Eh, I've got an '01 or so PS2, and an '02-'03 PS2. I've never had either one fail on me. I also have a Jan-or-Feb PS3 purchase which also hasn't failed me, and a PSP which DID die as a result of my accidentally dropping a CZ-97B 45 caliber handgun on its display as I was getting packed for a range trip. None of the current handheld game systems' displays would've survived that.
All three consoles are in active use today.
1x PS2 on loan to my fiancee - usually sees an hour or so per night
1x PS2 at my place - my fiancee tends to play it for a 2-3 hours per night, as she's presently hooked on FFX-2.
1x PS3 at my place - I play that one, although I doubt I'll get to play it anymore once she discovers Ratchet+Clank: Tools of Destruction for it.
I haven't had a single failure for any of these systems. On the other hand, two of my friends have gone through X-Box related failures - one lost an original X-Box, the other one had an RROD on his 360. I seriously doubt that there's a "consistent" pattern of breakdown on the PS2's, unless maybe you're talking about the later slimline models. I don't have one of those for comparison; I greatly prefer the more solid-looking original style case.
Now that they've gotten folks used to seeing a lot of info from them, they're probably hoping to start coaxing folks into paying for subscriptions in order to see the data.
Given that NPD info was being watched by an ungodly number of gaming bloggers and such, there's probably more than a few who would pay for continued access at the same level.
When in doubt, always ask, "Is there a way for them to monetize this?" Because if they can, it's probably why they're doing it.
Exactly why I've never pre-ordered in my life. Although I'm a bit different; I just can't bring myself to spend $50 on a game, when I can wait six months and spend $18 at most. And by the time it's at that price, gamefaqs has a bunch of free walkthroughs available too!
Or, they could have made hard drives standard and told their developers, "If you need more storage, then you load the extra discs onto the hard drive before the game - you do not force disc-swapping other than during installation; the first disc is only a key."
Although, it would create gamer outcry due to length installs AND having to reload games if they wipe 'em out to reclaim HD space - especially with them not using off-the-shelf HD's like the PS3. But, it's another way they could've gone.
Goodwill stores, classified ads in the paper, etc. Plenty of SDTV's are being given away at this point. Now, high-quality CRTs are quite tough to get ahold of. But if you never cared about HD, at this point you could probably coast by on freebie TV's for the next 20-30 years.
Conference calls on phones within the same office building, pre-dated the SOCOM headset AND teamspeak.:)
I do believe, though, that surround sound is as standard in PC games now as it is on consoles. That having been said, I don't think it was very popular before the PS2 started doing it. I think Armored Core 3 was the first one to support surround sound on the PS2, but I could be wrong.
If you can get into Wal-Mart scale, sure. For companies which can drive costs down by pushing out a huge number of units, this is entirely doable. For smaller items, not really.
Of course, the world economy is all about the Wal-Marts model these days, anyway.
> That's just flat out wrong, it's 2x 640p resolution, or 1280p equivalent scaled down to 1080i.
Actually, they considered 'blooming' (i.e. the day glow you mention) to be important enough, that they rendered each frame twice at 640p. One overexposed frame, one underexposed frame - then combined the two. Were they rendering different pixels, rather than the same ones at two different exposures, you could call it 1280p equivalent. Certainly it's rendering that many pixels, but they aren't rendering that many displayed pixels.
That having been said, I'm certainly not a fan of the x-box. Just felt compelled to point out what the dual buffering was about.
Ok, perhaps it's a bad thing to mention nazis in the west, in a game. Which is why we've played Castle Wolfenstein, all the Medal of Honor games minus Rising Sun, and the Call of Duty series minus the last one, against nazis? And then there was Brothers in Arms, and (insert random huge assortment of games where you kill nazis)
I always thought the taboo was against playing AS a nazi... it's perfectly acceptable, even encouraged, to KILL nazis in games.
Good question - I hadn't thought about PAL regions. So in this case, if "full" is defined as having both a GS and an Emotion Engine, then the answer is no. This does present an interesting issue too - you can't mod a VIRTUAL console within the ps3, naturally, so you don't even have a modchip option for it.
