From a UK perspective, those prices seem about the same as I'd pay now anyway.
I looked through the UK RRPs (Recommended Retail Prices), and all the various acessories seem about the same price, RRP-wise, as the Xbox 1 equivelants (or in the case of the wireless controller, the Nintendo Wavebird). And they tally with the US prices you give, in rough GBP->USD conversions.
Although looking at PS2 accessories, they're slightly cheaper than Xbox stuff. (PS2 controller RRP is £20, Xbox is £25, same for memory cards)
One thing to remember is that these are RRPs, you can nearly always get stuff cheaper than that, they're basically the upper limit, shops (especially online ones) nearly always have discounts (although perhaps not at launch).
I wish they'd put a nice RGB SCART cable in the UK systems, instead people without fancy new TVs that take YUV / HDTV are stuck with yukky composite again (well, it's better than RF), unless they buy an extra cable. Wow, that's going to be great to show off the extra power of the 360 on older TVs (which usually take RGB SCART, but not YUV). Although I suppose the YUV cable is good for the rich gits with really new TVs, and Microsoft's HDTV message.
Then again, they are offering a VGA cable, that is going to be good (I love my Dreamcast VGA box), I don't have a HDTV, so beig able to use my monitor is good, if this HD stuff is all that it's cracked up to be. (But I find my Xbox on a good TV through RGB SCART is great already).
Probably not suprising for Xbox games, even if it's just a strait emulator running the games (ie: no game specific patches / executables), Xbox 1 games assume that they will have a hard disk, and they use it for caches etc.
My Xbox has crashed, but only with Phantasy Star Online, becuase Sonic Team are the best coders ever. (Not as bad as the Gamecube version of course, I gather on that one, other people can remotley crash your game and trash your savefile, as well as the game occasionally crashing of its own accord).
Well, it's morally wrong to mod your Xbox and then use the mods to cheat with Halo 2 online (although Bungie fixed their moronic mistake[1]) or other online games. (It breaks the Xbox Live EULA as well).
I personally don't mind what people do with their Xboxes, as long as it isn't to cheat.
[1] Gee, people have been able to edit files on the hard drive for two years! Lets not bother with any verification for this downloadable content!
How many people actually have watches that change there timezones automatically anyway?
As for OSes, they already have the concept of different time zones having different Summer / Standard time changeover dates. I seem to remember Microsoft once released a tool (in the Windows 95 Kernel Toys) that would let an end user edit there own timezones, it can't be that hard to change them. I guess it'll be more of an issue for people using older unsupported OSe, but you can set the time manually, and disable the automatic changer (if it has one).
Software errors would be bad programming, assuming one set of time zone changes when there's already different ones in use around the world.
As for VCRs etc., I'm not so sure. In the UK most modern VCRs set the time automatically from the TV signal (using the clock on the teletext service I guess), so they update whenever the TV stations do. I guess US ones might do it differently, I don't know if the US has any kind of time signal to use. But it can't be that hard to change it manually.
So it's mostly "you'll actually have to manually change things when the clocks go back / forward", just like people did before things got too clever.
The US AO rating does seem to be completly stupid, no game is ever actually rated it.
In the UK we have a slightly stange situation where most games have advisory ratings from PEGI (who took over a couple of years ago from ELSPA), but under certain critera they can have the legally enforced BBFC ratings, like DVDs and films.
But in the UK, the highest ratings (18+ for PEGI, 18 for BBFC) have been used (although the 18+ PEGI rating is rare, as most of them go into the BBFC ratings). Indeed, both Grand Theft Auto (all of them) and Killer 7 are BBFC 18, and they're commonly availible, I can go into my local ASDA (owned by Wal Mart) and buy them. But in the US, it seems that everyone is allergic to the AO rating, even the ESRB. I'd guess it's some sort of weird market forces, where the shops have all decided that AO really means it's banned. And mysteriously the industry run ESRB avoids it like a plauge as well. If I wasn't pissed, I'm sure I could make a better essay on the US puritan streak etc. (it's half like the Daily Mail ran a country!), but instead I'll end up with a horrid steam of conciousness thing. I mean, it's only some dry humping FFS. How does that change the bloody rating...
I'd also like to note the BBFC said during all this ho-hah over GTA:SA, that even if the "Hot Coffee" had been in the game, it would still be rated the same.
(I should note that for BBFC, there is the Restricted 18 rating as well (can only be sold in licenced sex shops, used for hardcore porn), but no game has ever qualified for it AFAIK).
