDs now. Only on the PS2 do you pay for something you're not going to use.
You're very right that it might've been a big deal in 2000 when it was Dreamcast vs. PS2, but in 2004 it's not, much like it wasn't in 2003 and 2002.
"As the other poster pointed out, pulling a 180, aiming up 30 degrees, and shooting someone 100 yards away in an 8th of a second is pretty standard fair for talented players on pc's."
Hard, not impossible. Skilled console FPS people can do it too. The thing is, everything's practice. You probably sucked at FPS on PC the first time you did it, but you did get better.
"Well written, huh? Then how do you aim, punch, and move at the same time, beyach?"
I would press the left thumbstick foward, use the right thumbstick to aim, and hit the black button with the nub of my thumb like I always do in Halo. Alternatively, though, there are a couple of triggers, and other controllers (Wavebird, DS2) offer many shoulder buttons as well for easy use. There are even controllers designed so your thumbs never have to leave the sticks when you're playing.
If you can beat Halo on Legendary, that's something. Plenty of people can beat the Xbox one on Legendary, and it's because they spent more time practicing the game than whinning about it on the internet.
But, you obviously don't share my opinion that a good game is a good game, and that learning the interface is part of the fun. You probably don't like DDR, either;)
Please. This is another juvenile brought to you by the same kind of people who whine about games they haven't played. Have you ever played an FPS on a console? The Xbox controller is fantastic for it, since the sticks feel right (resistance and thumb sensitivity wise) for FPS. Halo's a great example of a game with a well-written control scheme, since not the kind folks an Bungie didn't just throw up their hands and go, "can't be done" like a baby.
I can see you saying that a PS2 controller isn't alright for it, since the PS2 analog sticks are poorly positioned for using both at the same time, and have no increasing resistance as you move them more off axis, but pretty much every FPS for that console worth your time (Deus Ex, Half-Life, etc) supports USB keyboard and mouse should you feel the need.
There's only one type of game that hasn't yet received a good treatment on a control pad, and that's real time strategy. And it's entirely possible to have that done up well; after all, most people just use the mouse when starting to learn an RTS -- an analog joystick and a button is the same sa that. Add some chording, and you could have most of those combinations.
So suck it up, Princess! If you want to play games, you have to stop whinning and play them. Then you can argue about things on their own merits instead of repeating little strawmen arguments you read about on slashdot.
Would you like some cheese to go with your whine?
on
Thief 3 Website Goes Live
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· Score: 2, Insightful
You admit you haven't played the game based on a bullet-point list of reasons. How do you know those reasons are true?
I loved Deus Ex enough to buy it a couple of times (PC and PS2 versions). I played through it several times. Even though I'd heard it was bad, I went and got the Deus Ex OXM demo disc and played it.
You know what? It's still Deus Ex. Yea, there are a few tweaks I don't agree with (the item management is simplified a lot, there is no positional damage to speak of, and the AI is a bit silly on the easier levels), but it's still a solid game. I didn't notice any frame rate issues, but then I was playing the Xbox version. People can whine about PC version all they want, but if they really want to play some Deus Ex, they should sit down and play it on the Xbox. It's good, more so than people are willing to admit on Slashdot because they're too busy talking about PC gaming (I expect PC gamers spend more time complaining about the half-baked shit that most companies put out than console gamers do, because console games are higher in quality and usually complete upon release).
I expect Doom 3 on the Xbox to rock hardcore, since the fine fellows at Vicarious Visions have been able to tune Doom 3 specifically for the GPU in it (in fact, they use some shader intstructions specific to the Xbox GPU and saved about 3 passes per scene render, meaning your Xbox will look as good as the version running on a 3,000$ USD computer!). Give it a chance.
They may not be upgrades, because they're often designed to a superset of features -- not to add features to a set bullet point list.
