I've heard that European PlayStation 2's ship with a copy of BASIC (when I get round to getting one I'll find out...) to try and get round taxes, although I'm not sure how sucessful they were. If it's VAT they're trying to avoid, it would'nt work in the UK, as VAT on computers is 17.5% anyway...
Of course I realise that. Indeed, I said it myself:
Of course the way Unix works is a bit different (like the way commands like ls are programmes in their own right rather than part of the interpreter)...
I just tried that with Windows XPs cmd.exe, and the dir command takes priority over a dir.bat or a dir.exe, unless you specifically use the file exentsion or a path.
Of course the way Unix works is a bit different (like the way commands like ls are programmes in their own right rather than part of the interpreter), but you could surely at least set it so that the current directory has the least priority out of the directories checked.
That's a line I always see about Nintendo that I've never seen any proof for.
It's probably true about some stuff like the Gameboys, but I'm a bit doubtful if the Gamecube's always been made for a profit etc. It doesn't matter that much as Nintendo do have the Gameboy and the DS to prop up the consoles.
Yeah, I'm in the UK and we'll probably get screwed and get it months later (as with just about everything else except the Xbox 360, but that had it's own issues.[1]) Frankly, unless the Revolution's multi-region[2] I'll just get a US system anyway, they generally get the games earlier and cheaper. Especially as Nintendo's phase of releasing games early / first in Europe has gone away again, we seem to be back to several months wait even for "AAA" titles.
Does Apple Corps have any other active divisions other than the record label though? I thought most of the other stuff like the boutique etc. folded several decades ago.
Plus any previous agreement with Apple Computer probably waived any rights for Apple Corps to use "Apple" for computer equipment etc. Apple Computer would probably win against other companies using the name Apple for electronics. Apple Corps may win this battle against Apple Computer for using Apple to distribute music.
Anyway, need to hoover my room, better get my Vax out.
I think you're confusing the rights to the songs / compositions (mostly owned by Michael Jackson and Sony through their Sony ATV Music company) and the Beatles' recordings (owned by Apple Corps). Apple Corps is still an active record label, even if they only release Beatles stuff nowadays, and therefore want to protect there trademark as a record label, which they think Apple has infringed.
I looked on the UK iTMS, and there are 16 songs, but they're "Pro Backing Tracks", not actual Beatles songs. The rights over the Beatles' compositions and the Beatles' recordings are held by different companies, it's only the company who licences the Beatles' recordings (Apple Corps) that doesn't like Apple Computer. Sony ATV Music[1] presumably don't care if covers of Beatles' songs appear on iTMS, as long as they get paid.
[1] There are some Beatles songs held by other companies AFAIK, just Sony ATV is the main one.
Well, in Europe most TVs won't roll, or display it squashed, they can lock onto 60Hz singals fine. I think he just has a crappy TV.
They may display in black and white however if you're using composite connections, not every TV like NTSC colour, that's why most consoles (apart from the PS2) use PAL60 for 60Hz modes. You can bypass that bit by getting an RGB SCART cable or similar.
Support for PAL60 is pretty high, and Nintendo and Microsoft both have 60Hz only games on their consoles, although they do have warning icons on the front. (The Zelda bonus discs, Metroid Prime 2, Geist and Dead or Alive 4 if you're wondering).
Re:A lot less than meets the eye
on
Region-free PS3
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· Score: 1
AFAIK most PAL XBox game support PAL60 anyway, it's an option in the Dashboard on PAL consoles that you switch on once and mostly ignore, much better than having a 50/60Hz selection menu appear at the start of every game. Presumably playing a PAL game on an NTSC console they'd just see the console as being set to 60Hz and use that automatically.
Someone who doesn't like music downloads? There is a soundtrack album for this game comming out etc. I can see the point to these game rips, but ones for games that have actual soundtrack albums are at the less moral end of the spectrum than rips for games without albums.
Although Troll is probably the wrong moderation to show this view.
