JB0

Free downloadable games is such a bad idea and its going to spell doom for Nintendo. I doubt that. It's only going to be the NES, SNES, and N64 games...that's the rumor anyway. So it's not like they're going to be giving away free GameCube and Revolution games. Hell...if you really can d/l N64 on that thing, I'll definitely be d/l-ing Conker's Bad Furday. Most people dun have the bandwidth to download 'Cube and Revolution games. ... Though having smaller games that were ONLY available online... that'd be neat. Except as I recall, MS already does that with XBox Live Arcade...

AFAIK, Nintendo owned them before or during the development of Prime 1. I was under the impression they were an independent 3rd party developer before Prime 1 hit the shelves. The way I see it, Retro as it exists now is just another Nintendo development team. ... As is evidenced by the fact that Prime 2's suitless Samus was that danged Zero Mission character design instead of an extension of the beauty they created for Prime 1's helmetless shot. Last time I looked, the Xbox was second worldwide, with solid 2nd place showings in the US and Europe. Nintendo was only second in Japan. Maybe I missed something. Last I'd seen Nintendo was slightly ahead worldwide. Like I said, they're so close it doesn't matter. I think it was more casual gamers than non-gamers. I think about it like this... what's the point of making a car for a non-driver? Because if you can convince them they need to drive, then you've got more sales. Sports gamers were already on the Genesis. PS1 did a lot better than the Genny did. It expanded the market greatly, by making a lot of non-gamers into casual gamers. Luigi's Mansion, sure. But Mario Sunshine? Take out the over-sized squirt gun, and it was nearly identical. I thought the squirt gun was generally considered as having a major impact on game play. My mistake. Except they forced Windwaker out incomplete, and delayed Ocarina of Time untill it was ready. ... Well, it's true. And Rare did the one before that. Of course, as Nintendo owned Rare, they could be considered a Nintendo dev team. Speaking of Star Fox Assaut... whatever happened to the arcade version? Speaking of that, saw some screen shots of a new 2D gameplay Mario a while back. I WANTS IT! That's partly true. But the DS has been out for a good six months now. And Feel the Magic and WarioWare are still the best games on it. Yah. I really think it was launched too early. ... Wait, where's Mr. Driller? DRILLA-SAN AM OWN!111 Meh. That sums up my thoguhts about the PSP nicely. I'll tell you when I see something interesting enough to justify the price tag. Capcom is actually one my favorite, if not the favorite developer. I like Capcom a good bit of the time too. But PN3 is still a decidedly bargin-bin title. I've seen some stores that've been trying to unload it for over a year now with little success. Vanessa deserves better than that, even if she is decidedly lacking in anti-aliasing. GO NINTENDO GO! PROVE HIM WRONG! I'm rooting FOR you. Really.

A. Higher cost. B. At this point, it'd be one of 2 standards, neither of which is guaranteed to be the winner. It'll suck for MS if they use HD-DVD, BluRay wins, and they start having trouble finding HD-DVD plants to stamp their disks. But not a full DVD. People were filling CDs on the PS1. And the SegaCD. And the *insert CD-based system/add-on here*. CDs were maxed out pretty fast. DVD is still running half-empty. Actually, FMV is dying off again. The real-time graphics are getting good enough that there's no advantage over the in-game models. There were a few 2-disk GD-ROM games. I think 3 of them. It CAN hurt if you pick the wrong drive. Sony didn't even have tech demos. Well, not PS3 tech demos. They had demos running on A nVidia chipset, but not the one going in the PS3. It was a pair of nVidia's next PC chipset, running in SLI mode. Fair bit more power than the PS3 will have, if for no other reason than the PS3 only has 1 chip.