For example, the GameBoy Player is designed to be a GBA via GCN. It doesn't support Super Gameboy borders at all, neither does the real GBA or GBA SP, or GBC. Despite the fact that the borders are a legit part of the Super Gameboy standard (and on quick a few games, such as DW1&2 and Donkey Kong).
Manufacturers will put whatever features they want into video game systems. It's just that most of those features continue to make sense for years, which is why they're added as a bullet point to the next superset system.
Posted by Cliff on 4:43 25th February, 2004 from the english-department-lite dept. Peterus7 asks: "I'm a student at the University of Washington, and I was planning on majoring in English or Literature and Compositions until I took English, and I'm realizing that it's simply beyond me. I grew up with the language, and naturally I want to study a field that involves a lot of interaction between people and the language (mainly fiction writing), but the Intro to Story Structure I'm taking now is driving me over the edge. Any suggestions for a linguisticly intensive field that doesn't require ungodly amounts of writing, or perhaps any general methods for surviving english courses for new students?"
With the except of X and X-2, no Final Fantasy game has ever had a sequal. Each game that SquareEnix (and previously Squaresoft) put out under the name was a completely different RPG sharing only some character elements (moogles and chocobos, a character named Cid, etc).
To put it in perspective, Suikoden has more sequels than Final Fantasy as of Suikoden 3. Square just happened to label their projects worked on by their lead designers as "Final Fantasy" sort of like a label for a particular kind of RPG that Square's people felt were representitive of their best work.
So how, how in a talk about sequels, can you bag on FF, which has only 1 sequel to its name? At least go, "and don't get me started on X" in a series that is nothing but direct sequels, like the Mario games, or Madden football.
The MMC cards that the N-Gage uses (non-SD kind) top out at 128mb. It makes it somewhat useless compared to my iPod for music playback.
The good thing about that much space is that it can hold a lot of Atari, Nintendo, Gameboy, and Neo Geo Pocket Color roms. Emulation is the killer app of the N-Gage, not MP3s:)
Is that most phones aren't designed to support having multiple keys pressed (and understood) at the same time. This will make games like Tony Hawk a lot trickier, since you won't be easily able to do tricks.
Still, I'd be happier if Nokia had actually put some sort of video processor in the N-Gage which wasn't standard on all other S60 phones.
The only non-Nintendo non-Capcom title there is Eternal Darkness, which is 2nd party. Silicon Knights don't count.
The only titles that've received any success on the system so far (outside of Nintendo 1st and 2nd party) are the Capcom titles; specifically Resident Evil. Beyond that, the odd other title has received success (Pac Man World 2), but nothing worth writting home about. Nintendo's own titles tend to eclipse the third-party titles when third-party interest is mainly on other systems.
If Nintendo went 3rd party ala Sega, I'm sure they'd be opening themselves up to a wider audience and raking in a lot of money. The trouble then is who would make such wonderful hardware design:)
Slashdot Mirror
MegaMan was the first game to give you the "Have it your way" gameplay coupled with much faster action than SMB typically had. With the exception of the warp-zones in SMB, no other game had the majority of its gameplay in a non-linear fashion. You could do the bosses in any order you wanted (although some orders were easier than others). A lot of the fun of a new MegaMan game was exploring a robot's world and seeing if you could take out the boss.
Castlevania 2 would be the other one worthy of mention because of its excellent action/RPG elements. I don't recall there being another 2D action RPG that was sidescrolling that was as fun. Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link was very close, but had a completely different feel because of the sword vs. whip and different universe.
" I just want to play games from Japan. If there were a modchip that allowed me to play legal imports, but not backup games, I'd get it."
So quite whinning and buy a Japanese PS2. North America is both NTSC and 110-120V AC. You can so buy a Japanese PS2 and play Japanese PS2 games, it's how my friend was able to legally obtain a lot more DDR songs. And best of all, you can get all the cool packages we won't see -- like the red Gundam PS2, or the white Gran Turismo 4 prologue PS2.
