JB0

Yah on both counts. The massive backlash from the VB means it's probably the only system Nintendo's ever lost money on. ... And really, it was a good idea, but the tech wasn't quite there yet.

Pit's in Smash Brothers Brawl. That's probably fanning hopes now. Smash Brothers has been constrained to once a console so far. It's in the same category as Zelda and Mario Kart.

The same bloggers that insist they need to give up their massive profits and become a 3rd-party developer for Sony? Those guys sure do have good business sense... Okay.... *passes you a 2600 joystick* Knock yourself out. Good luck playing anything released in the last 2 decades. Analog control was a major innovation when it hit in 1983. And again in 1996. >8-way motion was the most signifigant improvement to directonal control since people realized they could put a single control on top of 4 switches and make a joystick. As for buttons... more complex games need more buttons. Fact of life. You mean the same computer games that use more buttons than a game console HAS just for weapon selections? You're insane. A. Nintendo's done it. Twice. The NES was notable for not having a joystick. The N64 was notable for having an analog thumbstick. B. Nintendo simply doesn't take losses. A business strategy with a potential for loss isn't acceptable to them. There's a REASON they turn a larger profit than anyone else in the industry, and it's because they think before they act. They've test-marketed the ever-loving poo out of this thing and KNOW it will do well. C. Optional devices sure get a lot of support, don't they? Yup, EVERYONE made SuperScope and Menacer games, and SegaCD games sold millions. Don't make me laugh. The ONLY way to get any signifigant software development is to pack the controller in. And they ARE including provisions for conventional gameplay. No. They're buying Nintendo systems because there's good games on those systems. If the controls are complete poo, the games, by definition, won't be good. And when did those sequels become tired retreads of low quality? The only retread I've seen was Prime 2, which was a retread of a game that was damn near perfect. You confuse the existence of a name with rehashing. Hell, many of the Mario games aren't even sequels. They're totally unrelated to anything, save for a corporate mascot attached to them. And of course, you ignore new franchises, which appear with surprising regularity for a company that only makes Mario, Zelda, and Metroid. The PS library consists largely of low-quality rehases that sell SOLELY on name. Except SquareEnix hasn't existed for most of tri-Ace's life. Enix was their long-time publisher, and it became SquareEnix after the merger. ... Which has nothing to do with anything. Squeenix is their publisher. They have nothing to do with game development. If tri-Ace wants to develop for the Phantom, Squeenix can't do a thing about it(though the complete non-existence of the Phantom might cause issues). They have NO impact on tri-Ace whatsoever. They've been in a "good place" since the NES. Not necessarily the domiant force in the market, but always the profitable one. It was a problem before. Even single-player-only games on systems with no connectivity have shitty AI. Wierd as opposed to what? A game designed around NES technical restrictions?

Damn... now I need a WonderSwan. 398445[/snapback] a what? 398677[/snapback] Its NEC or Bandai's handheld that was developed by Gumpei Yokoi after he left Nintendo. Yokoi was the guy responsible for the creation of the Gameboy. He died soon after creating the Wonderswan when he was hit by a car while trying to assist a motorist that was on the side of the road who had problems with her car. 398718[/snapback] Bandai. NEC's was the TurboExpress/PCEngine GT and PCEngine LT. Aww, shid... he got hit being a good samaritan? I'd never heard that part before, just that he got run over... Rumminging Wikipedia says he was helping at a car accident. Irony. ... And for those wondering, Yokoi left Nintendo because after creating the Game&Watch(and the cross-key gamepad), Metroid, the GameBoy, and teaching Shigeru Miyamoto everything he knows(Miyamoto was working under Yokoi's guidance when he created his first games), he created... the VirtualBoy.

Yep, a lot of the cards coming out of HK and China are bootleg cards. They look identical but the plastec is softer and I think I read somewhere that the writing on the card isn't set into the plastec. I guess they split (top from bottom) pretty easily. The advantage though is that if you get one that works well they are showing significantly faster transfer times than the legit cards. On a site I visit I read that people are getting some bootleg cards from amazon since amazon affiliates itself with some tiny stores. For example if you bought from amazon via toys R us then you likely to get a legit card. If you got yours shipped from joe blow game store...who knows. 398608[/snapback] So yeah, you meant SonDisk and Sany-type stuff? May as well avoid the randomness factor and get a KNOWN high-performance card from a real brand.

Probably IS drawing inspiration from Kup. If that's supposed to be his original Cybertronian form, it would be logical to have that sort of styling(if I recall, that generation of Transformers retained their "native" forms instead of being re-engineered to blend in).