Grandparent: And linking to Slashdot is goint to help with your bandwidth issues?:-)
The article mentions a download service, so I assume you just buy the games again and download them to your memory stick, rather than you ripping it yourself. Although I'd imagine if it's really an emulator, it'll be cracked in a matter of weeks...
I should be pedantic and point out Opera techincally doesn't use tabs, it uses Windows's out of fashion multiple documents intefact thingy, just it's been progressivley disguised as tabs as time's gone by.. It does lead to some neat things though, like pop-ups appearing as new "tabs" rather than seperate windows, and that you can minimise tabs etc.
With pre-pay phones you buy credit before you use the phone. The phone calls cost more than with a contract of course, so if you're more than a light user they aren't that good value.
The old way of getting is to basically buy a bit of card with a secret number on it that'll add £x to your balance when you phone your operator and dial it in. The new way is that you get a card (magnetic stipe I think) lets retailers which display a "Top Up" logo directly credit your phone. Lloyds TSB now have an option to top up phones on their cash points, not sure how that works, as I haven't used it.
I was about 15 (and therefore legally a minor) when I first bought a pre-pay mobile phone, and had no problem buying one, and I didn't have any adult with me etc. I was probably in school uniform at the time and all.
Mobile phones aren't much of an age thing, most secondary school kids will have one nowadays.
Yeah, the author does seem to have some gripes with Famitsu and it's readership (or perhaps just Japanese game players in general?) not agreeing to his own personal tastes. Stuff like... if you look at this list of Famitsu readers' top 100 games of all time, you'll notice Final Fantasy X at #1, and Final Fantasy VI sitting just beneath Final Fantasy IX, which is rather shocking.
FFII has been released in the west, it was in Final Fantasty Origins. FFIII is the one that hasn't been release yet, but is coming out on the Nintendo DS at some point.
A question on that (and remember that you'd need an NTSC->PAL converter or a computer card that can take in NTSC)
Quite a lot of European TVs are happy to take NTSC as well as PAL. Plus PAL / NTSC is a none issue with HDTV, as far as I know all HDTVs basically use the same standards.
Sadly I don't have either, but my Japanese PlayStation that I picked up is perfectly happy using a European RGB SCART cable, so I'd imagine a PS3 would be the same as it still uses the same connector for SDTV. I could either try a UK RGB cable for the Xbox 360, or be foreced to use my PC's monitor instead (oh the humanity!). I'm not as sure about the Revolution, but I'm sure I'd work something out.
are some of the next gen consoles going to be region free? The Nintendo DS is, as is Blue Ray (or is it HD-DVD). So mught some of the consoles be region free as well?
All handhelds are region free, with the exception of UMD Video discs on the PSP. The Game Boy has been region free since the late '80s, but Nintendo didn't turn round and make the SNES, N64 or Gamecube region free. Wikipedia doesn't mention anything about region coding in the HD-DVD article, and give a new 3 region thing for Blu-Ray, but a HD-DVD region coding thing might not have been announced yet or something.
As for new consoles, the Xbox 360 can have region-free games, like Dead or Alive 4 is, but most are locked. Someone from Sony Australia made noises about the PS3 not having regions, so it'll be locked. Don't have a clue about the Revolution.
Frankly I don't care that much, there are very few games that are only released in Europe, or released here first, and I probably wouldn't miss them anyway.
Seeing as this article is talking about the UK, I wonder if the Xbox 360 is outselling the Gamecube here.:-)
Although the Gamecube hasn't done as badly as the Xbox did in Japan, it kinda ran out of steam a couple of years ago, and has been in a decline ever since.
And what's coming out in the next six months that'll keep what little shelf space the Gamecube has left in the UK? Apart from Zelda, the release schedule seems rather barren.
Slashdot Mirror
I think Xbox Live Arcade games have to fit on a memory card though, and that's only 16MB (IIRC), which doesn't leave much room to work with.
I've heard that European PlayStation 2's ship with a copy of BASIC (when I get round to getting one I'll find out...) to try and get round taxes, although I'm not sure how sucessful they were. If it's VAT they're trying to avoid, it would'nt work in the UK, as VAT on computers is 17.5% anyway...