I think that has more to do with Retro Studios, an American company, than Nintendo, or more specifically, Satoru Iwata. Thought Nintendo bought Retro Studios up after Prime 1. I don't think it is. Making games for non-gamers seems to me like making TVs for the Amish. If Nintendo were really concerned about expaning their market, they'd go after the casual gamer, the mainstream that Sony and Microsoft have been after. Sony got where they are now by pursuing the casual gamers and non-gamers. The key to the PS1's success wasn't hardcore stuff. It was sports games and FMV eyecandy. True. Sega is awesome. And I wish they still made hardware. Was nice to see a system with 1st-party arcade sticks and exotic peripherals(TWIN STICKS YAY!). I guess Nintendo's "hardcore" appeal depends on how you look at things. I like that they keep trying new stuff. For all their faults, Mario Sunshine and Luigi's Mansion WEREN'T straight copies of Mario 64(I have no desire to own any of the 3, though). ... On the other hand, they refuse to do a proper port of arcade Donkey Kong(prefering instead to keep feeding the same 1st-gen NES game back out), and are pretending DK Jr. and non-Super Mario Brothers never happened. Heck, their entire retro lineup has been lacking. One aspect-borked NES game on your GBA for 20$! YAY! At least they're doing the retro console stuff right on the Revolution. Still curious as to what all 3rd-party software's gonna be there. One can only hope that they'll score some of the "cult classics" as well as the big name hits. Metal Storm, Blaster Master, and Crystalis are every bit as good as Gradius, Contra, and Ninja Gaiden. And if that happens... PLEASE let it be the NES Crystalis, not the GBC version! I definately don't have a problem with parents getting involved with what their children are doing, or even trying to play their children's games. And while I admit that I do like games like WarioWare, I like them like I enjoy an appetizer before I get to the main course. And while you're right to say that games like that aren't all they do, they're all they have been doing for the DS, which I see as the first victim of Iwata's "simplification" kick. So, yeah, I think that this simplification thing is like dumbing down games to make them more appealing to non-gamers, and I see that coming at the expense of a truly engaging game. Fair enough. Personally, I think the DS is still picking up steam. We're seeing the simple games because they're the first ones done. ... Freaking HELL! ANOTHER damned Silver Star Story remake? STOP RAPING THE LICENSE, GAME ARTS! At least they can't touch my SegaCD. On a positive note, it looks like Metroid DS is coming out in October. Only a year after they turned the demo loose on everyone. And with luck, Nintendo will make a larger effort to get 3rd party developers this time. That makes 2 of us. I own TWO Virtual Boys. ... But one was knocked out of alignment when someone broke into the house. Hence the second unit, as it was cheaper to replace than fix at the time. SNES was my first modern console. Hopping from a Vectrex, 99/4a computer, and 3rd-hand 2600 to SNES was an amazing leap. Even if the 99/4a DID have a lot of speech. Someday I'll get an N64. There's a few titles on that I want pretty bad(Blast Corps, Mischief Makers). And as I've said before, I really like my 'Cube. It was my first current gen console because it had the stuff I most wanted to play. Even if one of the big reasons was Capcom's perpetual bargin-bin title PN03. WHICH KICKS ASS, SO THERE! *PBBBTH* Second worldwide! (Never mind this is largely because Japan treats the XBox worse than the GBA-nonSP, which sadly isn't even in manufacture anymore.) Really, though, with second so far from first, it doesn't matter. It's like complaining because the Atari 7800 didn't outsell the Sega Master System. ... Okay, it's not THAT bad. But both companies are still pretty close to each other, and pretty far from Sony.

My bet: It'll be DVD-ROM for it's entire life, estimated at 5 years. No big deal, really. Most current games aren't using half the capacity of DVDs anyways. Why use a more expensive disk and then HOPE that it's the one that becomes standard? And upgrades tend to not go over very well. Even when they ARE commercial successes, people look back and talk about how horrible an idea it was. Often the same people that were, at the time, complaining because the competition wasn't releasing similar upgrades.

Nah. It was a select few games that had issues. Was Atari's idea first. 7800 ran 2600 titles. As far as mainstream systems go, the Genesis was backwards-compatible with the Master System, as was the GameGear. And the GameBoy family was backwards compatible all down the line(GBA>GBC>GBO). Sony was just the first company to have one mainstream home system be compatible with another mainstream home system.

I'm betting that it's built-in emulation, and while it will accept all games, they're just only GUARANTEEING it will run the best-sellers(to avoid the sort of complaints that dinged the PS2 early because some games didn't run and others ran but had sever glitches).

