the graphics for wipeout pure are excellent. easily better than most of the ds offerings, and there are lighting effects that the ps2 isnt even capable of pulling off. the poster mentioned graphics, but the gameplay is great too. wipeout pure and wipeoutXL are easily regarded as the best in the series. the downloadable content and the extra modes make wipeout pure a very good game.
you cant believe everything you hear. wipeout pure has tons of downloadable content. thats been coming at a steady rate for almost a year after launch. the game has a reasonable amount of length natively, but the downloadable content, and the multiplayer aspect make for an excellent launch title. try it for yourself.
theres an ending for halo2? i mustve blocked it out...
very disappointing end to an otherwise good single player campaign. i think they got caught up in the whole trilogy trap. more 'the empire strikes back' and 'the two towers [book]', less 'matrix reloaded'. cliffhangers are nice and all, but resolve/something/!!!!
i heard that too, but it didnt make much sense to me that they would bring back and start to incorporate enemies and characters from SMB2 into later SMB titles.
there are third party add-ons to almost every available console that provide this form of functionality. i think what he meant was native functionality. straight out of the box you can play your music or watch movies, etc... no need to buy any additional pieces of hardware; unofficially supported hardware that is foriegn to most mainstream america anyways.
i think the psp has done a good job. almost anyone who knows about the psp considers it a gaming machine. however the general public has been picking up UMD titles left and right, so the mainstream has at least accepted the fact that it is also a movie player to some extent.
in one year the psp shipped/sold almost over half of what the sega gamegear sold during its entire lifespan. the gamegear which was the only handheld ever anywhere near close to challenging the gameboy.
of course its not winning the war. oh well... its a testament that they are still gaining ground. they have a temporary lack of original games. no backcatalog of games numbering in the thousands. a pricepoint $100 higher. but they are still gaining ground?!?!?! two handhelds in the market have definitely had its advantages, competition is good!
your logic is sound, but how would that explain the booming market for UMD movies? apparently there is only one model of player for the discs, add to that the fact that the player is expensive, and before the player came along there were NO other models on the market. hmmmmm....
there are quite many people that bought ps2's and used them as dvd players. even here in the usa. there are a great number more people that bought ps2s and STILL use them as dvd players. its one of those stupid features everyone complains about when sony makes it standard, and complain even louder when their other consoles cant do it natively. its up there with [near-full] backwards compatibility.
no, maybe not... but virtua fighter is a solid original game on a sony console.
"Soul Calibur - HAH! That's a Dreamcast title! Soul Calibur II was released for XBox and GameCube too, so it's hardly a PS2 title. And from what I hear, the GameCube version was the best."
actually, nintendo fans prefer the gamecube one because it featured link. also, the soul calibur engine itself was created with the playstation style controller in mind, so people complained about the gamecubes control layout. it sold more on the gamecube, because it was one of what? five gamecube titles in that genre. finally the third release of the game is ps2 exclusive, so...
i guess the op forgot socom and ratchet and clank. both games have online options.
no disrespect, but i personally like some of the innovations that competition has brought to the market. if it were up to nintendo, we would still be blowing cartridges, and limited to 64mb of game space. competition is what has finally gotten nintendo off its back and done what it does best: innovate.
without competition, there would be no online console gaming. pc gaming would be the only place to find first person shooters. there would be nearly no mature games on the market. we would have to be content with handheld tech thats two-three generations behind. third-party contracts would still have companies signing over their souls. games would be in the $70 range... standard. mario and friends would be featured in some capacity in every title. etc...
nintendo is not without fault too. let us not forget that they were once the beast; the biggest beast of them all. they still are. dont let the fact that they have been quiet lately change that fact. they are all pretty evil when you really look at it, so it all boils down to which console releases the best games for you.
by the way, nintendo fresh? until the DS, they havent/really/ had any fresh ideas other than controller schemes. theyve stuck with the same 5 or 6 franchises for years. solely game-centric? nintendo has always tried to hit you on several fronts too. particularly with merchandising. the difference is that nintendo doesnt have a division that sells tvs, walkmen or an OS. that said... pokemon anyone?