Of course I realise that. Indeed, I said it myself:
Of course the way Unix works is a bit different (like the way commands like ls are programmes in their own right rather than part of the interpreter)...
I just tried that with Windows XPs cmd.exe, and the dir command takes priority over a dir.bat or a dir.exe, unless you specifically use the file exentsion or a path.
Of course the way Unix works is a bit different (like the way commands like ls are programmes in their own right rather than part of the interpreter), but you could surely at least set it so that the current directory has the least priority out of the directories checked.
Well, . is worthless in Windows and MS-DOS (and OS/2?) as their shells are clever enough to look in the current directory for executables.
Always slightly annoys me when I use *nix stuff, as it never seems to work (at least by default) on them.
That's a line I always see about Nintendo that I've never seen any proof for.
It's probably true about some stuff like the Gameboys, but I'm a bit doubtful if the Gamecube's always been made for a profit etc. It doesn't matter that much as Nintendo do have the Gameboy and the DS to prop up the consoles.
Goddammit! I knew I should've paid more attention at school, all I learned was United Kingdomish. :-)
Yeah, I'm in the UK and we'll probably get screwed and get it months later (as with just about everything else except the Xbox 360, but that had it's own issues.[1]) Frankly, unless the Revolution's multi-region[2] I'll just get a US system anyway, they generally get the games earlier and cheaper. Especially as Nintendo's phase of releasing games early / first in Europe has gone away again, we seem to be back to several months wait even for "AAA" titles.
[1] I'll belive Sony when they do it.
[2] Ditto.
Does Apple Corps have any other active divisions other than the record label though? I thought most of the other stuff like the boutique etc. folded several decades ago.
Plus any previous agreement with Apple Computer probably waived any rights for Apple Corps to use "Apple" for computer equipment etc. Apple Computer would probably win against other companies using the name Apple for electronics. Apple Corps may win this battle against Apple Computer for using Apple to distribute music.
Anyway, need to hoover my room, better get my Vax out.
I think you're confusing the rights to the songs / compositions (mostly owned by Michael Jackson and Sony through their Sony ATV Music company) and the Beatles' recordings (owned by Apple Corps). Apple Corps is still an active record label, even if they only release Beatles stuff nowadays, and therefore want to protect there trademark as a record label, which they think Apple has infringed.
I looked on the UK iTMS, and there are 16 songs, but they're "Pro Backing Tracks", not actual Beatles songs. The rights over the Beatles' compositions and the Beatles' recordings are held by different companies, it's only the company who licences the Beatles' recordings (Apple Corps) that doesn't like Apple Computer. Sony ATV Music[1] presumably don't care if covers of Beatles' songs appear on iTMS, as long as they get paid.
[1] There are some Beatles songs held by other companies AFAIK, just Sony ATV is the main one.
Well, in Europe most TVs won't roll, or display it squashed, they can lock onto 60Hz singals fine. I think he just has a crappy TV.
They may display in black and white however if you're using composite connections, not every TV like NTSC colour, that's why most consoles (apart from the PS2) use PAL60 for 60Hz modes. You can bypass that bit by getting an RGB SCART cable or similar.
Support for PAL60 is pretty high, and Nintendo and Microsoft both have 60Hz only games on their consoles, although they do have warning icons on the front. (The Zelda bonus discs, Metroid Prime 2, Geist and Dead or Alive 4 if you're wondering).
AFAIK most PAL XBox game support PAL60 anyway, it's an option in the Dashboard on PAL consoles that you switch on once and mostly ignore, much better than having a 50/60Hz selection menu appear at the start of every game. Presumably playing a PAL game on an NTSC console they'd just see the console as being set to 60Hz and use that automatically.
I find it ironic that the original post is now Interesting, and now I'm a Troll...
Someone who doesn't like music downloads? There is a soundtrack album for this game comming out etc. I can see the point to these game rips, but ones for games that have actual soundtrack albums are at the less moral end of the spectrum than rips for games without albums.