Funny, that's how I feel about Nintendo. Nintendo is starting to develop an undeserved reputation for being the choice for the "hardcore" gamer, simply because they refuse to go after the mainstream the way Sony and Microsoft have, and because unlike Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo is only in videogames. I'm going by what I see. Even idiotic stuff, like putting a deathmatch mode into Metroid Prime 2 because so many people complained that Prime 1 didn't have one. It's a logical move. I still think Nintendo wants the hardcore market too, though. Is that necessarily a bad thing? But that's NOT all they do. And I LIKE WarioWare. Admittedly it's not 30$ worth of like, but...

I do have serious issues with Iwata. It's like if he keeps saying that Nintendo is about fun and innovation, maybe people will start to believe it. And now they're on this "simplifcation" kick... Hey, simplification can be a good thing. Take, for example, Mars Matrix(mainly because it's a damn fun game). The arcade game has exactly one fire button. This one button controls 3 seperate and distinct actions. Biggest problem: If your finger lingers down too long, you accidentally activate your shields. The Dreamcast port added a rapid fire and charge-beam rapid fire button, greatly simplifying the game and reducing accidental shield activation. That's also something that kept me from getting into fighting games back when Street Fighter 2 was the biggest thing in the industry. There's just too much there to memorize. I play them every now and then, but quite bluntly, I suck. I know a few basic moves, but extended combo chains, counter-combos, etc. are beyond me. Of course, it all depends on WHAT you simplify. Dumbing down an RPG or strategy title is generally a Bad Thing. Cleaning up an action game can generally only improve it. It's almost like Iwata wants to screw the serious gamers in favor of delivering dog-petting sims for non-gamers. There's a lot of serious gamers that are interested in Nintendogs, actually. Either way, though... it's among the the best-selling games in Japan currently, so the plan is sound. I'll skip it, mainly because I've done the virtual pet thing already. My sister did Dogz and Catz on the PC for a long time, and I tried it then. While I'm SURE Nintendogs is better-implemented than those were, I'm strongly of the opinion that real dogs are more interesting. I like the fact that Nintendo is trying diffrent things. Even if some of them stink. He doesn't sound dumb to me, just really arrogant. His comments on the PS3 can be basically boiled down to, "We can do what we want, and charge what we want for it, and you will all buy it, because it's PlayStation." See, he DOES sound arrogant. But the whole PS1/SNES comparison makes him sound dumb too. Funny, that's how I feel about Nintendo.

Yah. I'm starting to take a perverse joy in seeing him issue statements. First the "PSP IS A WORK OF ART, IT'S NOT BROKE, WE WON'T CHANGE IT! Oh, my bad. We did change it." speil, now this. He's a stage away from being a stand-up comedian.

Yah. And the fact that the software wasn't ready didn't help either. It was one error after another after another. Largely because Sega Japan was pissed that Sega America made the Genesis a success, which Sega Japan failed to do with the MegaDrive. Everything Sega America tried to do was over-riden by Sega Japan.

Holy flaming assgoblins, Batman! Sheesh, the battle wasn't even SNES VS PlayStation. It was PlayStation VS Saturn. And the PS won that battle PRIMARILY on price. Edit: Bovine U's alumnus is back? Color me dissapointed. True, the Saturn's US launch was screwy. BUt even after, Tom made weird choice after bad choice. And the advertising didn't help...Coneheads? One of the Saturn's primary problems was price, though. Sony launched a hundred dollars cheaper, and Sega couldn't really afford to keep up, though they tried. The PS1 was cheap hardware, the Saturn was dang expensive hardware, and Sega was bleeding red ink all over the place trying to keep pace with Sony's rapid-fire price cuts. At one point, they actually asked retailers to sell the decks at a loss, in an attempt to stem the gushing flow of red ink. That's when the Saturn lost most of it's shelf space, not surprisingly.

Holy flaming assgoblins, Batman! Sheesh, the battle wasn't even SNES VS PlayStation. It was PlayStation VS Saturn. And the PS won that battle PRIMARILY on price. Edit: Bovine U's alumnus is back? Color me dissapointed.