Even if the PS3 is comming out next year, the PS2 isn't going to disappear. In the UK, the PS1 came out in 1995, and the PS2 in 2001. Until last year PSone systems were reasonably easy to find, along with a small trickle of budget titles, or EA Sport shovelware. You can still just about find new PS1 stuff, but it's disappearing fast. So the PS1 got about nine / ten years, and I'd imagine the PS2 could do the same really, the popular consoles often have a long tail off. I don't find the idea of the PS2 (or PS3 if it's sucessful) lasting about ten years that stange, although once the sucessor system is released, I'm not expected many blockbuster games though.
In relation to UK games piracy, try to find a UK release of Chrono Trigger (or Cross). There isn't one, either on SNES, or PlayStation. If I want to play it, I'd either have to import it, or pirate it...
I think he's more referring to the fact that "PAL" is one of the three major video game regions (like DVD region codes), covering Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The other two are NTSC / Japan and NTSC / North America. (Of course they're using PAL and NTSC as shorthand for 625 line and 525 line TV systems, like everyone does).
Most video game systems use this three reigon split, since the 16 bit era at least.
I think post-1994 the Mega Drive / Genesis sufferred becuase Sega wanted to push the Saturn far more - in Japan the Megadrive was never that sucessful (note it's lack of Japanese developer support generally), and after the Saturn came out they put all their resources onto that, ignoring the fact that the Mega Drive / Genesis was still quite sucessful in the west. The lack of support from SoJ (both in games, and general management) probably didn't help with MD vs. SNES, as Nintendo were still focused on the SNES for a couple of years after.
Of course graphically, the SNES kicked the MD's ass (apart from the lower graphics resolution[1]), but the Mega Drive did hold it's own against the SNES for a good time. And Comix Zone is an interesting choice of example, I think it's a really interesting experiment in graphics style etc., a bit like Yoshi's Island. Of course it isn't that colourful, but it's still good looking. And Vectorman's animation blows Donkey Kong Country's out of the water.;-)
[1] I think the SNES did have modes that were higher res than the Mega Drive, but for normal gameplay, the Megadrive usually used a higher (or at least equal) resolution to the SNES.
I'm not sure if the Xbox (1) visualiser even actually reacts to the music, it's just a pretty screensaver.
The Xbox 360 visualiser does look incredible though, some info, screenshots and movies, although I haven't used either of the visualisers you mentioned.
Of course Microsoft are tempting fate with the curse of Jeff Minter. They're doooooooooomed!
The original Slashdot blurb was misleading. Sony were cutting the price of their budget range (PlayStation Platinum) from £20 (~$35) to £15 (~$25). This article is saying that Microsoft and Nintendo are saying Xbox Classics and Gamecube Player's Choice are staying at £20.
It's of more intrest to European games, but it does illustrate how overpriced games in Europe are.
Greatest Hits is the US equivelant of Platinum games.
The price is wrong IMO ($35 is nearer the existing £20 price point), I'd say $25 is nearer £15.
Video games in Europe / UK cost more. The RRP of nerw games is usually £40 (~$70), but it is getting nearer £30 ($50), at least if you buy online, or from specialist shops. I guess some of the extra cost is tax, but I think some of it is just the companies extracting money becuase they can. The recent price changes do at least move the prices nearer to US ones, with the strong Pound at the moment it has been getting ridiculous.
The article assumes you know about UK games prices, ranges etc., so if you don't know, here's some information other people have probably already posted whilst I dither over this message:
PlayStation Platinum is the European equivelant of PlayStation 2 Greatest Hits. They used to retail for £19.99ish (~$35) in the UK. (Xbox has Xbox Classics, GameCube has Player's Choice for their budget ranges, all usually at £20ish).
Full games usually have an RRP of £40 (~$70), but as the article states, are often found cheaper nowadays, although they're usually slightly above £30 (~$50).
£15 is nearer $25 than $35, but exchange rates fluctuate.
There are of course various offers and stuff, budget priced games (whever in a budget range or not) are often in 2 for £30 offers and stuff.
Yes, living in Europe sucks if you like videogames. We usually have to wait until last to pay the most for them.
But IIRC when I installed Windows XP Pro on my PC, the installer only created one (visible) account by default. An administrator / superuser account, for my personal use. Very secure Microsoft. (I'm stupid enough to be using it of course, although I'd like to think I'm geeky enough to be safe).
