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SONY LOST £170MILLION FROM THEIR GAMES DEPARTMENT OVER THE LAST YEAR
-This means nothing except sony are shipping hardware at a loss, and are trying to gain money from games. Like the printer industry- the printers are sold at a loss, and the manufacturers make loads of money on the print carts.
SONY IS ONLY 128- SAME AS DC
-Whoever said that should really do some reading up. The "bit speed" of a console means NOTHING! What is important are the CPU speed and the architecture. However, even more importantly- how much time developers work on the console for. To give you an example of the above:
1)DC and PS2 have the same bit rate, but the PS2 is capable of more polygons
2)The architecture of the DC is based on a PC. This makes very easy development as no new concepts need to be learned. The PS2 has different architecture that does make things harder AT FIRST. After this, good games will appear.
3)Many developers have said they are making games for the PS2 becuase they have invested so much in it so far that they can't stop support. Therefore they are bound to the console and will make great games. HAd the same thing happened with the Sega Saturn, then developers would also have made stunning games (in fact there were some excellent ones... like my namesake;)
THE GAMECUBE IS MORE FLEXIBLE
-Why? Because Nintendo have said so, and magazines have copied this. In fact the people who write magazines are NOT programmers... they just print what is said. In reality, the PS2 dev kits were disapointing. However, some great support has been built at Sony, and now it is easily on par with the Gamecube.
THE GAMECUBE WILL HAVE BETTER GAMES
-AH! So you've played them then? Reality: If I were to judge the GC now I would say "it is P00". The reason is on the E3 show. There was no mario game. There was no Zelda game. Metroid and other games had jerky graphics. Luidgi's mansion was simply "walk with the C-pad, move vaccuum with the other pad, suck in ghosts." That is based on fact.
BEFORE you argue, let me explain why I said this. NOT to say GC will be bad. In all likelyhood I will get one- but only if the games appeal (which zelda and the like do). However, all these biased fans who say "GC games are much better" are kidding themselves. At the moment they aren't even playable! They will be great (well, some of them), but there will be just as good games on the other consoles!
XBOX IS ALREADY DEAD
-Well, let me see. It has a $500million advertising budget. It has extremely good exclusive games- something that Sony MIGHT lose the edge on if developers port games to other consoles. For example, xbox has Abes' Exodus (or whatever oddworl game is next), Halo and DOA3.
And the rubbish about Xbox being a PC and crashing. How do you know this? Have you examined the hardware scematics- or just listened to what other biased mags say? Fact is that the Xbox most resembles an upgraded DC. It does not have many PC ports- no more than the PS2, and has plenty of good games. It will do extremely well in America.
X IS MORE POWERFUL THAN Y
-More "powerful". What does that mean? The Atarui Jaguar was (in theory but not in reality... so don't argue bonus- this is an example!), a 64 bit console in a 16 bit era, But there was only one notable game that I could remember Alien vs Preditor. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE GAMES.
CONSOLES WARS
-Why do people pledge alligance to consoles by saying it is the best. Have you played a GC? Then why do you mock/praise its games? How can you say that it is the best thing since sliced bread? And why pledge alligance at all? I admit the PS2 will have great games, but am disapointed with what Sony have done so far. I love the DC games, but curse Sega for the lack of advertising. I am looking forward to the GC, but am annoyed that Ninty has put so much hype on it via the press. I love the exclusive games on xbox, but can see that it might have serious consequences for future competition in the market.
Feel free to add bits!
NiGHTS!
NiGHTS!
Oh, before i go i would just like to say that nintendo rule and nothing else comes even close to matching their amazingly high standard of console gaming, thankyou and goodbye. : D
If you would like to argue this point further please send a cheque of £29.99 made out to Sir Stick of Stick forest. For your £29.99 you will recieve a letter containing complete rubbish and a leaf from the ground of stick forest.
PLEASE NOTE COLOUR OF LEAF MAY VARY.
> Well done on your win Nights : - )
Ironically I had actually left the discussions, and just came back 2day to see that I'd won! woo hoo!
Anyway, res evil bloke has the best pick of the lot:
Everyone seems biased against Xbox- but what about Gamecube?
Name a game that will be released and developed by ninty that will really be AAA quality. The only thing close is Luigi's Mansion, but if you were to actually know what it was about then you may be a little disapointed!
NiGHTS!
It's all down to how much you like the games on your system really. Don't like another system? Well, don't buy it then! Just don't complain or laugh at other people when they do, they're probably enjoying their console as much as you are with yours.
It would be like saying "I don't like Strawberry Icecream, so I don't think anyone should..." Pointless!
Exactly man i agree, I saw the xbox running a couple of times and saw it jerk like crazy and heard it crashed at E3 but lately Tony Hawk 3 on the xbox was up and running and WOW in a word, no glitching, slow down or problems.
Gamecube haha too right, ninty's get at us for having bad games when theirs are YEARS off and they'll see the same run in as we did.