Whinning and whinning that there's no "legal" modchip when you can just import a Japanese PS2 is being nothing more than a whiney bitch. Yea, European people have this option as well, they just also have to get an NTSC display device and voltage adaptors.
"No one that I know wants to lug a 32"+ television around. 17" LCD, oh yeah. "
You do know that the awesome VGA boxes are cheap for the Xbox? You snag that, a 17" LCD, and the Xbox in an awesome G-Pack game'n'go case (which makes the Xbox more portable than a Shuttle mini-system!), and you're set for a Halo LAN party. Best of all, you don't have to worry about it running horribly on your Xbox. By having an Xbox, you meet the recommended system requirements!
Like a truly good object hierarchy (everything derives from a base class). Or the fact that memory management is automatic, which is a lot more beneficial. I hate how Mozilla is killed by the Linux kernel after I leave it open for a few weeks because of the persistent, slow memory leaks it has. If it were in C# or Java, it'd be very easy to find the problem and correct it.
Developer time is a constant. Over time, it still takes a set number of man hours to implement certain algorithms in a computer language (provided it's still in the same type of language [imperitive, functional, etc]).
Computer time is a flow. Every 18 months, hardware is roughly running twice as quickly.
Arguing that virtual machine based software is inefficient is like arguinig that MPEG layer 2 audio compression is supperior to MPEG layer 3 because it takes less CPU time to decode (or MP3 vs. OGG Vorbis). Maybe that mattered on a DX4 100 Mhz machine that couldn't decode an MP3 in realtime, but it certainly doesn't matter on my XP1700+ where the bottleneck is typically the O of the algorithm, not if it's interpretted (since VMs are as fast, now, as native code in the majority of cases).
" who wants to pay $30 for a GBA port of a SNES game when you can download the original for free and play it on the Zodiac?"
Exactly. Who wants to pay for a legal copy when you can just download one which doesn't give Nintendo recompense for their hard work? Woops, I guess that's why!
I can see if you own it, but chances are, most people don't own a Link to the Past.
Once you sit down and use VS.net, you'll know why it's the best development set.
It's not just the environment, it's that the IDE is so well designed to work with the language. You can pull up a dialog and create a new window easily. You can quickly modify the defaults for properties, and connect your callback code.
Should the exact argument order escape you, a quick tooltip will show you what's to be done. Plus, with the documentation being wedded into it, you can quickly explore related API areas and structures, allowing you to come up with more creative solutions.
It even does efficient code folding for you. And it's not a huge set of ctrl+key shortcuts like Emacs!
On a 200GB disk, the density of the data's pretty high. One tiny spec of dust could take out 20-30gb of data. The percentage of reservered space is always a percentage of the total rated drive capacity. It's not 100% (510gb from a 200gb disc? hah), but it is enough to give several gb for a 200gb disc.
"Microsoft seems to have made decent inroads, doubling Ninendo's market share."
I don't see how 10 million units shipping is double 11 million units shipped. Even if you're talking about North America, it's about 5 million to 5 million units. There is no market where Microsoft has doubled Nintendo's market share. Not even close.
Frankly, I feel failed by our benevolent friends whose corporate headquarters is located it Kyoto, Japan.
Clearly, they need to translate the "Battling Seizure Robots" video game adaptation so that North American children can share in the joy that is le petit mal!
It's XP. XP's VM is total shit. The moment you minimize a window, the VM will page it out to the swap space. When I was doing Windows development for 3 months, the trick I found was to use a third-party tool which allowed window shading, and then I just shaded windows which didn't require my immediate attention.
512mb of RAM was thus able to sustain VS.net, Mozilla, Firebird, WinAmp, and a couple of extra windows all at once without choking like a 5$ hooker.
Fuck, here I was buying stock for about 40$ and selling it for 20$. No wonder I kept running out of money -- these profit margins you describe, if I had them, I think I, too, could run a business!
Seriously.. if people are willing to buy the used one for 2$ less, then more power to the company. It's capitalism, pure and simple. Personally, I just wait for the prices to go down to where I'll buy them, I don't whine like a little bitch.