From what I've seen each entry in the series has gone in a new direction. I haven't seen 2 Macrosses that fit into the same formula. He actually WAS involved in the writing of the TV series. He didn't write the entire thing, but he didn't just draw some mech, and tell someone to make a story about transforming jetplanes and giant aliens either. Strictly by credits, he was as involved in Macross 7 as he was in the original series. Creator, supervisor, mecha design, script for an episode(actually the mini-movie for Mac7), and storyboarding(actually only for 1 ep in Mac7 as opposed to an entire series for SDF). But there's implications he was involved in the scripting of large portions of the original show, and that Macross 7 was something he agreed to just to generate funding for Plus. 'Sides, Plus was being developed alongside Macross 7, so he couldn't have the same level of involvement in 7 as with the original series, just due to time constraints. If you want to argue his vision, let's take stuff where he WAS clearly integral to the writing. He penned the script for DYRL, and he was script supervisor for Vision of Escaflowne. Thanks. Plus blows a hole in any "formula" arguments, because it was almost NOTHING like the original series, and is a favored installment.

For what it's stated in the series and it appears, it actually does. It seems like Zentran's main guns' range are around a stable orbit from Earth (50,000 km at most?), while the Macross blasts the 2 scout ships Vlrithai sends from Earth's atmosphere and up to around half way to moon orbit (150,000 km?). Those are both minimum ranges. We have nothing to go by for maximums. Though the fact that the Macross' cannon ripped through a wall of rock, boiled off a large mass of water, and tore through the atmosphere BEFORE punching that zentradi vessel(which it went through like it wasn't there) implies a VERY high range based on power output. And the rock, steam, and air failed to disrupt the beam's coherence signifigantly. I think the functional ranges are limited by sensor accuracy as opposed to the weapon. We had the legendary reaction weaponry. We rebuilt the ASS. We could've added reaction weaponry to the ASS. They didn't really consider the vessel in and of itself to be a threat. They chased it because it was part of the Supervision Army. They let us live because they wanted our nukes. Then they got culturally contaminated and tried to exterminate us. But we had a SEKRIT WEAPON, insider knowledge, and a large deal of zentradi defectors. And yes, luck. Bodol was polite enough to park near the Grand Cannon's attack area, so when it fired, it cleared a path straight through the fleet for easy access to the command center. 398442[/snapback] The beam also manages to make a 90 degree turn!!! I don't know how the Zentran managed so long without actually figuring out nukes. 398601[/snapback] I assume you're talking about the smaller guns on the zentradi ships.They didn't actually DEVELOP their equipment. They did the equivalent of picking it up at a store, and when the store stopped carrying it, they were screwed.

I only just saw this. 360 is almost reasonably priced. Admittedly, MS is bleeding red ink all over every unit, but... The Wii is expected to be cheaper, and profitable. Nintendo's been very good about profiting on the console sales. So Wii now, 360 after a price cut, PS3... whenever Sony can get it to a reasonable level. The Saturn set a really bad precedent of losing money, and the PS2 and XBox sustained it. 360 is likely the last system to do so, though.

I agree with you, many people are dumb ;; they have lost common sense My point was, if the AI "thinks" like you, you will lose, because, the AI reaction will faster than any human reaction. I agree with the "adaptive difficulty" 110% Part of thinking like a human is thinking at human speeds. Thinking faster than me would be superhuman. you can challenge yourself in metal gear solid not to kill anyone (besides the bosses), but people like to kill ;; That's part of what he means. There's no alternative to blowing all the bosses away. A REAL Solid Snake would do everything in his power to avoid the confrontation.... And me? I'd've hotwired Rex as soon as I entered the hanger. To hell with Meryl, I wanna put Snake on the RIGHT end of the thousand-ton walking death machine for a change. i do liked the locked pattens, because once u mastered a game, you can show off that you can finished super mario bros 3 in 10 minutes 398532[/snapback] Which is bullshit. Pattern memorization is nothing. If there's a set pattern, the game fails. Reflexes, quick thinking, that's what real skill is. The ability to react to the unexpected is always more impressive than simply knowing where everything is. It's even worse when you reach places that REQUIRE offscreen knowledge to navigate successfully. To take an old example... Space Invaders is rigid, unchanging, locked. The enemy bullets might be randomized, but the rest of the game is insanely mechanical. If you've beat round 1 once, you've beat it a million times. Asteroids is a flexible and changing game. Asteroid start locations are randomized, and all actions past that are dependent on player action. Round 1 may always be easy, but it's always DIFFRENT, making every play unique and interesting. It's a very organic game. I think you can guess which one I prefer. I hate pattern-based games. Passionately.

