JB0

I've owned the same CD player since I was in Jr. High, the same DVD player since maybe a year after the PS2 came out. I've had my Xbox since it came out, and I've had my Gamecube since it came out. The CD player in my car has been there for three years. Aside from my PS2 going bad, I'm yet to have to recalibrate any of them. I feel obliged to add my SegaCD2 to the list. Baby's still ticking along as well as when she rolled off the assembly line. My original pre-PS2 DVD player from 1998 was scrapped a few weeks ago, but not due to drive mech problems.

I had two Maxtor drives (same model, same revision) go within a week of eachother this spring. I quickly went to Seagate. I had my original 1 gig Maxtor from my first IBM clone die a month or 2 ago. Made it almost a decade. And no, it was not still my primary drive. Wasn't even in my primary machine.

Meh. I play PC games from time to time. But I'm not fond of the "standard" controller, find keeping up with the hardware more difficult (and costly) than on consoles, and while there are a few I enjoy, most of the games I like just aren't on PCs.

My sister's were a 30k, 35k, and a second 30k.

I've heard stories that using the PS2 as a DVD player had something to do with it, but I'm not entirely certain that's it. When I first got my PS2, I used it as a DVD player, but then I shortly bought a stand-alone DVD player. My PS2 was fine until last spring, when it stopped playing CD-ROM games. I've been told using CDs in the PS2 makes it die faster. But the guy offering said theory was an idiot, and his explanations for why were totally unsound and made false assumptions on how the drive works. Personally: I've got a 7000 series PS1. The drive open button is worn and must be fiddled with to get the door to lock back down when you close it. I've had black plastic tabs fall out of the case on 2 seperate occasions, which raises a few red flags. But as of yet the system has not outright failed on me. My sister bought a "refurbished" PS2 from EB. Had to exchange it twice to get a properly-functioning one. The shopkeeper wass rather annoyed by the whole sequence, and gave her a free magazine for her trouble plus promised a complaint to corporate because it just shouldn't be happening. On both systems the pure plastic drive mech is a major weakness. As a longstanding keeper of old hardware, I find it offensive. The PlayStation hardware is explicitly DESIGNED to fail. Sadly, the Dreamcast drive mechs also have a "weak point", despite the superior construction of the mech(YAY! METAL DRIVE RAILS!). They used cheap spindle motors that wear out fast. When the brushes go, the motors short out and blow the drive controller on the motherboard. Which is a custom part, and impossible to replace without another Dreamcsat to sacrifice.

No. They usually don't require regular mucking with the hardware in ways the components were not intended to be mucked with. If you're lucky, they don't require any mucking of any sort(*cough*Dreamcast*cough*).

*rummages up the Genny's native res...* Hey, 320*224. Almost a perfect fit(provided you anti-letterbox it to preserve aspect ratio). Original Lunar 2 on a PSP... Damn, but that'd be tempting.

Couldn't have said it better me-self... Luke should have a rather confused look on his face when he sees these "ghosts" appear. . . considering he has no way of recognizing his father as a young man. In the original, it's obviously the man that Luke just burned on the funeral pyre. But who's this young guy glaring at him? *spins BS excuse about non-visual communication*

Zelda 64 was going to be one of my reasons to get an N64. But then the system got pushed back a year, and the game got pushed back 2 more, if I recall.

For the challenging of a virtually absolute monopoly, I call it a damn fine job. Being a fanboy, you would. BTW, you are no longer allowed to talk gaming consoles here, this is now officially another Batman Begins thread. Actually, I was a devout Nintendo loyalist in the 16-bit era, as well as the early 32-bit stuff, at which point I shifted to hardware neutrality(wouldn't you after seeing the N64?).

Someone's gotta do it. you bought jerry's? i didn't know the macross game doesn't have sound. that's too bad. The macross plus board is cool cuz it's a double board. I don't have that one though. i ahve the macross one but I don't have a machine to play it on. Yup, thats' me. It lives as part of my collecion now! Who said the Macross game does not have sound??? That's ridiculous! Mine has sound & music. In fact it plays quite loudly. It doesn't in MAME. I assumed that was what he was talking about.

For the challenging of a virtually absolute monopoly, I call it a damn fine job.

No, it didn't. SNES outsold it 31.67 million in the US to Genesis' 27.17 million. Do any of you bother to check yoru facts? Interesting tidbit, the Genesis only sold 3.58 million units in Japan. Translation: Basically equal. And yes. The japanese Megadrive was a disaster.

My mistake. I don't keep up too closely with random revisions. And hey, media swapping is a traditional lockout bypass.

