I think everybody misunderstood my post. Of course you can appeal, and obviously you will be compensated if you have been wrongfully prosecuted. But this is usually settled within the case itself, and you dont get trial upon trial with everyone suing left and right. When (if) it has gone through the appeals process, the case is over.
The law doesnt work like that in western Europe. The court reaches a verdict in your favor or disfavor, period. We don't get endless loops of suits and countersuits which doesn't do anything except make a mockery of the justice system.
In my country (Norway) all votes are still counted manually. You go into a booth, and there you choose between lists for each party, one sheet pr party. So you just gotta take the right piece of paper, put it in an envelope, leave the booth and drop it into an urn. It's cheap, it's easy, and it's reliable.
The only thing one has to make sure about is that there are enough lists for each party, which is a fairly simple deal. Counting is done manually, but it's done quite fast, since you can immediately tell which party the vote has been cast for. Now, in our system there are a list of people in the priority the party has put them in that district (we have a representative system, not one-man constituencies), and you can shuffle the order of the names and even strike out some names if you want, but that can be done after the ballots have been sorted per party, so the election result is pretty much clear a few hours after the polls have closed.
I remember I was shocked witnessing the hopeless ballots from Florida in the 2000 election, with our system a recount couldve been done in a few hours.
The Virtual Console in Europe is a disaster. All the games except the Turbografx games run in 50 Hz mode, and almost all of them are UNOPTIMIZED pal, which means 17% slower gameplay, and a picture that is squeezed, so the proportions are wrong, and there are black borders above and below the picture.
All new Wii games run perfectly in 60 Hz on the PAL console, but for some reason Nintendo are fucking retards when it comes to their Virtual Console, so the PAL games have exactly the same flaws they had _20 YEARS AGO_. The worst part is, the NES/n64 games that were released on Gamecube (Zelda bonus disc with Zelda 1,2, Ocarina of time and majora's mask comes to mind) ran perfectly in 60 Hz, and it was the localized European language versions.
There has been hardly any press about this, but I am not buying a single virtual console game unless this is address. I've emailed Nintendo several times, but they dont even care enough to respond (well, actually, Nintendo of America responded within 24 hours, telling me to just keep bugging Nintendo Europe).
Nintendo likes to fuck European customers in the ass, theyve been doing so for 20 years. I am as big a fan as there can be of the Nintendo games and consoles, but I just cant accept that they treat their customers like this. Fuck them.
I simply cannot understand why they cant do this right, emulators have been doing it right for 10 years. I just want the same game experience as american and japanese customers, but that's obviously too much to expect, we are supposed to have inferior versions.
You misunderstand the case completely. It's about the fact that when you buy songs on Itunes, if you wanna play them on an "mp3" player, you have to use an Ipod. It's like if you bought a Sony CD, and you could only play it on Sony CD players. By Norwegian law, this is illegal. The Ipod can be as strict and as closed as it wants to be, but the music must be open. That you can burn the songs to CD and rip them back to mp3 is _not_ good enough.
Indy 4 will be shot in the old-fashioned way with lots of use of stuntmen rather than CGI effects. It's one of the few things confirmed about the project. And remember, Spielberg is directing this, not Lucas.
Actually, the classic NES games on GBA sold very well. Yes, they were priced a bit high, part of the reason for that is the cartridges are expensive to manufacture, tho. Still, should've been a bit cheaper, IMO. But the fact remains that despite the high price they sold hundreds of thousands of copies.
Nintendo's strength in the European market greatly varies by a country to country basis. I don't have a full knowledge of all the markets and sales, but I can tell you what I know. The NES was less of a success in Europe than it was in the US, but it still did reasonably good, and in some countries it did great. In the UK especially it had hard competition from Sega's Master System, but also other very important popular systems like in the beginning the Commodore 64, and later (and to a greater extent) the Amiga 500, and also the similar system Atari ST. (Similar to the Amiga 500, not the NES).