While lots of silicon storage WOULD cost much more than the pennies per DVD, you can do a lot for load times without reverting to ROM. People are actually pretty dumb. You can make an AI as smart as people and whip it easily. For the record, I LIKE "too difficult." I think most games are too EASY. The best thing is adaptive difficulty. The game actively adjusts game variables, including the AI, with respect to player performance. This avoids people getting mad because they just can't get anywhere, people getting mad because the game is too easy, and forcing people to guess on difficulty option(I'm never sure what level I should set when it's available, because everyone has diffrent ideas about easy, normal, and hard). Snake kills a LOT of people. But I think the answer to his question is... it's BORING. They still make adventure games occasionally, but they don't sell very well. It sounds like SimCity: Lost to me. Randomization IS something I'd like to see more of, though. It can be used a lot more than it is now. Sometimes. Others are there because they were there before. Rigid difficulty settings and locked enemy patterns are NES paradigms that we never shook off. It's quite easy to randomize enemy spawns and types. Adjusting variables on-the-fly isn't a lot harder. The industry just never got past the NES, though the logic behind the NES paradigm is long gone(For the games being made at the time, specific placement of enemies on the map was the most effective way of manipulating difficulty. Doesn't work so well in 3D.).

SCE has tended to have good advertizing. Yeah. Every division has their own products, and there's a LOT of infighting. To the degree that Sony will often pay for an outside company's product when they have an in-house project that does exactly what they need. That's one fight. They're still major players in the TV and audio markets. They died, then came back somewhere around 98. Their popularity waned as hard-drive MP3 players rose(Sony's stubborn insistence on only supporting ATRAC at the time didn't help). While a major improvement over the earlier revisions of the disk format, 1GB isn't what I'd call virtually unlimited. I have 4 GB of just music. My last PC backup required multiple DVDRWs. Apple pushes a lot harder than anyone else in the industry. It's how the iPod became and remains the dominant MP3 player. Sony isn't pushing any less hard than any other TV, stereo, or game system manufacturer from what I've seen.

Ahh. Thanks JB0. I just had a giddy giggle fest to that. Poop jokes make me laugh. Especially if they're worked into otherwise non-poop-related discussion so brilliantly. 396900[/snapback] It wans't really a poop joke. I was just following to the the logical conclusion of the ACTUAL joke, which was that he was tough enough to chug molten rock on a regular basis.

Bootleg cards? Do you mean non-Sony brand cards, or are the chinese running around slapping huge flash RAM chips into MemStick casings with "SonDisk" and Samy" engraved in them?

Actually if I recall, the Macross simply overloaded it's barrier inside Bodolza's baseship and took it down from the inside out. You may be confusing DYRL with SDF Macross... 398470[/snapback] You're confusing Robotech with Macross. The "Robotech Masters" in Robotech theorized that an inverted barrier, when overloaded, could kill the flagship. In Macross, it was an overglorified version of a Daedalus Attack. Put pinpoint barriers up(an upgraded version no less! I counted 4 disks.), ram the ship to get through the outer armor, plow through the soft squishy innards until you're in the core, fire EVERY REACTION WEAPON ON THE SHIP, and then put the barrier up to save the Macross from the ensuing explosion to end all explosions when all those nukes started hitting things. Which it did, to a large degree. The Macross took damage(it looks pretty rough when it's coming back down to Earth at the end), but was intact and repairable. Remember, a barrier overload only releases the energy the barrier has absorbed. If they nukled their barrier, they'd just spread the power of their nukes out over a very wide area, diluting the force delivered to any one target massively. Better to directly hit targets with the nukes. And really, I never understood why the Robotech Masters thought a barrier inversion and overload was needed when they were inside the armor and firing at things.