"Of course, that's provided that you buy new and your "new" game isn't simply a re-shrinked used game being sold as new."
They don't do this anymore, AFAIK, because they were sued over this in Canada.
"And so they maintain that their profiting from the illegal sale of stolen goods should be upheld."
From the article:
"Their response? They will sell it back to her for what they paid the thief. As for the Playstation, she's simply out of luck."
What they paid the thief = a refund of their "profit," which makes it a loss to them since it did cost them shelve space and man hours to put it into and out of inventory.
But don't let facts stand in the way of your comment!
ELBO, with its stores in the USA, Europe, Canada, etc, doesn't care where games come from, only that they come in at one price and go out at a higher price. It's how they make the lion's share of their money.
Gamestop's the same way. Check it out sometime, they're all like it.
Is that text macros like, "enemy taking our flag" are totally obsolete with standardized voice chat. You free up the buttons you have for gaming, not for macros.
"Four, the DVD market has expanded fully. Back when the PS2 and later the Xbox was launched, "
The Xbox and GameCube launched within a week of each other in November, 2001. The the Xbox has very OPTIONAL DVD playback because the fact is, most people who care have about 3 or 4 things that can play DVDs now. Only on the PS2 do you pay for something you're not going to use.
You're very right that it might've been a big deal in 2000 when it was Dreamcast vs. PS2, but in 2004 it's not, much like it wasn't in 2003 and 2002.
"As the other poster pointed out, pulling a 180, aiming up 30 degrees, and shooting someone 100 yards away in an 8th of a second is pretty standard fair for talented players on pc's."
;)
Hard, not impossible. Skilled console FPS people can do it too. The thing is, everything's practice. You probably sucked at FPS on PC the first time you did it, but you did get better.
"Well written, huh? Then how do you aim, punch, and move at the same time, beyach?"
I would press the left thumbstick foward, use the right thumbstick to aim, and hit the black button with the nub of my thumb like I always do in Halo. Alternatively, though, there are a couple of triggers, and other controllers (Wavebird, DS2) offer many shoulder buttons as well for easy use. There are even controllers designed so your thumbs never have to leave the sticks when you're playing.
If you can beat Halo on Legendary, that's something. Plenty of people can beat the Xbox one on Legendary, and it's because they spent more time practicing the game than whinning about it on the internet.
But, you obviously don't share my opinion that a good game is a good game, and that learning the interface is part of the fun. You probably don't like DDR, either
Please. This is another juvenile brought to you by the same kind of people who whine about games they haven't played. Have you ever played an FPS on a console? The Xbox controller is fantastic for it, since the sticks feel right (resistance and thumb sensitivity wise) for FPS. Halo's a great example of a game with a well-written control scheme, since not the kind folks an Bungie didn't just throw up their hands and go, "can't be done" like a baby.
I can see you saying that a PS2 controller isn't alright for it, since the PS2 analog sticks are poorly positioned for using both at the same time, and have no increasing resistance as you move them more off axis, but pretty much every FPS for that console worth your time (Deus Ex, Half-Life, etc) supports USB keyboard and mouse should you feel the need.
There's only one type of game that hasn't yet received a good treatment on a control pad, and that's real time strategy. And it's entirely possible to have that done up well; after all, most people just use the mouse when starting to learn an RTS -- an analog joystick and a button is the same sa that. Add some chording, and you could have most of those combinations.
So suck it up, Princess! If you want to play games, you have to stop whinning and play them. Then you can argue about things on their own merits instead of repeating little strawmen arguments you read about on slashdot.
You admit you haven't played the game based on a bullet-point list of reasons. How do you know those reasons are true?
I loved Deus Ex enough to buy it a couple of times (PC and PS2 versions). I played through it several times. Even though I'd heard it was bad, I went and got the Deus Ex OXM demo disc and played it.