In Norway, which is my home country, the NES was a HUGE success. I'm born in 1981, and in my childhood (late 80s, early 90s), pretty much all the kids my age sooner or later got a NES. The "Nintendomagasinet", which was the norwegian equivalent of Nintendo Power, was hugely successful, and was at one point one of the most read magazines by children, beating most popular comic book magazines.
There were some Master Systems around, but they were much less popular than the NES. With the SNES Nintendo completely dominated the Norwegian market, and the gameboy of course ate the competition for breakfast all over the world.
Playstation however took over as the market leader, and I would say now, the Playstation brand is the strongest in Europe. If you look at sales data, you would see that the PS2 has sold far more units in Europe relatively compared to the US and Japanese markets, than any Nintendo console, and of course also the Xboxes. Here in Norway the PSP is doing pretty much the same as the DS. Here Nintendo is really suffering from the kiddie image they got since the Playstation and the Resident Evils, GTAs, FPS games and other "mature" (I hate that term) games and genres became popular. (And yes I know Resident Evil is on gamecube, I have them all).
Besides, Wii gave Nintendo huge amounts of media presence where they can make the case for their new console. Seems like so far, the new name is working out spectacularly well for them.
No, YOU gave Nintendo huge amounts of media presence.
Yeah and we all remember how utterly successful and intuitive the Power Glove was (which was designed by Nintendo also). Wow, who can forget the hundreds of games that were developed to harness its raw power and potential?
It got good reviews for an indie game, and a lot of people really loved it. I didn't lose my shirt. But it sold much worse than the standard fantasy game that came before it. And I don't think that it was a terrible game. It was about the same quality as the standard fantasy games I wrote before and after it, both of which sold much better.
And herein lies the problem. When you innovate, it's not enough for the game to have "about the same quality" as regular dime-a-dozen games. When you innovate, it has to be not only different, but way above average quality as far as gameplay goes to become a hit. If it's original, but only mediocre or good, it won't create the buzz needed to become a good seller. And games that are "different" need buzz to sell well. It's of course hard for an indie developer to make a game that's both spectacular and innovative, but that's beside the point. Innovation is good, but it's never enough to sell a game.
Nintendo does have the most exclusive franchises since they're the only platform developer that still develops a lot of their own games, but they haven't had a gigantic blockbuster in years. (Consider that of the top 10 games of all time, sales-wise, Mario is in at least 4 or 5 of them, and the last big Mario game was Mario 64).
Super Smash Brothers Melee has sold more than 6 million copies on the cube. And Iwata has stated that they are trying to get the sequel as a Rev launch title. True, sales of Zelda were a bit lower on the cube than on N64, but there's still another Zelda cube/rev-game coming that looks like the most hyped and anticipated game right now, hands down. Mario 128 is still in the blue. And lets not forget all the million sellers on GBA and DS, Nintendogs, Brain Training, Mario Kart springs to mind. Nintendo has had lots of big hits, their main "problem" on gamecube was that the gamecube owners mostly bought Nintendo-developed games, so a lot of 3rd party offerings sold poorly, even when they were quite good. That's what Nintendo needs to change in the new generation, their first party franchises are very very strong.
Re:This truly shows the versatility of Opera.
on
Opera on the Nintendo DS
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· Score: 5, Informative
The DS has an ARM9 at 66 MHz, and an ARM7 at 33 MHz. There is no ARM5.
There is a difference between using any legal means, lobbying etc to make you earn as much money as possible, and murdering people. A company who doesn't use what they can within the law to protect their interests have no place in a capitalist society. And just for the record, I think that copyright should last 5-10 years, tops.
I'm so sick of this bullshit. Stop blaming companies for trying to protect their interests. It's not the company's fault that the american congress cares more about them than they care about the consumers and the voters.
Prices in Europe are higher. Always. Mostly substantially higher, way higher than the difference in VAT/taxes. It's just how it's always been. $200/300 seems a bit excessive tho, but $200/250 wouldnt surprise me at all.