maybe you should go out and meet some people who have hdtvs. or perhaps talk to salesmen at a store that actually really know what they are talking about [not the bestbuy/ circuitcity guy who is more of an actor than he is knowledgable]
there are convertors and accessories available that will handle the connections. those are already on the market. once HDTVs become more standard i am more than 100% sure that someone will reverse-engineer the whole HDCP scheme thats currently in place. no big deal, have patience. rootkits aside, DRM isnt as scary as we slashdot folks make it out to be, there are very few schemes that we the people havent toppled.
dont worry about big brother; lil brother is smarter and will always prevail in the end.
the handheld market is apparently large enough to support more than one console, just as the home console market can sustain three consoles. there are enough people out there now [hardcore, casual, and all the shades in between] that if one console is selling that doesnt automatically mean that the other consoles are failing.
if those consoles arent bringing in millions in sales on their own merit... well then perhaps i would consider it a failure, but last i looked the psp is selling like hotcakes too. maybe not as hot as the ds right now, but that doesnt mean that the psp isnt selling, and sony isnt making millions off of it and its software and movies.
credit cards are the more common form of verification. the fact that you would have to post this article in the story shows that although it may be possible, MS doesnt make it clear that there are other alternative means to access xbox live.
i guess its a possible marketing flaw in live if one of the main deterents from having a higher xboxlive penetration rate is something that they have a solution in place for, yet no one knows about.
the lasers used in cds and dvds is different. the laser used in blu-ray tech is a different color. it is much thinner and presumably strong enough to read through the layer of protective coating.
i agree. people will buy them in droves and push them on their friends.
also, blu-ray and HD-dvd will catch on due to HDTV owners wishing to have actual HDTV content to go along with their $1000-$5000 TVs. theres a market out there for the thousands of HDTV owners out there, people willing to pay money to see the difference... why watch a regular dvd in standard resolution if you can buy a blu-ray disk and actually get your monies worth there too. $200-$500 for new movie content is nothing in comparision to how much they paid for the tvs. so it should be a non-issue; at least in that market.
its like having a HDTV and no tv signal. its obvious that with next gen gaming pushing the HDTV market, a similar route would be taken for movie content. its a two way attack on sonys part. sell them all of your goods at once. you got sony hdtvs, sony movies, sony royalties for bluray movies printed, sony audio setups, the entire backcatalog of sony playstation games and ps3 games all riding on the success of the ps3. if the ps3 succeeds, they are guaranteed profits in nearly every other division of the company. [almost] theres no way that sony will release the ps3 at a price that makes people gasp. they NEED the ps3 to be in as many homes as possible. besides, sony has a tradition of releasing their products at a price around half of what people assume they would cost.
apparently they can withstand an attack by a screwdriver?!?!? [okay, that part ill believe it when i see it] but the fact remains that they are more scratch resistant than any current media.
i disagree when you say that nintendo has a good head on their shoulders. they like to gamble. luckily for them they gamble and they win. alot...and BIG! lol.
every system theyve ever released has been a gamble as far back as the NES. console gaming was dead in the water. they gambled with even coming into the scene. they gambled using ROB the robot to garner shelf space.
they gambled with releasing the gameboy; the first interchangable handheld console. the strength of tetris winning over countless casual gamers.
they gambled with the virtual boy. [no comment... we all know how that one turned out]
they gambled with releasing the n64. crossing sony on the creation of a cd-based console, sticking with cartridge based media, and sticking to their rigorous third party contract agreements spelled the end of their reign of having the best third party developer backing.
with the n64, luckily they succeeded with creating reliable 3d control using the analog pad, and introducing the world to force feedback. making four control ports standard meant it was safer for developers to create "party" multiplayer games.
they released the gameboy advance while the original gameboy was already selling like hotcakes. they splintered their own market, but were able to reap the rewards accordingly since their major competition was already dead in the water.
with the gamecube they switched formats to optical media, but shunned using standard dvd. more publishers shied away from the company. the reorganized controller layout made many games difficult to port across consoles. [odd man out?]
they release the DS while the GBA is still the top selling handheld console in the world [and continues to sell strongly]. the ds has a radically different control scheme compared to a traditional handheld. something consoles have never seen before. nintendo admits that they were worried that the control scheme would frighten developers out of designing games around the "touch" concept.