I hope Rare has secretely cancelled Perfect Dark and is hard at work developing a sequel to Taboo. Forget both of those games. I wouldn't mind seeing them remake Conker again for the 360! (It's probably the only game franchise that I like by Rare.) Calling Taboo a game is being a tad generous.

I hope Rare has secretely cancelled Perfect Dark and is hard at work developing a sequel to Taboo.

All I ever heard about it was that it was going to suck.

Ummm... the PS2 is a notoriously crappy DVD player. Hardly the thing to compare to when determining if something's a "pretty decent" player.

No, actually, it's even easier than that..what I meant is that the rendering program itself can convert the model into a "cartoony" looking model. There is a demo with Open Scene Graph that does this. Basically, it just does solid shading and emphasises the edges. The "cartoon" renderer uses the exact same model, it just changes the way it is drawn. I'm not sure exactly how this works, I just know that the renderer itself on the client side is responsible and that it works with the same model that the normal rendering routines use. It doesn't apply texture-maps, and then it cel-shades the model. But it'd make more sense to have a seperate set of models explicitly designed to look good when cel-shaded, IMO. If nothing else, you'd need a new set of texture maps to provide new detail.

Is there a way to hack the game and get the source code? Nope. They only distribute compiled binaries. And all you can get from those is uncommented assembly code, which is near-impossible to read. Back in the days before the PlayStation, uncommented assembly was close to source code, because console games were written in assembly. If you knew your stuff you could trace the code and figure out what was going on, though it would take some work(even fully commented source is hard to figure out sometimes). But modern games are written in a high-level language and then compiled. And compiler-generated assembly is totally insane from a human point of view. I would bet that they watch the RAM to see what addresses change with what game effects, much like you do if you make your own codes. But they've got better equipment for the task(say, a deck with a memory monitor in it), making it easier to find codes as well as to find more complex codes. Without knowing what was going on there, I can't make more than a guess as to what they did. I'm betting there weren't any changes made to the exectuable, though. That depends VERY greatly on the programming style used. But hacking the executable can be pretty much discarded outright in terms of feasability. What you likely CAN do is skim through the data files. Find where it keeps fighter information and check if the rumored VFs are in the list. That'll at least answer if they're there. If they're there, the EASY thing to do would be hack a RAM code to replace an existing fighter with the desired one. I strongly suspect they were thrown out of the game; but it is quite possible that while the mechanism to unlock them was removed, the models, texture maps, and data entries were left on the disk(it's happened before).

ALL Playstation and PS2 games are region-coded. Not just Macross. So you will need a japanese deck or a region-lockout bypass of one form or another(modchips, disk swaps, etc).

Irony: I bought a Macross CD for the specific purpose of having some legal Macross MP3s. Then found out hte disk was a bootleg.

Can't access the source code unless you're on teh dev team. It's not shipped out on the game disks. Disassembling the binary would leave you with a heap of uncommented assembly code, and hypothetically you COULD hunt codes down in that. But it'd be a royal pain in the butt. So yeah, getting ahold of hte dev team would be the way to go.

Funny, first thing I thought when I saw this thread up top again was "Another one?" Then I realized we couldn't have generated 21 pages of posts(yes, I did in fact change the posts per page setting in my profile) if it was a new thread.

But, but... I LIKE cartoony graphics. That was one of Robotech: Battlecry's best features, IMO. lol, yeah for cartoony graphics! Actually, it could probably be setup so that each player can decide if they want cartoony or "regular" renderings. I believe the renderer can actually be changed so that it "converts" regular into cartoon, although I'm not sure how well it works. Remember, online games don't send graphical data back and forth. Just the information your client needs to assemble what everyone's character looks like from it's own models. Just make 2 diffrent sets of everything, one for realistic texture-mapped graphics and one for cartoony cel-shaded graphics. From there, it doesn't make SENSE to send a bit saying if it's cartoony or realistic, because having a mix would destroy the game's environment totally. So it'd be a simple matter of picking what set you want to see and there ya go.

BECUZ I AM HARDCORE OLDSKOOOL YO!111111