Although, I just realized something with a slight chance of working... maybe you could get a US PS3, and for the PS2 mode you get one of those discs which did the ignore-region-code patch in software. So you boot with the one disc, then swap over to the actual game disc, when you want to play a game in your region. Naturally, this is a bit silly to propose as a long term option, but I am curious if it'd work.
On the other hand, the back-compat list for the version with a GS but no EE, is pretty good. Back before Sony switched the list so that you could only view specific titles' compatibility notes, the UK site had a nice friendly list of titles. There really weren't many popular/good titles which were flagged with issues, and most of those were just of the "some artifacting during cutscenes" variety that was marked as one notch down from full compatibility.
Halo is a poor choice of comparisons there. However, Medal of Honor or Call of Duty (I don't remember which one it is, that provides you with no reticle if you're just running around - if you want to aim, you use the iron sights) would have shown an incremental improvement.
That having been said, there's no substitute for practice with the real thing. And so, I type this while quietly grumbling that I haven't gotten to sight in my new 50cal yet...:)
Well, I suppose that TCA is exciting if you count the boobs... other than that, the heist scenes are a bit entertaining, but I practically slept through the movie. I don't go to movies for big long topless sunbathing scenes.
I regularly find myself telling folks about Autoduel. I'd love to see it redone with something along the lines of the engine used in Full Auto 2 (take out the time-meddling ability perhaps) and a bunch more interactivity in the side quests. Maybe add in an out-of-vehicle mode (FPS style), and a little bit of weapon use within towns. As long as it didn't somehow turn into a game where you spend more time out of your vehicle than in it, Autoduel redone could be the best game ever.:)
And I'll agree that Archon is in dire need of a sequel, although the AI *loved* to pit the blasted phoenix against the shapeshifter.
I also miss the story of Battletech: Crescent Hawk's Inception (Armored Core series has customization, but no real story to speak of).
On a related note, basically all of the Westwood Associates catalog needs redone for the modern era... anyone besides me remember Mars Saga? I loved playing with the grenade launchers in that game!
Absolutely one of my big points. Subtitles are important if you've got people constantly chattering away in the background, or you don't want to have inconvenience friends by pausing the movie you're all watching, just because you're at a cutscene in your turn-based (i.e. perfect for doing while watching something else) RPG.
I would also add that, even if you don't have a full journal, at a bare minimum it should be possible to access your current objective and any supplemental material (i.e. tactical maps in the SOCOM series) from the pause menu.
Of course, I will have to say that the one game I feel does the best at keeping track of your objectives so far, is Oblivion. It keeps track of everything, in a really nice interface, even when you've got 14 quests which are all active to one degree or another! And once a quest is over, it gets archived over into a 'completed quests' tab, so you never have to go through a gameplay guide racking your brains to figure out if you've done all the side quests or not.
30 year old IT guy here, with a PS3 (and PS2). One thing I've noticed amongst the younger generation, is that they tend to consider my type "non gamers", just because we play 1.5 to 3 hours at night, instead of 4+ per day while skipping games like a channel-surfer on a TV set. I think the folks currently making this generalization will readjust their thinking once they have a full time career, and commence to be annoyed at the younger generation calling them non gamers.:) To me, a non gamer is the guy who leaves his previous-gen console sitting around gathering dust, maybe dusting it off once a week at most.
Anyway, I (and my various other 30ish PS3 buddies) tend to play through games completely, rather than just hop and skip from game to game. The current release rate of PS3 titles is actually just fast enough that I don't end up without a game to play at any given time.
On a side note, I'm not sure how the various gamer generations view co-op. To my crew, split-scree co-op action is a huge seller. Dynasty Warriors Gundam is awesome.:)
Oh - I should note that when I say looked at it, I mean when I was looking at the BC charts they were keeping updated. I didn't sit there sticking all of my games into my PS3 and playing through 'em to try and spot issues.:)
Actually, the backwards compatibility charts are pretty complete for PS2 titles presently. Last time I looked, the only games with anything past trivial issues were games that not a lot of folks owned (or at least, played). Dark Angel: Vampire Apocalypse was the only one I spotted in my personal collection that had notable issues when I last looked at it. With things working pretty smoothly, I don't think they actually needed big backwards-compatibility efforts anymore.