and now along comes the revolution with its radical departure from the direction theyve lead controller designs in for the last 20 odd years.
nintendo is a gambling company, but what can you expect from a company that made its start selling playing cards?
i disagree with you here. quite the opposite has happened here. although im cancelling my subscription to live, i cant say that i didnt enjoy xbox live. but other than that, my ps2 has the most true exclusive titles that seem to interest me. live is excellent, but not enough to qualify your average player to buy the console. since most xbox owners havent even signed into xbox live, they are finding other personal reasons to own the console. [maybe they prefer the graphics, who knows?]
i do love my xbox, it saves me the trouble of having to constantly upgrade my pc to play the latest FPS blockbusters, but the original exclusives are just plain lacking. THOSE titles dont really push the bar in my opinion....and if i wasnt being lazy, i would definitely prefer to play halflife1+2, far cry, doom3, and quake4 on my pc. as far as exclusives go, that leaves my xbox as my halo-box. microsofts promise is that during the consoles lifecycle, we might see two... maybe three iterations of halo. GREAT!!! and in the two-three year iterims between releases... hmmm, not too much... but hey, you can always play halo on xbox live... thats fun, but not enough to last three years for me.
my ps2 is the home to the most diverse selection of games ever. you can play through a "masterpiece epic" like god of war, and then pick up a quirky "indie" title like katamari damacy, ico or guitar hero. on top of that you still have all the major "foreign films" i.e. games that are ported across consoles. then even at your most basal moods you still have the mindless-ness destruction and entertainment of the "mainstream blockbuster titles" like madden or grand theft auto or the various movie adaptations.
the xbox just DOES NOT cater to the different variety of games possible. hence, its failure in japan. the solution isnt changing the look of the console itself, nor is it having a few more rpgs, nor is it about having japanese developers give it the thumbs up. its about appealing to the 'general' japanese public. you cant market everything else to the hardcore demographic, and then wonder why casual players wont pick up your console. when you try to qualify your console to them by saying "well we ten full titles for you guys to choose from", its a slap in the face. people have a tendency to know when you dont really care for their interests.
whereas the xbox plays close to the mainstream US and PC markets and nintendo plays to the casual and traditional markets, the playstation has always played the middleground. they try [and deliver] a large portion of it all. and thats why they are #1 right now. they appeal to their competitors respective demographics, plus they maintain enough original exclusives to feed the desires of the majority of current gamers.
im seriously considering a x360, but im waiting on the berth of decent games first. in the meantime, ill ask you, how is the xbox for change in gaming? other than create a solid network infrastructure... how have they changed the face of games? what have they done new? perhaps a closer race will help sony wake up and realize they wont always be #1 if they get lazy.
if sony fails... all we will have to look forward to is generic sports and first person shooters from the xbox, and some excellent [but relatively few] first party titles from nintendo. its a bleak world if you imagine things that way from the tastes of the average console owner.
the PSP/could/ have both funtionalities. due to the USB port at the top, it would only be a matter of someone releases an addon to the top much like the talkman software has. there are innovators in this industry in both camps, but you've got to hand it to nintendo for finally setting fire to developers imaginations. lets see how long it burns...
the game loading time is more than most of us are accustomed to, simply because i cant recall any other handheld that needed to access optical media. with a few notable exceptions, the loading time isnt as bad as i thought it would be. [i was reading about 1+ minute loads]
battery life is a non-issue in my opinion. nintendo does spoil users in this regard, but just as i dont expect to use my laptop off of batteries for extended periods of time, nor my cell phone either... i dont expect to use my psp for long great periods of time either; for the record my psp battery lasts longer than both.
Slashdot Mirror
the graphics for wipeout pure are excellent. easily better than most of the ds offerings, and there are lighting effects that the ps2 isnt even capable of pulling off. the poster mentioned graphics, but the gameplay is great too. wipeout pure and wipeoutXL are easily regarded as the best in the series. the downloadable content and the extra modes make wipeout pure a very good game.
you cant believe everything you hear. wipeout pure has tons of downloadable content. thats been coming at a steady rate for almost a year after launch. the game has a reasonable amount of length natively, but the downloadable content, and the multiplayer aspect make for an excellent launch title. try it for yourself.
theres an ending for halo2? i mustve blocked it out...