The Mac OS X approach is better IMO. You can't actually create a true Super User account (and the UNIX root account is disabled), at least not without *nix hackery. Instead the default account created is an Administrator account, which can only do SU type things if the user inputs their password (in the GUI) or uses the sudo command in the Terminal. (AFAIK you can also to SU type things from normal accounts, if you enter a admin account username / password in the appropriate dialogs). Of course that doesn't really add much security, I'm sure if a malicous program wanted SU powers, most people would happily enter their password, it's a pretty standard thing to do if you're installing software or running Software Update.
Of course as other people have noted, quite a lot of Windows programmes aren't multi-user safe, whereas Mac OS X ones are, seeing as they had to be partly rewritten anyway for OS X. Perhaps what Microsoft really need to do is set Longhorn up so it doesn't install with a Superuser account as the default, and implement some sort of Mac OS X style ability for programmes to easily get SU powers when needed (during installation and that's it for most stuff). Of course programmes would break, but Microsoft now seem a bit less shy at breaking programs in the name of security, and they could add some sort of extra compatability option to run as SU for older programmes.
My question about what you mentioned would be if it could use all of them at once. I've had some multiplayer fun with emulators and the adapter I linked to.
Unfortionatley you're limited to one pad at a time, but as it's USB you could theoretically connect several convertors at once. The multiplayer bit of your pad convertor does seem quite good.
I personally use a "PC Magic Box" (PS / DC / SS to USB) and a Japanese style Sega Saturn pad. Works great for almost all retro games, and I prefer the Saturn pad to the PSX one, with a nicer D-pad, and six face buttons. Although I haven't got a PlayStation, so I haven't used the pad that much.
For analouge it's a bit crap, it doesn't support the NiGHTS pad, and with the Dreamcast pad it's horrible, very glitchy. I haven't used a PSX pad for analouge with it yet.
Slashdot Mirror
According to the main Wikipedia article on the NES:
The Famicom contained no lockout hardware, and... The original NES (but not the top-loading NES) contained the 10NES lockout chip..
If the later official NESs didn't have a 10NES chip, I'd guess that the 10NES isn't actually needed for compatability.
From a UK perspective, those prices seem about the same as I'd pay now anyway.
I looked through the UK RRPs (Recommended Retail Prices), and all the various acessories seem about the same price, RRP-wise, as the Xbox 1 equivelants (or in the case of the wireless controller, the Nintendo Wavebird). And they tally with the US prices you give, in rough GBP->USD conversions.
Although looking at PS2 accessories, they're slightly cheaper than Xbox stuff. (PS2 controller RRP is £20, Xbox is £25, same for memory cards)
One thing to remember is that these are RRPs, you can nearly always get stuff cheaper than that, they're basically the upper limit, shops (especially online ones) nearly always have discounts (although perhaps not at launch).
I wish they'd put a nice RGB SCART cable in the UK systems, instead people without fancy new TVs that take YUV / HDTV are stuck with yukky composite again (well, it's better than RF), unless they buy an extra cable. Wow, that's going to be great to show off the extra power of the 360 on older TVs (which usually take RGB SCART, but not YUV). Although I suppose the YUV cable is good for the rich gits with really new TVs, and Microsoft's HDTV message.
Then again, they are offering a VGA cable, that is going to be good (I love my Dreamcast VGA box), I don't have a HDTV, so beig able to use my monitor is good, if this HD stuff is all that it's cracked up to be. (But I find my Xbox on a good TV through RGB SCART is great already).
Probably not suprising for Xbox games, even if it's just a strait emulator running the games (ie: no game specific patches / executables), Xbox 1 games assume that they will have a hard disk, and they use it for caches etc.
My Xbox has crashed, but only with Phantasy Star Online, becuase Sonic Team are the best coders ever. (Not as bad as the Gamecube version of course, I gather on that one, other people can remotley crash your game and trash your savefile, as well as the game occasionally crashing of its own accord).
Well, it's morally wrong to mod your Xbox and then use the mods to cheat with Halo 2 online (although Bungie fixed their moronic mistake[1]) or other online games. (It breaks the Xbox Live EULA as well).
I personally don't mind what people do with their Xboxes, as long as it isn't to cheat.
[1] Gee, people have been able to edit files on the hard drive for two years! Lets not bother with any verification for this downloadable content!
I set mine to GMT (UTC) - for about six months every year. :-)
How many people actually have watches that change there timezones automatically anyway?
As for OSes, they already have the concept of different time zones having different Summer / Standard time changeover dates. I seem to remember Microsoft once released a tool (in the Windows 95 Kernel Toys) that would let an end user edit there own timezones, it can't be that hard to change them. I guess it'll be more of an issue for people using older unsupported OSe, but you can set the time manually, and disable the automatic changer (if it has one).