Although strangely enough, when you DO own a PS3 and a 1080p TV, it has a bit of a viral effect. My Sony 52" Bravia XBR-5 has convinced two of my friends that it's time to acquire a PS3. In the one friend's case, it's also kicking him into upgrading to HDTV as well.
Eh, part of this can be gender bias too. After all, if you're a straight male, you won't be able to assess a male's attractiveness as well as a straight female (i.e. the one with him).
Eh, for your average nerd who gets an average of one date a year (which was my case in college; then again, I started at 16), there'd have been minimal risk of going back to invisible.:p
Guys will take what they can get. Unless she has some serious -charisma modifiers, the average dateless nerd will certainly talk to someone who'll talk to him. Especially if he's gotten laid by her already, and sees it as a repeat opportunity.
I don't think that's necessarily the case. Computer science departments are sometimes segregated off on one side of campus with the 'hard sciences' buildings, which women tend not to go for. As a result, you've got the one side of the campus that the hot women are at, and then there's the side where all the compsci geeks, physicists, and mathematicians hang out at. And at least at my uni, during the rare occasions when there would be an attractive (or even AVERAGE), single compsci major, she was generally dating a jock and didn't hang out in the compsci area other than during classes.
It's also a matter of money, too. If you're attending a low-cost university, there are less likely to be attractive women there. Attractive people are more likely to score scholarships and move on to other schools. I've found that the pricier the university, the hotter the women are that attend. Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN was always short on attractive women in the compsci program during my tenure there ('91-'98 or so).
Slashdot Mirror
Eh, I've got an '01 or so PS2, and an '02-'03 PS2. I've never had either one fail on me. I also have a Jan-or-Feb PS3 purchase which also hasn't failed me, and a PSP which DID die as a result of my accidentally dropping a CZ-97B 45 caliber handgun on its display as I was getting packed for a range trip. None of the current handheld game systems' displays would've survived that.
All three consoles are in active use today.
1x PS2 on loan to my fiancee - usually sees an hour or so per night
1x PS2 at my place - my fiancee tends to play it for a 2-3 hours per night, as she's presently hooked on FFX-2.
1x PS3 at my place - I play that one, although I doubt I'll get to play it anymore once she discovers Ratchet+Clank: Tools of Destruction for it.
I haven't had a single failure for any of these systems. On the other hand, two of my friends have gone through X-Box related failures - one lost an original X-Box, the other one had an RROD on his 360. I seriously doubt that there's a "consistent" pattern of breakdown on the PS2's, unless maybe you're talking about the later slimline models. I don't have one of those for comparison; I greatly prefer the more solid-looking original style case.
Now that they've gotten folks used to seeing a lot of info from them, they're probably hoping to start coaxing folks into paying for subscriptions in order to see the data.
Given that NPD info was being watched by an ungodly number of gaming bloggers and such, there's probably more than a few who would pay for continued access at the same level.
When in doubt, always ask, "Is there a way for them to monetize this?" Because if they can, it's probably why they're doing it.
Exactly why I've never pre-ordered in my life. Although I'm a bit different; I just can't bring myself to spend $50 on a game, when I can wait six months and spend $18 at most. And by the time it's at that price, gamefaqs has a bunch of free walkthroughs available too!
Or, they could have made hard drives standard and told their developers, "If you need more storage, then you load the extra discs onto the hard drive before the game - you do not force disc-swapping other than during installation; the first disc is only a key."
Although, it would create gamer outcry due to length installs AND having to reload games if they wipe 'em out to reclaim HD space - especially with them not using off-the-shelf HD's like the PS3. But, it's another way they could've gone.
Goodwill stores, classified ads in the paper, etc. Plenty of SDTV's are being given away at this point. Now, high-quality CRTs are quite tough to get ahold of. But if you never cared about HD, at this point you could probably coast by on freebie TV's for the next 20-30 years.