/something/!!!!
very disappointing end to an otherwise good single player campaign. i think they got caught up in the whole trilogy trap. more 'the empire strikes back' and 'the two towers [book]', less 'matrix reloaded'. cliffhangers are nice and all, but resolve
i heard that too, but it didnt make much sense to me that they would bring back and start to incorporate enemies and characters from SMB2 into later SMB titles.
there are third party add-ons to almost every available console that provide this form of functionality. i think what he meant was native functionality. straight out of the box you can play your music or watch movies, etc... no need to buy any additional pieces of hardware; unofficially supported hardware that is foriegn to most mainstream america anyways.
i think the psp has done a good job. almost anyone who knows about the psp considers it a gaming machine. however the general public has been picking up UMD titles left and right, so the mainstream has at least accepted the fact that it is also a movie player to some extent.
in one year the psp shipped/sold almost over half of what the sega gamegear sold during its entire lifespan. the gamegear which was the only handheld ever anywhere near close to challenging the gameboy.
of course its not winning the war. oh well... its a testament that they are still gaining ground. they have a temporary lack of original games. no backcatalog of games numbering in the thousands. a pricepoint $100 higher. but they are still gaining ground?!?!?! two handhelds in the market have definitely had its advantages, competition is good!
"Why can't Microsoft pioneer something for once, instead of playing catchup?"
good question... seems to be the entire corporate mantra as of late.
i guess that MS was trying to do something like that with the x360, but they rushed to market instead of pioneering something extraordinary.
lol @ portable heater.
dont forget the external battery pack the size of a nintendo ds itself.
they are asking you to buy their new video game console and they are "giving" you the blu-ray player for "free". =)
your logic is sound, but how would that explain the booming market for UMD movies? apparently there is only one model of player for the discs, add to that the fact that the player is expensive, and before the player came along there were NO other models on the market. hmmmmm....
there are quite many people that bought ps2's and used them as dvd players. even here in the usa. there are a great number more people that bought ps2s and STILL use them as dvd players. its one of those stupid features everyone complains about when sony makes it standard, and complain even louder when their other consoles cant do it natively. its up there with [near-full] backwards compatibility.
"Virtua Fighter 4 - Sega is definitely not Sony"
no, maybe not... but virtua fighter is a solid original game on a sony console.
"Soul Calibur - HAH! That's a Dreamcast title! Soul Calibur II was released for XBox and GameCube too, so it's hardly a PS2 title. And from what I hear, the GameCube version was the best."
actually, nintendo fans prefer the gamecube one because it featured link. also, the soul calibur engine itself was created with the playstation style controller in mind, so people complained about the gamecubes control layout. it sold more on the gamecube, because it was one of what? five gamecube titles in that genre. finally the third release of the game is ps2 exclusive, so...
i guess the op forgot socom and ratchet and clank. both games have online options.
no disrespect, but i personally like some of the innovations that competition has brought to the market. if it were up to nintendo, we would still be blowing cartridges, and limited to 64mb of game space. competition is what has finally gotten nintendo off its back and done what it does best: innovate.
/really/ had any fresh ideas other than controller schemes. theyve stuck with the same 5 or 6 franchises for years. solely game-centric? nintendo has always tried to hit you on several fronts too. particularly with merchandising. the difference is that nintendo doesnt have a division that sells tvs, walkmen or an OS. that said... pokemon anyone?
without competition, there would be no online console gaming. pc gaming would be the only place to find first person shooters. there would be nearly no mature games on the market. we would have to be content with handheld tech thats two-three generations behind. third-party contracts would still have companies signing over their souls. games would be in the $70 range... standard. mario and friends would be featured in some capacity in every title. etc...
nintendo is not without fault too. let us not forget that they were once the beast; the biggest beast of them all. they still are. dont let the fact that they have been quiet lately change that fact. they are all pretty evil when you really look at it, so it all boils down to which console releases the best games for you.