That is one of the most insulting things to say about your friggin customers! Lets hope those same hardcore gamers don't have subscriptions to Time magazine, oh wait a-minute they're of the age bracket that actually buys that rag. However it's entirely Atypically of the console industry, and most other ones also, to say "Screw you!" to the fans that made them. It's ACCURATE, though. If you ask gamers what they want, they point to something they like currently, and say "That." They don't think beyond what's there now. Would you like to know what gamers have explicitly said they DON'T want? More than one fire button, analog joysticks, and polygon graphics. Based on the fuss raised when the controller was initially unveiled, they are. Tech that's never been effectively leveraged in the video game industry. I think you mean accept. And no one's FORCED to accept it. If people really hate the Wiimote, they... WON'T BUY A WII! Shocking, I know. But the fact that Sony expended the effort to steal the primary feature of the Wiimote indicates that people ARE interested. BTW, what's so bad about an upgraded GameCube? The SNES was an upgraded NES. The Genesis was an upgraded Master System. The PS2 was (debatably) an upgraded PS1. The XBox 360 and PS3 both use upgraded versions of the GameCube CPU. Upgrading the GameCube makes the system more powerful, while at the same time leaving programmers with a familiar architecture to work with. It's actually a GOOD thing. Maybe you mean the Wii isn't ENOUGH of an upgrade. Let's see... MS is losing money on every 300-400$ 360. Sony's priced the PS3 at 500 dollars minimum, with 600 getting you the HDTV support they've been hyping as an integral part of the PS3 experience. I ASSUME they're at least breaking even, given Sony can't afford to take massive losses in their game division right now. Nintendo has explicitly targeted a system that's profitable at a 2-3 hundred price tag from when they started development. Me personally? I think 300 is about the upper limit for a reasonable game machine price. The PS3 may as well not exist right now, and the 360 needs a price cut(the 300$ version is actually 340, since you have to buy an overpriced proprietary memory card). A surprise would be high-quality games instead of tired retread sequels? I thought we were talking about Nintendo, not Sony. Squeenix doesn't make Star Ocean. tri-Ace does. tri-Ace MIGHT make a Wii game. They gravitate towards unique gameplay ideas, which Wii happens to be very inviting of. Squeenix is already booked for FF: Crystal Chronicles 2. Which isn't what you meant. But I don't see how motion-tracking benefits mainline FF. Last I heard, it was highly menu-driven.

I grant all movies some liberty. Otherwise I'd be running around bitching about how everything flickers at 24Hz.

Damn... now I need a WonderSwan.

Enlighten me. How does the ring make no sense? I'm not being difficult-- I actually think the ring looks dumb, overused, and like a Star Trek VI ripoff. But I need real reasons to hate it. 398296[/snapback] There's just no way to make it happen. That's part of why it looks dumb. It bothered me about as much as the fact that there was sound in space. 398308[/snapback] Yeah... I grant sounds under artistic license. Physics-defying laser rings... no. I did like that about the old PC game Tyrian, though. They claimed the sounds were generated by the ship's computer in response to sensor readings.

For what it's stated in the series and it appears, it actually does. It seems like Zentran's main guns' range are around a stable orbit from Earth (50,000 km at most?), while the Macross blasts the 2 scout ships Vlrithai sends from Earth's atmosphere and up to around half way to moon orbit (150,000 km?). Those are both minimum ranges. We have nothing to go by for maximums. Though the fact that the Macross' cannon ripped through a wall of rock, boiled off a large mass of water, and tore through the atmosphere BEFORE punching that zentradi vessel(which it went through like it wasn't there) implies a VERY high range based on power output. And the rock, steam, and air failed to disrupt the beam's coherence signifigantly. I think the functional ranges are limited by sensor accuracy as opposed to the weapon. We had the legendary reaction weaponry. We rebuilt the ASS. We could've added reaction weaponry to the ASS. They didn't really consider the vessel in and of itself to be a threat. They chased it because it was part of the Supervision Army. They let us live because they wanted our nukes. Then they got culturally contaminated and tried to exterminate us. But we had a SEKRIT WEAPON, insider knowledge, and a large deal of zentradi defectors. And yes, luck. Bodol was polite enough to park near the Grand Cannon's attack area, so when it fired, it cleared a path straight through the fleet for easy access to the command center.

I just had a thought... Sony's been in bad financial shape recently. SCE was basically all that kept them afloat last year. They NEED to turn a profit on their games division. Likely why the PS3 is priced as high as it is, so they don't lose money on it. But they won't actually be GAINING a lot if it doesn't move, which it isn't likely to do. Hence, the jump in PSP ads recently. It's a profitable chunk of plastic, and they can move it. The PSP may be Sony's primary platform in the near future.

Some of those are pretty slick. So... Scrapmetal is Perceptor's little brother, huh?

I guess its an age thing. Those of us who saw them in the theaters, who grew up knowing them one way, want to be able to see them that way again. For us, the SE films detract from the experience, not add to it. 398027[/snapback] I beg to differ. The only one I didn't see in the theaters was ANH. I still prefer the new DVD versions. 398225[/snapback] As much as people like to scream bloody murder today, the revised ANH Death Star battle was damn cool to see in the theater, back in '97. 398234[/snapback] Unless you're the analytical guy going "How the fack did they get a donut explosion? That stupid ring makes no freaking sense!"

I THINK so. If it is, it should benefit from the vastly higher image quality of DVD. I actually started rewatching my VHS set the other day. Was surprised at exactly how bad the image was. Couldn't even get a proper black, just some soupy gray.

Are you attempting to imply that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade wasn't real?