FICTIONAL ALTHOUGH INSPIRED BY REAL PERSONS
"say again"
"mario GC will be better than anything on greystation"
"sorry mate it's kinda a long wait off just like MGS2 and Devil May cry"
"yeah but but it's gona kick sony's buttocks"
"dude by the time you eventually get mario we'll have the internet,hard drive,force feedback controllers,devil may cry,alone in the dark 4,wipeout fusion,final fantasy X,USB devices,5:1 digital sound games,jak and daxter, and good old ability to play ONLINE"
"yeah but nintendo's better,thats what all my mates say AND it were in magazine"
"dude your mum wants you"
hahaha sorry i had a late night and havn't recovered from it yet so this may be offensive or completly stupid i can't think to make out which.
Megadrive Technical Specs :
Model Number: MK-1601 (r1), MK-1631 (r2), MK-1641 (r3)
CPU: Motorola 68000 at 7.61 MHz
ROM: 1 MByte (8 Mbit)
RAM: 64 KByte
Co-processor: Z80 @ 4 MHz (Not Present in MK-1631)
controls PSG (Programmable Sound Generator) & FM Chips
Sound RAM: 8 KBytes
Colors Available: 512
Colors on screen: 64
Pixel Resolution: 320 x 224
Graphics: VDP (Video Display Processor) dedicated video display processor, controls playfield & sprites.
3 Planes, 2 scrolling playfields, 1 sprite plane
VRAM: 64 KBytes (Video Ram)
CRAM: 64 x 9-bits (Color RAM)
Sound: PSG (TI 76489 chip)
FM chip (Yamaha YM 2612)
6-channel stereo
8 KBytes RAM Signal/Noise Ratio: 14dB
Other interesting stuff I found on another site
http://www.digitpress.com/ faq/megadrive.htm (remove spaces)
2.1 can you play Japanese or U.S games on a U.K Megadrive?
Originally the Japanese games did not fit a European Megadrive because the cartridges were a slightly wider and a different shape to the European games. This was easy to overcome by either using a converter cartridge that simply extended the Megadrive’s cartridge connector and then you just plugged the Japanese game on top.
Or the other way you could overcome this was by cutting two notches out from the side of the cartridge port so the Japanese game would fit.
Early Genesis games had no protection at all and could played without a
converter or any modification. July 1992 saw extra protection being added to a lot of the games by means of a software program that checked the language setting on the machine and what signal the Megadrive is outputting (N.T.S.C 60Hz Japan & America P.A.L 50Hz Europe). If the game was being played in the wrong territory a message usually appeared telling you that the game was incompatible. Again this was not too hard to overcome new converter cartridges could be brought similar to the Japanese converters but on the back of the cartridge there were a set of dip switches and if you set them in the right order the import came would play. The settings were often shown on a sticker attached to the front of the cartridge. The second method requires an internal conversion to be made to your Megadrive and two switches need to be added to change the settings of the Machine. One switch toggles between Japanese and English text the other toggles between 50Hz & 60Hz display.
The Megadrive could then be set to a European, American or Japanese hardware configuration.
Jimmys view: It was Segas fault grrrhhh :-[
For an interesting Perspective on Nintendo and Sonys on off relationship visit
http://www.nintendoland.com /home2.htm?tech/ (remove spaces)
I also found some Snes Specs at the same site...
CPU type: 65c816 (16-bit)
CPU speed: 2.68 and 3.58 Mhz (change able)
RAM memory: 1 Mbit (128 Kbyte)
Picture Proc. Unit: 16-bit
Video RAM: 0.5 Mbit (64 Kbyte)
Max resolution: 512 x 448 pixels
Colors Available: 32 768 colors
Max colors at once: 256 colors
Max sprite size: 64 x 64 pixels
Max sprites: 128 sprites
Min/Max Cart Size: 2 Mbit - 48 Mbit
Sound chip: 8-bit Sony SPC700
Sound channels: 8
Unfortunately that still doesnt tell me if either systems where true 16bit machines??? :-(
I think I should start a campaigne to bring back the headphone socket on the front of console (like the Megadrive...hey I miss it !)
> Funny I read that it was infact the snes that had a dual 8bit
> setup??? Did the Megadrive to??? Someone else should clear this
> up.
I know the megadrives Cpu was deinately 16bit, whether the
> whole console was I dont know (The sound chip definately wasnt that
> good!).
I hope you're not asking me, the only time I ever took a console apart to see what was inside it was that time I flicked a peanut up into the air and then missed it on the way down, so it bounced off my nose and 'went somewhere'. My Megadrive developed a rattle and 'hey presto', found my peanut.
I know, I should have checked how many solder points were inside the Megadrive, and what was written on the chip, but I wasn't thinking straight at the time.
> The Megadrive had a faster cpu than the Snes, but not so many snazzy
> chips (allowing mode7 etc).
Looking back Im always suprised the
> Megadrive didnt have better Arcade conversions seeing as most of the
> old arcade machines had the same cpu.
However I always loved my
> Megadrive and Snes.
However,from what I remember, the Mega drive had a dual 8bit setup, which made sure it never reached 16bits totally. But that didnt matter- as you say the games were ace.
NiGHTS!