Conference calls on phones within the same office building, pre-dated the SOCOM headset AND teamspeak. :)
I do believe, though, that surround sound is as standard in PC games now as it is on consoles. That having been said, I don't think it was very popular before the PS2 started doing it. I think Armored Core 3 was the first one to support surround sound on the PS2, but I could be wrong.
If you can get into Wal-Mart scale, sure. For companies which can drive costs down by pushing out a huge number of units, this is entirely doable. For smaller items, not really.
Of course, the world economy is all about the Wal-Marts model these days, anyway.
From one grizzled MUD coder to another... flashback alley time.
AnnoyingDork is now following you!
> recall set
> n
> n
> n
> e
> e
> recall
> s
> s
> s
AnnoyingDork tells you, "Where'd you go man?"
> That's just flat out wrong, it's 2x 640p resolution, or 1280p equivalent scaled down to 1080i.
Actually, they considered 'blooming' (i.e. the day glow you mention) to be important enough, that they rendered each frame twice at 640p. One overexposed frame, one underexposed frame - then combined the two. Were they rendering different pixels, rather than the same ones at two different exposures, you could call it 1280p equivalent. Certainly it's rendering that many pixels, but they aren't rendering that many displayed pixels.
That having been said, I'm certainly not a fan of the x-box. Just felt compelled to point out what the dual buffering was about.
The wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_3 touches on the 640p rendering a bit...
Ok, perhaps it's a bad thing to mention nazis in the west, in a game. Which is why we've played Castle Wolfenstein, all the Medal of Honor games minus Rising Sun, and the Call of Duty series minus the last one, against nazis? And then there was Brothers in Arms, and (insert random huge assortment of games where you kill nazis)
I always thought the taboo was against playing AS a nazi... it's perfectly acceptable, even encouraged, to KILL nazis in games.
Good question - I hadn't thought about PAL regions. So in this case, if "full" is defined as having both a GS and an Emotion Engine, then the answer is no. This does present an interesting issue too - you can't mod a VIRTUAL console within the ps3, naturally, so you don't even have a modchip option for it.
Although, I just realized something with a slight chance of working... maybe you could get a US PS3, and for the PS2 mode you get one of those discs which did the ignore-region-code patch in software. So you boot with the one disc, then swap over to the actual game disc, when you want to play a game in your region. Naturally, this is a bit silly to propose as a long term option, but I am curious if it'd work.
On the other hand, the back-compat list for the version with a GS but no EE, is pretty good. Back before Sony switched the list so that you could only view specific titles' compatibility notes, the UK site had a nice friendly list of titles. There really weren't many popular/good titles which were flagged with issues, and most of those were just of the "some artifacting during cutscenes" variety that was marked as one notch down from full compatibility.
Halo is a poor choice of comparisons there. However, Medal of Honor or Call of Duty (I don't remember which one it is, that provides you with no reticle if you're just running around - if you want to aim, you use the iron sights) would have shown an incremental improvement.
:)
That having been said, there's no substitute for practice with the real thing. And so, I type this while quietly grumbling that I haven't gotten to sight in my new 50cal yet...
C'mon Perry, just change the IRS tax auditing percentage, would ya?
Well, I suppose that TCA is exciting if you count the boobs... other than that, the heist scenes are a bit entertaining, but I practically slept through the movie. I don't go to movies for big long topless sunbathing scenes.
Actually, the no-back-compat PS3 can play PS1 games (such as FF7) just fine. It's the PS2 games it can't handle.
And the existence of one non-backwards-compatible model of PS3 doesn't mean you can't buy one of the backwards-compatible models.
I regularly find myself telling folks about Autoduel. I'd love to see it redone with something along the lines of the engine used in Full Auto 2 (take out the time-meddling ability perhaps) and a bunch more interactivity in the side quests. Maybe add in an out-of-vehicle mode (FPS style), and a little bit of weapon use within towns. As long as it didn't somehow turn into a game where you spend more time out of your vehicle than in it, Autoduel redone could be the best game ever. :)
And I'll agree that Archon is in dire need of a sequel, although the AI *loved* to pit the blasted phoenix against the shapeshifter.
