Sony, Nintendo Announce 'Fixes' For Their Consoles

Gamasutra reports that both Nintendo and Sony still have a few kinks to work out from their newly launched systems. It may seem funny to an onlooker, but the spectacular Wii strap blowouts are being taken very seriously by Nintendo. People are evidently 'even more excited' by playing the little white console than the company anticipated, and they're investigating the possibility that the straps aren't strong enough. Meanwhile, Sony has updated the PS3's firmware to 1.30 in an effort to take care of the much-complained-about resolution scaling issues. Ars Technica (and several other sites) are saying that the fix doesn't really do anything, despite Sony's reassurances. From that article: "The priority of resolutions has been changed, putting 1080i over 720p. So if you prefer 720p as a resolution, be sure to uncheck 1080i as a possible resolution on your television, or else games that support both resolutions will automatically display at 1080i. Of course, if you uncheck 1080i as a resolution, your Blu-ray movies will display at 480p. So you'll have to just manually switch the resolution yourself depending on what you're doing ... If you have a 720p set, not only has Sony not fixed the scaling issues, they've made the process of playing games and watching movies less user friendly. Sony really wants you to upgrade into a 1080p set, and they seem to want to punish you if you don't have one."

"even more excited"

[Threni]

Nintendo may call it "even more excited", but the UK Sale Of Goods Act calls it "not fit for the purpose intended" and would entitle the consumer to their money back from the retailer. So yes, better to get it sorted.

Oldie but Goldie

[Veetox]

You think there's any chance that the Nintendo Power Glove will be resurrected?

Re:"even more excited"

[hibiki_r]

The thing is, people in Europe that have managed to get a Wii before the street date claim that the remotes come with a sturdier strap, about twice as wide as the American one, so UK gamers will have little to worry about.

Re:Heh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Every review I've read stresses that exagerated movements are not required to use the wiimote and simple flicks of the wrist are enough. Are these things THAT slippery that people can't hold onto them? I can't see why straps would be required at all.

Re:You know...

[Mex]

Sony has ALWAYS has great hardware.

It's their software that leaves a lot to be desired. I shall leave it to other slashdotters to make a list of all the things Sony does wrong on the software side (beginning with DRM...)

Fix the Wii`s European Virtual console

[palad1]

The european virtual console is stuck @ 50 hertz, the games are about 15% slower and the screen has ugly black borders around it.

As much as I am a nintendo fanboy, I really must admit they badly botched the it on this one...

So please make eu games run @60Hz and use the overscan... pretty please?

Re:You know...

[Afrosheen]

I'm a PS3 owner that has had one since November 17th. No waiting in line on that day, just a nice preorder (5th place) so it was a stroll into the shop at 9am. Now for the gripes.

  Here's what Sony needs to fix that I've uncovered so far.

1. Allow background downloading from the PS3 network. Every device known to man that's internet-enabled can do more than one thing at a time. There's no excuse for this.
2. Upscale my DVDs. I know, you want me to buy Blu-Ray discs, and I plan to, but meanwhile I have a whole library of titles that are constrained to the shitty 480p resolution. Why? Everyone and their dog makes upscaling DVD players nowadays. All I'm asking for is 720p.
3. Upscale my PS2 games. I don't want to play Final Fantasy XII or anything else in 480i or 480p, so why force me? Also can you do something about the fact that all the games look *worse* than the original PS2?
4. Fix the bluetooth controller issues. More than once I've been in a firefight in Resistance, only to have my dude stare at the ground and strafe hard left. Unacceptable. In NES parlance I'd call it a controller-thrower moment.
5. Is there even one good reason why every video I watch, be it Blu-Ray or DVD, needs to be letterboxed? Hello..there are like 80 lines missing from the top and the bottom of every movie. Widescreen video on widescreen set should not equal letterboxing.
6. Digital optical audio output. Why is this such a problem on the PS3? Sometimes I get no sound..most of the time I do. I was playing 2 player coop with my friend on Resistance..and one level had no sound except for a dude yelling commands/comments at us in game. The next level, the sound was back. WTF?

  This is about all I can think of right now. Some should be easy fixes, others who knows.

Not a big deal

[manthrax3]

Ars is making a HUGE deal out of this resolution nonsense, and I don't know why:

Almost every TV on the market can scale down from higher resolutions (or from interlaced to progressive and vice versa) to its native resolution and refresh rate with (in my opinion) no visual effect. Most cable HD comes in 1080i as well and I don't hear the conspiracy theorists talking about that.

Re:come on

[justchris]

Not quite. The straps they use are rated for a certain force. If you exceed that force, the strap will break. None of the reports say the strap just snapped, in each case, the player did not simply let go of the controller, but were actually swinging it with force at the time it left their hand. Even the "snakey metal" you speak of, has a rating beyond which it will snap. Using a stronger strap would guarantee nothing, and Nintendo would still have to educate people not to release the controller when they're flinging it at their tv at high speeds.