by the way, nintendo fresh? until the DS, they havent
maybe you should go out and meet some people who have hdtvs. or perhaps talk to salesmen at a store that actually really know what they are talking about [not the bestbuy/ circuitcity guy who is more of an actor than he is knowledgable]
there are convertors and accessories available that will handle the connections. those are already on the market. once HDTVs become more standard i am more than 100% sure that someone will reverse-engineer the whole HDCP scheme thats currently in place. no big deal, have patience. rootkits aside, DRM isnt as scary as we slashdot folks make it out to be, there are very few schemes that we the people havent toppled.
dont worry about big brother; lil brother is smarter and will always prevail in the end.
success is not measured by comparison.
the handheld market is apparently large enough to support more than one console, just as the home console market can sustain three consoles. there are enough people out there now [hardcore, casual, and all the shades in between] that if one console is selling that doesnt automatically mean that the other consoles are failing.
if those consoles arent bringing in millions in sales on their own merit... well then perhaps i would consider it a failure, but last i looked the psp is selling like hotcakes too. maybe not as hot as the ds right now, but that doesnt mean that the psp isnt selling, and sony isnt making millions off of it and its software and movies.
credit cards are the more common form of verification. the fact that you would have to post this article in the story shows that although it may be possible, MS doesnt make it clear that there are other alternative means to access xbox live.
i guess its a possible marketing flaw in live if one of the main deterents from having a higher xboxlive penetration rate is something that they have a solution in place for, yet no one knows about.
the lasers used in cds and dvds is different. the laser used in blu-ray tech is a different color. it is much thinner and presumably strong enough to read through the layer of protective coating.
i agree. people will buy them in droves and push them on their friends.
also, blu-ray and HD-dvd will catch on due to HDTV owners wishing to have actual HDTV content to go along with their $1000-$5000 TVs. theres a market out there for the thousands of HDTV owners out there, people willing to pay money to see the difference... why watch a regular dvd in standard resolution if you can buy a blu-ray disk and actually get your monies worth there too. $200-$500 for new movie content is nothing in comparision to how much they paid for the tvs. so it should be a non-issue; at least in that market.
its like having a HDTV and no tv signal. its obvious that with next gen gaming pushing the HDTV market, a similar route would be taken for movie content. its a two way attack on sonys part. sell them all of your goods at once. you got sony hdtvs, sony movies, sony royalties for bluray movies printed, sony audio setups, the entire backcatalog of sony playstation games and ps3 games all riding on the success of the ps3. if the ps3 succeeds, they are guaranteed profits in nearly every other division of the company. [almost] theres no way that sony will release the ps3 at a price that makes people gasp. they NEED the ps3 to be in as many homes as possible. besides, sony has a tradition of releasing their products at a price around half of what people assume they would cost.
i call FUD. Blu-ray discs are more scratch resistant than current cds and dvds.
a ting_technology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Hard-co
apparently they can withstand an attack by a screwdriver?!?!? [okay, that part ill believe it when i see it] but the fact remains that they are more scratch resistant than any current media.
i disagree when you say that nintendo has a good head on their shoulders. they like to gamble. luckily for them they gamble and they win. alot ...and BIG! lol.
every system theyve ever released has been a gamble as far back as the NES. console gaming was dead in the water. they gambled with even coming into the scene. they gambled using ROB the robot to garner shelf space.
they gambled with releasing the gameboy; the first interchangable handheld console. the strength of tetris winning over countless casual gamers.
they gambled with the virtual boy. [no comment... we all know how that one turned out]
they gambled with releasing the n64. crossing sony on the creation of a cd-based console, sticking with cartridge based media, and sticking to their rigorous third party contract agreements spelled the end of their reign of having the best third party developer backing.
with the n64, luckily they succeeded with creating reliable 3d control using the analog pad, and introducing the world to force feedback. making four control ports standard meant it was safer for developers to create "party" multiplayer games.
they released the gameboy advance while the original gameboy was already selling like hotcakes. they splintered their own market, but were able to reap the rewards accordingly since their major competition was already dead in the water.
with the gamecube they switched formats to optical media, but shunned using standard dvd. more publishers shied away from the company. the reorganized controller layout made many games difficult to port across consoles. [odd man out?]