Software errors would be bad programming, assuming one set of time zone changes when there's already different ones in use around the world.
As for VCRs etc., I'm not so sure. In the UK most modern VCRs set the time automatically from the TV signal (using the clock on the teletext service I guess), so they update whenever the TV stations do. I guess US ones might do it differently, I don't know if the US has any kind of time signal to use. But it can't be that hard to change it manually.
So it's mostly "you'll actually have to manually change things when the clocks go back / forward", just like people did before things got too clever.
The US AO rating does seem to be completly stupid, no game is ever actually rated it.
In the UK we have a slightly stange situation where most games have advisory ratings from PEGI (who took over a couple of years ago from ELSPA), but under certain critera they can have the legally enforced BBFC ratings, like DVDs and films.
But in the UK, the highest ratings (18+ for PEGI, 18 for BBFC) have been used (although the 18+ PEGI rating is rare, as most of them go into the BBFC ratings). Indeed, both Grand Theft Auto (all of them) and Killer 7 are BBFC 18, and they're commonly availible, I can go into my local ASDA (owned by Wal Mart) and buy them. But in the US, it seems that everyone is allergic to the AO rating, even the ESRB. I'd guess it's some sort of weird market forces, where the shops have all decided that AO really means it's banned. And mysteriously the industry run ESRB avoids it like a plauge as well. If I wasn't pissed, I'm sure I could make a better essay on the US puritan streak etc. (it's half like the Daily Mail ran a country!), but instead I'll end up with a horrid steam of conciousness thing. I mean, it's only some dry humping FFS. How does that change the bloody rating...
I'd also like to note the BBFC said during all this ho-hah over GTA:SA, that even if the "Hot Coffee" had been in the game, it would still be rated the same.
(I should note that for BBFC, there is the Restricted 18 rating as well (can only be sold in licenced sex shops, used for hardcore porn), but no game has ever qualified for it AFAIK).
Even if the PS3 is comming out next year, the PS2 isn't going to disappear. In the UK, the PS1 came out in 1995, and the PS2 in 2001. Until last year PSone systems were reasonably easy to find, along with a small trickle of budget titles, or EA Sport shovelware. You can still just about find new PS1 stuff, but it's disappearing fast. So the PS1 got about nine / ten years, and I'd imagine the PS2 could do the same really, the popular consoles often have a long tail off. I don't find the idea of the PS2 (or PS3 if it's sucessful) lasting about ten years that stange, although once the sucessor system is released, I'm not expected many blockbuster games though.
In relation to UK games piracy, try to find a UK release of Chrono Trigger (or Cross). There isn't one, either on SNES, or PlayStation. If I want to play it, I'd either have to import it, or pirate it...
I think he's more referring to the fact that "PAL" is one of the three major video game regions (like DVD region codes), covering Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The other two are NTSC / Japan and NTSC / North America. (Of course they're using PAL and NTSC as shorthand for 625 line and 525 line TV systems, like everyone does).
Most video game systems use this three reigon split, since the 16 bit era at least.
I think post-1994 the Mega Drive / Genesis sufferred becuase Sega wanted to push the Saturn far more - in Japan the Megadrive was never that sucessful (note it's lack of Japanese developer support generally), and after the Saturn came out they put all their resources onto that, ignoring the fact that the Mega Drive / Genesis was still quite sucessful in the west. The lack of support from SoJ (both in games, and general management) probably didn't help with MD vs. SNES, as Nintendo were still focused on the SNES for a couple of years after.
;-)
Of course graphically, the SNES kicked the MD's ass (apart from the lower graphics resolution[1]), but the Mega Drive did hold it's own against the SNES for a good time. And Comix Zone is an interesting choice of example, I think it's a really interesting experiment in graphics style etc., a bit like Yoshi's Island. Of course it isn't that colourful, but it's still good looking. And Vectorman's animation blows Donkey Kong Country's out of the water.
[1] I think the SNES did have modes that were higher res than the Mega Drive, but for normal gameplay, the Megadrive usually used a higher (or at least equal) resolution to the SNES.
I'm not sure if the Xbox (1) visualiser even actually reacts to the music, it's just a pretty screensaver.
The Xbox 360 visualiser does look incredible though, some info, screenshots and movies, although I haven't used either of the visualisers you mentioned.
Of course Microsoft are tempting fate with the curse of Jeff Minter. They're doooooooooomed!