I also miss the story of Battletech: Crescent Hawk's Inception (Armored Core series has customization, but no real story to speak of).
On a related note, basically all of the Westwood Associates catalog needs redone for the modern era... anyone besides me remember Mars Saga? I loved playing with the grenade launchers in that game!
Absolutely one of my big points. Subtitles are important if you've got people constantly chattering away in the background, or you don't want to have inconvenience friends by pausing the movie you're all watching, just because you're at a cutscene in your turn-based (i.e. perfect for doing while watching something else) RPG.
I would also add that, even if you don't have a full journal, at a bare minimum it should be possible to access your current objective and any supplemental material (i.e. tactical maps in the SOCOM series) from the pause menu.
Of course, I will have to say that the one game I feel does the best at keeping track of your objectives so far, is Oblivion. It keeps track of everything, in a really nice interface, even when you've got 14 quests which are all active to one degree or another! And once a quest is over, it gets archived over into a 'completed quests' tab, so you never have to go through a gameplay guide racking your brains to figure out if you've done all the side quests or not.
30 year old IT guy here, with a PS3 (and PS2). One thing I've noticed amongst the younger generation, is that they tend to consider my type "non gamers", just because we play 1.5 to 3 hours at night, instead of 4+ per day while skipping games like a channel-surfer on a TV set. I think the folks currently making this generalization will readjust their thinking once they have a full time career, and commence to be annoyed at the younger generation calling them non gamers. :) To me, a non gamer is the guy who leaves his previous-gen console sitting around gathering dust, maybe dusting it off once a week at most.
:)
Anyway, I (and my various other 30ish PS3 buddies) tend to play through games completely, rather than just hop and skip from game to game. The current release rate of PS3 titles is actually just fast enough that I don't end up without a game to play at any given time.
On a side note, I'm not sure how the various gamer generations view co-op. To my crew, split-scree co-op action is a huge seller. Dynasty Warriors Gundam is awesome.
Oh - I should note that when I say looked at it, I mean when I was looking at the BC charts they were keeping updated. I didn't sit there sticking all of my games into my PS3 and playing through 'em to try and spot issues. :)
Actually, the backwards compatibility charts are pretty complete for PS2 titles presently. Last time I looked, the only games with anything past trivial issues were games that not a lot of folks owned (or at least, played). Dark Angel: Vampire Apocalypse was the only one I spotted in my personal collection that had notable issues when I last looked at it. With things working pretty smoothly, I don't think they actually needed big backwards-compatibility efforts anymore.
Although strangely enough, when you DO own a PS3 and a 1080p TV, it has a bit of a viral effect. My Sony 52" Bravia XBR-5 has convinced two of my friends that it's time to acquire a PS3. In the one friend's case, it's also kicking him into upgrading to HDTV as well.
Just managed to figure out (after searching a bit) that he meant "pick up artist", and assumed we all knew what he meant.
Eh, part of this can be gender bias too. After all, if you're a straight male, you won't be able to assess a male's attractiveness as well as a straight female (i.e. the one with him).
Eh, for your average nerd who gets an average of one date a year (which was my case in college; then again, I started at 16), there'd have been minimal risk of going back to invisible. :p
Guys will take what they can get. Unless she has some serious -charisma modifiers, the average dateless nerd will certainly talk to someone who'll talk to him. Especially if he's gotten laid by her already, and sees it as a repeat opportunity.
I don't think that's necessarily the case. Computer science departments are sometimes segregated off on one side of campus with the 'hard sciences' buildings, which women tend not to go for. As a result, you've got the one side of the campus that the hot women are at, and then there's the side where all the compsci geeks, physicists, and mathematicians hang out at. And at least at my uni, during the rare occasions when there would be an attractive (or even AVERAGE), single compsci major, she was generally dating a jock and didn't hang out in the compsci area other than during classes.
It's also a matter of money, too. If you're attending a low-cost university, there are less likely to be attractive women there. Attractive people are more likely to score scholarships and move on to other schools. I've found that the pricier the university, the hotter the women are that attend. Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN was always short on attractive women in the compsci program during my tenure there ('91-'98 or so).