:-)
Although Troll is probably the wrong moderation to show this view.
Grandparent: And linking to Slashdot is goint to help with your bandwidth issues?
Aren't most last bosses in RPGs? I find it's the secret side-bosses that are usually the real danger in most games.
The article mentions a download service, so I assume you just buy the games again and download them to your memory stick, rather than you ripping it yourself. Although I'd imagine if it's really an emulator, it'll be cracked in a matter of weeks...
I should be pedantic and point out Opera techincally doesn't use tabs, it uses Windows's out of fashion multiple documents intefact thingy, just it's been progressivley disguised as tabs as time's gone by.. It does lead to some neat things though, like pop-ups appearing as new "tabs" rather than seperate windows, and that you can minimise tabs etc.
With pre-pay phones you buy credit before you use the phone. The phone calls cost more than with a contract of course, so if you're more than a light user they aren't that good value.
The old way of getting is to basically buy a bit of card with a secret number on it that'll add £x to your balance when you phone your operator and dial it in. The new way is that you get a card (magnetic stipe I think) lets retailers which display a "Top Up" logo directly credit your phone. Lloyds TSB now have an option to top up phones on their cash points, not sure how that works, as I haven't used it.
I was about 15 (and therefore legally a minor) when I first bought a pre-pay mobile phone, and had no problem buying one, and I didn't have any adult with me etc. I was probably in school uniform at the time and all.
Mobile phones aren't much of an age thing, most secondary school kids will have one nowadays.
Standard TVs do display 60 (or 50) updates a second. The whole interlaced / progressive and fields / frames thing can be confusing though.
Yeah, the author does seem to have some gripes with Famitsu and it's readership (or perhaps just Japanese game players in general?) not agreeing to his own personal tastes. Stuff like ... if you look at this list of Famitsu readers' top 100 games of all time, you'll notice Final Fantasy X at #1, and Final Fantasy VI sitting just beneath Final Fantasy IX, which is rather shocking.
And the his bit about Soul Calibur.
FFII has been released in the west, it was in Final Fantasty Origins. FFIII is the one that hasn't been release yet, but is coming out on the Nintendo DS at some point.
A question on that (and remember that you'd need an NTSC->PAL converter or a computer card that can take in NTSC)
Quite a lot of European TVs are happy to take NTSC as well as PAL. Plus PAL / NTSC is a none issue with HDTV, as far as I know all HDTVs basically use the same standards.
Sadly I don't have either, but my Japanese PlayStation that I picked up is perfectly happy using a European RGB SCART cable, so I'd imagine a PS3 would be the same as it still uses the same connector for SDTV. I could either try a UK RGB cable for the Xbox 360, or be foreced to use my PC's monitor instead (oh the humanity!). I'm not as sure about the Revolution, but I'm sure I'd work something out.
are some of the next gen consoles going to be region free? The Nintendo DS is, as is Blue Ray (or is it HD-DVD). So mught some of the consoles be region free as well?
All handhelds are region free, with the exception of UMD Video discs on the PSP. The Game Boy has been region free since the late '80s, but Nintendo didn't turn round and make the SNES, N64 or Gamecube region free. Wikipedia doesn't mention anything about region coding in the HD-DVD article, and give a new 3 region thing for Blu-Ray, but a HD-DVD region coding thing might not have been announced yet or something.
As for new consoles, the Xbox 360 can have region-free games, like Dead or Alive 4 is, but most are locked. Someone from Sony Australia made noises about the PS3 not having regions, so it'll be locked. Don't have a clue about the Revolution.
Frankly I don't care that much, there are very few games that are only released in Europe, or released here first, and I probably wouldn't miss them anyway.
Seeing as this article is talking about the UK, I wonder if the Xbox 360 is outselling the Gamecube here. :-)
Although the Gamecube hasn't done as badly as the Xbox did in Japan, it kinda ran out of steam a couple of years ago, and has been in a decline ever since.
And what's coming out in the next six months that'll keep what little shelf space the Gamecube has left in the UK? Apart from Zelda, the release schedule seems rather barren.