The original Slashdot blurb was misleading. Sony were cutting the price of their budget range (PlayStation Platinum) from £20 (~$35) to £15 (~$25). This article is saying that Microsoft and Nintendo are saying Xbox Classics and Gamecube Player's Choice are staying at £20.
It's of more intrest to European games, but it does illustrate how overpriced games in Europe are.
It was from £20 (~$35) to £15 (~$25). Microsoft and Nintendo do have budget ranges already, but they're apparently sticking at £20.
Video games are more expensive in Europe...
Greatest Hits is the US equivelant of Platinum games.
The price is wrong IMO ($35 is nearer the existing £20 price point), I'd say $25 is nearer £15.
Video games in Europe / UK cost more. The RRP of nerw games is usually £40 (~$70), but it is getting nearer £30 ($50), at least if you buy online, or from specialist shops. I guess some of the extra cost is tax, but I think some of it is just the companies extracting money becuase they can. The recent price changes do at least move the prices nearer to US ones, with the strong Pound at the moment it has been getting ridiculous.
The article assumes you know about UK games prices, ranges etc., so if you don't know, here's some information other people have probably already posted whilst I dither over this message:
PlayStation Platinum is the European equivelant of PlayStation 2 Greatest Hits. They used to retail for £19.99ish (~$35) in the UK. (Xbox has Xbox Classics, GameCube has Player's Choice for their budget ranges, all usually at £20ish).
Full games usually have an RRP of £40 (~$70), but as the article states, are often found cheaper nowadays, although they're usually slightly above £30 (~$50).
£15 is nearer $25 than $35, but exchange rates fluctuate.
There are of course various offers and stuff, budget priced games (whever in a budget range or not) are often in 2 for £30 offers and stuff.
Yes, living in Europe sucks if you like videogames. We usually have to wait until last to pay the most for them.
But the Dreamcast was launched first, from launch times the Xbox 360 is more Dreamcastish.
The $494 quoted in the article is the (informed guess at) PS3's manufacturing cost, not the PSP's, which is what the grandparent poster wanted.
But IIRC when I installed Windows XP Pro on my PC, the installer only created one (visible) account by default. An administrator / superuser account, for my personal use. Very secure Microsoft. (I'm stupid enough to be using it of course, although I'd like to think I'm geeky enough to be safe).
The Mac OS X approach is better IMO. You can't actually create a true Super User account (and the UNIX root account is disabled), at least not without *nix hackery. Instead the default account created is an Administrator account, which can only do SU type things if the user inputs their password (in the GUI) or uses the sudo command in the Terminal. (AFAIK you can also to SU type things from normal accounts, if you enter a admin account username / password in the appropriate dialogs). Of course that doesn't really add much security, I'm sure if a malicous program wanted SU powers, most people would happily enter their password, it's a pretty standard thing to do if you're installing software or running Software Update.
Of course as other people have noted, quite a lot of Windows programmes aren't multi-user safe, whereas Mac OS X ones are, seeing as they had to be partly rewritten anyway for OS X. Perhaps what Microsoft really need to do is set Longhorn up so it doesn't install with a Superuser account as the default, and implement some sort of Mac OS X style ability for programmes to easily get SU powers when needed (during installation and that's it for most stuff). Of course programmes would break, but Microsoft now seem a bit less shy at breaking programs in the name of security, and they could add some sort of extra compatability option to run as SU for older programmes.
London appears even better, a huge chunk of it (including the link to Buckingham Palace) was obviously taken after heavy snow, so it's all very white.
Just as an example, becuase I don't think anyone's linked it yet: Her Majesty's Palace and Fortress, the Tower of London
My question about what you mentioned would be if it could use all of them at once. I've had some multiplayer fun with emulators and the adapter I linked to.
Unfortionatley you're limited to one pad at a time, but as it's USB you could theoretically connect several convertors at once. The multiplayer bit of your pad convertor does seem quite good.
I personally use a "PC Magic Box" (PS / DC / SS to USB) and a Japanese style Sega Saturn pad. Works great for almost all retro games, and I prefer the Saturn pad to the PSX one, with a nicer D-pad, and six face buttons. Although I haven't got a PlayStation, so I haven't used the pad that much.
For analouge it's a bit crap, it doesn't support the NiGHTS pad, and with the Dreamcast pad it's horrible, very glitchy. I haven't used a PSX pad for analouge with it yet.
A plant of wood... do you mean... a tree? :-p
(Sorry, couldn't resist the cheap shot)