You know what? It's still Deus Ex. Yea, there are a few tweaks I don't agree with (the item management is simplified a lot, there is no positional damage to speak of, and the AI is a bit silly on the easier levels), but it's still a solid game. I didn't notice any frame rate issues, but then I was playing the Xbox version. People can whine about PC version all they want, but if they really want to play some Deus Ex, they should sit down and play it on the Xbox. It's good, more so than people are willing to admit on Slashdot because they're too busy talking about PC gaming (I expect PC gamers spend more time complaining about the half-baked shit that most companies put out than console gamers do, because console games are higher in quality and usually complete upon release).
I expect Doom 3 on the Xbox to rock hardcore, since the fine fellows at Vicarious Visions have been able to tune Doom 3 specifically for the GPU in it (in fact, they use some shader intstructions specific to the Xbox GPU and saved about 3 passes per scene render, meaning your Xbox will look as good as the version running on a 3,000$ USD computer!). Give it a chance.
They may not be upgrades, because they're often designed to a superset of features -- not to add features to a set bullet point list.
For example, the GameBoy Player is designed to be a GBA via GCN. It doesn't support Super Gameboy borders at all, neither does the real GBA or GBA SP, or GBC. Despite the fact that the borders are a legit part of the Super Gameboy standard (and on quick a few games, such as DW1&2 and Donkey Kong).
Manufacturers will put whatever features they want into video game systems. It's just that most of those features continue to make sense for years, which is why they're added as a bullet point to the next superset system.
Posted by Cliff on 4:43 25th February, 2004
from the english-department-lite dept.
Peterus7 asks: "I'm a student at the University of Washington, and I was planning on majoring in English or Literature and Compositions until I took English, and I'm realizing that it's simply beyond me. I grew up with the language, and naturally I want to study a field that involves a lot of interaction between people and the language (mainly fiction writing), but the Intro to Story Structure I'm taking now is driving me over the edge. Any suggestions for a linguisticly intensive field that doesn't require ungodly amounts of writing, or perhaps any general methods for surviving english courses for new students?"
With the except of X and X-2, no Final Fantasy game has ever had a sequal. Each game that SquareEnix (and previously Squaresoft) put out under the name was a completely different RPG sharing only some character elements (moogles and chocobos, a character named Cid, etc).
To put it in perspective, Suikoden has more sequels than Final Fantasy as of Suikoden 3. Square just happened to label their projects worked on by their lead designers as "Final Fantasy" sort of like a label for a particular kind of RPG that Square's people felt were representitive of their best work.
So how, how in a talk about sequels, can you bag on FF, which has only 1 sequel to its name? At least go, "and don't get me started on X" in a series that is nothing but direct sequels, like the Mario games, or Madden football.
The MMC cards that the N-Gage uses (non-SD kind) top out at 128mb. It makes it somewhat useless compared to my iPod for music playback.
:)
The good thing about that much space is that it can hold a lot of Atari, Nintendo, Gameboy, and Neo Geo Pocket Color roms. Emulation is the killer app of the N-Gage, not MP3s
Is that most phones aren't designed to support having multiple keys pressed (and understood) at the same time. This will make games like Tony Hawk a lot trickier, since you won't be easily able to do tricks.
Still, I'd be happier if Nokia had actually put some sort of video processor in the N-Gage which wasn't standard on all other S60 phones.
The only non-Nintendo non-Capcom title there is Eternal Darkness, which is 2nd party. Silicon Knights don't count.
:)
The only titles that've received any success on the system so far (outside of Nintendo 1st and 2nd party) are the Capcom titles; specifically Resident Evil. Beyond that, the odd other title has received success (Pac Man World 2), but nothing worth writting home about. Nintendo's own titles tend to eclipse the third-party titles when third-party interest is mainly on other systems.
If Nintendo went 3rd party ala Sega, I'm sure they'd be opening themselves up to a wider audience and raking in a lot of money. The trouble then is who would make such wonderful hardware design