I think a more logical reason for why cost is an issue is because games are usually priced somewhat equally, even though the content is vastly different. GTA: San Andreas, Disgaea, or Guild Wars might give you 100+ hours of gameplay for $50, whereas Star Wars: Republic Commando, Prince of Persia 2, or God of War might give you 10 or 20. After you spend $50 each for three great games that last 100+ hours, and then spend another $50 each on three lesser games that are much, much shorter, you start to think, "Maybe it's safer to pirate the next one... that way I can't get burned."
Yes, a game that takes 100 hours to get through is obviously worth 10 times as much as a game that takes 10 hours to play through!
Similarly, a 3 hour movie is so much better than a 2 hour movie, and a 500 page book can beat any 300 page book!
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Australia has long been the most fascistic of all "western" countries. This is no surprise.
I think everybody misunderstood my post. Of course you can appeal, and obviously you will be compensated if you have been wrongfully prosecuted. But this is usually settled within the case itself, and you dont get trial upon trial with everyone suing left and right. When (if) it has gone through the appeals process, the case is over.
The law doesnt work like that in western Europe. The court reaches a verdict in your favor or disfavor, period. We don't get endless loops of suits and countersuits which doesn't do anything except make a mockery of the justice system.
In my country (Norway) all votes are still counted manually. You go into a booth, and there you choose between lists for each party, one sheet pr party. So you just gotta take the right piece of paper, put it in an envelope, leave the booth and drop it into an urn. It's cheap, it's easy, and it's reliable. The only thing one has to make sure about is that there are enough lists for each party, which is a fairly simple deal. Counting is done manually, but it's done quite fast, since you can immediately tell which party the vote has been cast for. Now, in our system there are a list of people in the priority the party has put them in that district (we have a representative system, not one-man constituencies), and you can shuffle the order of the names and even strike out some names if you want, but that can be done after the ballots have been sorted per party, so the election result is pretty much clear a few hours after the polls have closed. I remember I was shocked witnessing the hopeless ballots from Florida in the 2000 election, with our system a recount couldve been done in a few hours.
You must be new here :)
I've told them like a million times. they never respond.
The Virtual Console in Europe is a disaster. All the games except the Turbografx games run in 50 Hz mode, and almost all of them are UNOPTIMIZED pal, which means 17% slower gameplay, and a picture that is squeezed, so the proportions are wrong, and there are black borders above and below the picture.
All new Wii games run perfectly in 60 Hz on the PAL console, but for some reason Nintendo are fucking retards when it comes to their Virtual Console, so the PAL games have exactly the same flaws they had _20 YEARS AGO_. The worst part is, the NES/n64 games that were released on Gamecube (Zelda bonus disc with Zelda 1,2, Ocarina of time and majora's mask comes to mind) ran perfectly in 60 Hz, and it was the localized European language versions.
There has been hardly any press about this, but I am not buying a single virtual console game unless this is address. I've emailed Nintendo several times, but they dont even care enough to respond (well, actually, Nintendo of America responded within 24 hours, telling me to just keep bugging Nintendo Europe).
Nintendo likes to fuck European customers in the ass, theyve been doing so for 20 years. I am as big a fan as there can be of the Nintendo games and consoles, but I just cant accept that they treat their customers like this. Fuck them.
If you dont know the difference between PAL 50 and 60 Hz, take a look at this video clip of Sonic the Hedgehog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0llsb77Esc
This is what we have to endure.
I simply cannot understand why they cant do this right, emulators have been doing it right for 10 years. I just want the same game experience as american and japanese customers, but that's obviously too much to expect, we are supposed to have inferior versions.
All TVs sold in Europe the past 15 years can do 60 Hz without problems. There is no reason to keep things in 50 Hz anymore.
again, you simply have no idea what you are talking about. read about the damn case before you start making stuff up.
You misunderstand the case completely. It's about the fact that when you buy songs on Itunes, if you wanna play them on an "mp3" player, you have to use an Ipod. It's like if you bought a Sony CD, and you could only play it on Sony CD players. By Norwegian law, this is illegal. The Ipod can be as strict and as closed as it wants to be, but the music must be open. That you can burn the songs to CD and rip them back to mp3 is _not_ good enough.
Hey, we Norwegians make British salaries look like teenage allowances.