I'm not so certain about that. The PSX came out with the Sega Saturn as it's only real competition. The Saturn was a beast of a machine, and could boast more power than many consoles before or since. However, the majority of that was geared towards 2D gaming. The PSX suffered in that department by a wide margin, but was noticibly better in the 3D department. It still wasn't pretty, but it was affordable hardware accellerated graphics for pretty much the first time, and people loved it. Actually, the Saturn's more powerful in BOTH regions, though it's less pronounced in 3D. But Sony focused on pushing polygon games while Sega focused more on the old standby of sprite/tile. That was a REALLY big factor. Funny, I was being hammered with the same Sega Scream ads as hit me later in the Genesis' life. Of course, I hated those ads. Mainly beause htey marketed them better. *chuckles* IMO, it's more because they have a really, really good ad team.

Your numbers for the 16-bit era(where most of the Sega fanboys came from) kinda make my point, actually. Nintendo went from total mastery of the market to a close race in 5 years. ... These worldwide sales? I can't think of how the Master System could get that big a % otherwise. And I know the Genesis wasn't very popular in Japan, which would explain the disparity. The 50% #s I was quoting for the 16-bits was US-only. I feel obliged to note that the Genesis, Saturn, and Dremcast were all 3 killed while still in demand in one region(Genny in America, Saturn and DC in Japan). Though I wouldn't call your #s "clearly dominated" on the current-gens(particularly since Sega just shouted "Screw it, we give up, and I hope you get AIDS, Sony!" early into the current gen). 8-bits and last-gen, though... yeah, they got trounced bad. 16-bits was 3-5(ish). That's not that bad, especially for going up against THE competition. It's like if Apple took a third of the market from Microsoft over the next 5 years. It's DAMN good.

Sadly, most of the emulators are still pretty primitive. They've gotten NES and 8Bit GameBoy running full speed with sound, but not much else(though PCEngine and SNES are close to it). Or so I've heard.

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=71316 Apparently, there's a proram out that lets homebrew applications, previously limited to the 1.0 BIOS shipped in japanese launch units, run on the newest 1.5 BIOS, through a memory stick swap(which apparently means you need 2 memsticks).

Nintendo was NOT on top when the PS1 came out! They were IN FREEFALL! Nintendo comitted suicide when they didn't have a replacement for the NES ready to go immediatly after the Genesis. They spent 2 years developing a new system while Sega chiseled away at their customer base. And when it came out, it had a cripplingly slow CPU, making fast and complex games, likes team sports titles and shooters, difficult to do. These sorts of titles became the Genesis' strong points, while the SNES went for slower titles where it's superior AV hardware could give it an advantage over the Genesis. But the POINT is ...they went from 95% market share to 50% in the 16-bit era. And I think a large deal of that was name recognition. Nintendo at the time was virtually synonomous with "video game" in the same way that Atari was before. It didn't matter who actually made the system or software, you had "nintendo games." And the SNES had some VERY strong licenses, such as Zelda and Mario(though Sonic very rapidly achieved his own brand recognition). And they STILL didn't learn their lesson, and were again late with the Nintendo 64. Once again, a large portion of the market had already made it's choice by the time Nintendo made it to shelves. Only this time, name recognition wouldn't save them, as they'd squandered it all away last generation, and were charging more for their games in an attempt to snag CD-style profits off ROM carts(which did a lot to squash any lingering vestiges in much the same way that the 32x debacle seriously hurt Sega on the Saturn). And, of course, a botched Japanese launch meant there was a disturbing lack of support from the usual console game developers(which are all japanese). Nintendo's fall from grace was not a single botched alliance. It was a long process, with a LOT of screwups.

I like that analogy, actually. ... Does this mean he'll be doing mainly Revolution games?

Glad this is bumped. That's a damn nice cab(mainly because of the "marquee"), and I missed it the first time around.

YAY! SRX!

Personal bet: You'll have better luck looking for the NES Strider on the Revolution than getting a new one on PS3. ... Hey, that's an idea. Companies could resurrect licenses by getting the old NES/SNES games out on the Revolution download, using it to re-introduce the name, then release a remake/sequel.

Isamu had issues to start with. Besides, from his point of view he was at rock bottom. Lost his job, his girlfriend, didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to Myung. What'd he have to lose by blowing the crap out of the Ghost? Makes a strong political statement, and he might even catch part of Sharon/Myung's concert before they cuffed him and hauled him away. Having said that, Mac+ isn't the deepest entry in the series.

I have but one thing to say to this... GUNDAMMIT!