they release the DS while the GBA is still the top selling handheld console in the world [and continues to sell strongly]. the ds has a radically different control scheme compared to a traditional handheld. something consoles have never seen before. nintendo admits that they were worried that the control scheme would frighten developers out of designing games around the "touch" concept.
and now along comes the revolution with its radical departure from the direction theyve lead controller designs in for the last 20 odd years.
nintendo is a gambling company, but what can you expect from a company that made its start selling playing cards?
i disagree with you here. quite the opposite has happened here. although im cancelling my subscription to live, i cant say that i didnt enjoy xbox live. but other than that, my ps2 has the most true exclusive titles that seem to interest me. live is excellent, but not enough to qualify your average player to buy the console. since most xbox owners havent even signed into xbox live, they are finding other personal reasons to own the console. [maybe they prefer the graphics, who knows?]
...and if i wasnt being lazy, i would definitely prefer to play halflife1+2, far cry, doom3, and quake4 on my pc. as far as exclusives go, that leaves my xbox as my halo-box. microsofts promise is that during the consoles lifecycle, we might see two... maybe three iterations of halo. GREAT!!! and in the two-three year iterims between releases... hmmm, not too much... but hey, you can always play halo on xbox live... thats fun, but not enough to last three years for me.
i do love my xbox, it saves me the trouble of having to constantly upgrade my pc to play the latest FPS blockbusters, but the original exclusives are just plain lacking. THOSE titles dont really push the bar in my opinion.
my ps2 is the home to the most diverse selection of games ever. you can play through a "masterpiece epic" like god of war, and then pick up a quirky "indie" title like katamari damacy, ico or guitar hero. on top of that you still have all the major "foreign films" i.e. games that are ported across consoles. then even at your most basal moods you still have the mindless-ness destruction and entertainment of the "mainstream blockbuster titles" like madden or grand theft auto or the various movie adaptations.
the xbox just DOES NOT cater to the different variety of games possible. hence, its failure in japan. the solution isnt changing the look of the console itself, nor is it having a few more rpgs, nor is it about having japanese developers give it the thumbs up. its about appealing to the 'general' japanese public. you cant market everything else to the hardcore demographic, and then wonder why casual players wont pick up your console. when you try to qualify your console to them by saying "well we ten full titles for you guys to choose from", its a slap in the face. people have a tendency to know when you dont really care for their interests.
whereas the xbox plays close to the mainstream US and PC markets and nintendo plays to the casual and traditional markets, the playstation has always played the middleground. they try [and deliver] a large portion of it all. and thats why they are #1 right now. they appeal to their competitors respective demographics, plus they maintain enough original exclusives to feed the desires of the majority of current gamers.
im seriously considering a x360, but im waiting on the berth of decent games first. in the meantime, ill ask you, how is the xbox for change in gaming? other than create a solid network infrastructure... how have they changed the face of games? what have they done new? perhaps a closer race will help sony wake up and realize they wont always be #1 if they get lazy.
if sony fails... all we will have to look forward to is generic sports and first person shooters from the xbox, and some excellent [but relatively few] first party titles from nintendo. its a bleak world if you imagine things that way from the tastes of the average console owner.
re: rumble packs or tilt carts
/could/ have both funtionalities. due to the USB port at the top, it would only be a matter of someone releases an addon to the top much like the talkman software has. there are innovators in this industry in both camps, but you've got to hand it to nintendo for finally setting fire to developers imaginations. lets see how long it burns...
the PSP
the game loading time is more than most of us are accustomed to, simply because i cant recall any other handheld that needed to access optical media. with a few notable exceptions, the loading time isnt as bad as i thought it would be. [i was reading about 1+ minute loads]
battery life is a non-issue in my opinion. nintendo does spoil users in this regard, but just as i dont expect to use my laptop off of batteries for extended periods of time, nor my cell phone either... i dont expect to use my psp for long great periods of time either; for the record my psp battery lasts longer than both.
the ps2 launch was bad. but it easily doubled the x360 launch. the only saving grace for MS is having a few better launch titles.
er... you mean preorder the console and a bunch of accessories, and then cancel or return the accessories when you go to pick up your console. =)