Indy 4 will be shot in the old-fashioned way with lots of use of stuntmen rather than CGI effects. It's one of the few things confirmed about the project. And remember, Spielberg is directing this, not Lucas.
Modding this TROLL? Come on! It's a Gob from AD reference! Should have been +5 funny
Actually, the classic NES games on GBA sold very well. Yes, they were priced a bit high, part of the reason for that is the cartridges are expensive to manufacture, tho. Still, should've been a bit cheaper, IMO. But the fact remains that despite the high price they sold hundreds of thousands of copies.
In Norway, which is my home country, the NES was a HUGE success. I'm born in 1981, and in my childhood (late 80s, early 90s), pretty much all the kids my age sooner or later got a NES. The "Nintendomagasinet", which was the norwegian equivalent of Nintendo Power, was hugely successful, and was at one point one of the most read magazines by children, beating most popular comic book magazines.
There were some Master Systems around, but they were much less popular than the NES. With the SNES Nintendo completely dominated the Norwegian market, and the gameboy of course ate the competition for breakfast all over the world.
Playstation however took over as the market leader, and I would say now, the Playstation brand is the strongest in Europe. If you look at sales data, you would see that the PS2 has sold far more units in Europe relatively compared to the US and Japanese markets, than any Nintendo console, and of course also the Xboxes. Here in Norway the PSP is doing pretty much the same as the DS. Here Nintendo is really suffering from the kiddie image they got since the Playstation and the Resident Evils, GTAs, FPS games and other "mature" (I hate that term) games and genres became popular. (And yes I know Resident Evil is on gamecube, I have them all).
So, ehm, that's just my two cents
You do the dishes.
No, YOU gave Nintendo huge amounts of media presence.
The Power glove was developed by Mattel.
It got good reviews for an indie game, and a lot of people really loved it. I didn't lose my shirt. But it sold much worse than the standard fantasy game that came before it. And I don't think that it was a terrible game. It was about the same quality as the standard fantasy games I wrote before and after it, both of which sold much better.
And herein lies the problem. When you innovate, it's not enough for the game to have "about the same quality" as regular dime-a-dozen games. When you innovate, it has to be not only different, but way above average quality as far as gameplay goes to become a hit. If it's original, but only mediocre or good, it won't create the buzz needed to become a good seller. And games that are "different" need buzz to sell well. It's of course hard for an indie developer to make a game that's both spectacular and innovative, but that's beside the point. Innovation is good, but it's never enough to sell a game.
Super Smash Brothers Melee has sold more than 6 million copies on the cube. And Iwata has stated that they are trying to get the sequel as a Rev launch title. True, sales of Zelda were a bit lower on the cube than on N64, but there's still another Zelda cube/rev-game coming that looks like the most hyped and anticipated game right now, hands down. Mario 128 is still in the blue. And lets not forget all the million sellers on GBA and DS, Nintendogs, Brain Training, Mario Kart springs to mind. Nintendo has had lots of big hits, their main "problem" on gamecube was that the gamecube owners mostly bought Nintendo-developed games, so a lot of 3rd party offerings sold poorly, even when they were quite good. That's what Nintendo needs to change in the new generation, their first party franchises are very very strong.
The DS has an ARM9 at 66 MHz, and an ARM7 at 33 MHz. There is no ARM5.
There is a difference between using any legal means, lobbying etc to make you earn as much money as possible, and murdering people. A company who doesn't use what they can within the law to protect their interests have no place in a capitalist society. And just for the record, I think that copyright should last 5-10 years, tops.
I'm so sick of this bullshit. Stop blaming companies for trying to protect their interests. It's not the company's fault that the american congress cares more about them than they care about the consumers and the voters.
Prices in Europe are higher. Always. Mostly substantially higher, way higher than the difference in VAT/taxes. It's just how it's always been. $200/300 seems a bit excessive tho, but $200/250 wouldnt surprise me at all.
Yes, a game that takes 100 hours to get through is obviously worth 10 times as much as a game that takes 10 hours to play through!
Similarly, a 3 hour movie is so much better than a 2 hour movie, and a 500 page book can beat any 300 page book!