If Next-Gen Is Too Pricey Go Retro 109
Via RetroGaming with Racketboy, a story in the San Francisco Chronicle suggesting that you go retro if the new consoles are too expensive. They single out the (still excellent) Sega Dreamcast console as the best buy for your money vs. enjoyment. The folks at SF Gate also mention several other older games and consoles that will allow modern gamers their fun without breaking the bank. From the article: "Scenario 4: I'm poorer than any of the characters from 'Angela's Ashes' but not quite as poor as Jim Braddock's family when the heat got shut off in 'Cinderella Man.' (I pulled this newspaper out of the recycling bin at BART.): You've presented a challenge, but not an impossible one. I saw a copy of the PC game Grim Fandango, a complete masterpiece that most people never played, for $6 on eBay. Since it came out in 1998, you can probably find an abandoned computer on the curb that will play it. You'll be experiencing about 98.5 percent of the fun that the Getty heir who bought the PS3 is having, at about 1 percent of the price. "
sad (Score:2, Insightful)
EMULATORS
I'd ask you to look the word up on wikipedia, but you've probably never heard of that either.
RIP SD
Re:margin of error (+/-) 0.5% (Score:3, Insightful)
I saw a copy of the PC game Grim Fandango, a complete masterpiece that most people never played, for $6 on eBay. Since it came out in 1998, you can probably find an abandoned computer on the curb that will play it. You'll be experiencing about 98.5 percent of the fun that the Getty heir who bought the PS3 is having, at about 1 percent of the price.
$6 game + $0 computer = $6. No Dreamcast involved there.
ONLY "98.5%"?!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:sad (Score:5, Insightful)
Also the computers required to run an emulator with any sort of speed will always be more expensive than the console, unless you're talking about an antique console which you can no longer find. That kind of defeats the object of trying to be cheap; who doesn't have the money to buy a modern console but does have the money to buy a PC which can emulate one?
Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,PS3 too expensive,FUD,blah, (Score:5, Insightful)
It's basically everyone being told that these expensive, shiny new systems are superior in every way, and people see the shiny graphics, drool, and believe every word of it. People want to believe what they are told, and especially those who buy these systems defend the price they paid for it in their minds by fooling themselves into believing it will do everything including curing cancer, and do it better. Sure, the PS3 and the XBox 360 are a bit more powerful than their predecessors. The issue is whether they are significantly more powerful so that games for them are truly next-gen. And in general, except for the graphics, they're really not. And graphics, sorry to say, are not the most important part of a game. If you like pretty graphics and stuff exploding, go watch a movie, go outside, or whatever.
On topic, it amazes me how we march forward into the next generation of gaming and are so willing to pay so much money to be entertained in the same way that we have been entertained by consoles in the past. Given that there are so many good games available for past consoles that you haven't played (unless you are just a hardcore, no-life-outside-of-games gamer that has literally played it all), it's hard to imagine the need for a new console generation. The same, unfortunately, can be said about other entertainment media, especially film which is suffering from the same style-over-substance problem that gaming has, so it is not just gaming that is at issue here. Just like many modern film fans who love the latest SFX-filled action yawner and turn their noses up at old black-and-white cinema classics, new gamers that drool over graphics and won't give old games a second look are shallow people who do not care about the substance of the medium.
It's sad, really.
Right now, I'm replaying (actually re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-replaying) The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past for SNES and loving it. Old Commodore 64 and Atari 2600 (granted, only a few 2600 games are compelling enough to get regular play, but there are a few of them) games get regular play. I even played through Zork 1 recently. All of these are gaming experiences lost on the latest generation of gamers whose gaming snobbery prevent them from even looking twice at a game without shiny new 3d graphics.
Their loss.
Re:sad (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean emulators are great, but they never match the whole experience, how can they? I am sure that a dreamcast wouldn't cost that much. Every heard of ebay?
Re:A new spin on it (Score:3, Insightful)
ROM sites put it on and don't get shut down. That's all the proof I need.
I was in a car going 95 mph, and I didn't get a ticket! It must be legal!
Btw don't copyrights run out after 10 years anyway?
At least in the U.S. (with most of Europe being similar, IIRC; part of the Berne Convention), for "corporate" works like most console video games, it's 95 years from date of first release.
And wtf, the RIAA has nothing to do with games at all.
There's this thing called stare decisis, you might know it as "precedent." There was a case in 1999, the RIAA suing Diamond over its Rio MP3 player. That case gave us precedent to cite for "space-shifting" as a fair use, however, it appears to have been applicable only to digital audio, for which an exemption from the copyright act's blanket (subject to "carve-outs") reservation of the reproduction right as exclusive to the copyright holder was made by the Audio Home Recording Act.
You're right, the RIAA does not administer rights to video games per se (if anyone does, it would probably be the ESA). But they were the plaintiffs in a case that one might cite in support of the position that ROM files may be legal.
Hope your brain hasn't exploded. I know there's actual information here, which might be too much for you.
don't get this emulator-rage (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's see. If people are reading this in /., they most probably already own a computer, so it is hard to say that it will be much more expensive than buying a second-hand console.
Second, most emulators allow you to use USB joysticks. So there goes the argument of two people crammed in front of a keyboard. Also, most decent (and that doesn't mean expensive) GPUs today sport some sort of TV-OUT capability, so you can just play the games in your TV-set.
I concede that sometimes emulation isn't up to pair with the original console. But that doesn't mean it is always inferior.
Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,PS3 too expensive,FUD,blah, (Score:2, Insightful)
Or I can play my shiny new console. Why are you telling me I shouldn't look to videogames for my graphics fix? I was perfectly happy with the way games were played last generation. I was perfectly happy with the way they were played the generation before that too. The pace of gameplay innovations has been just fine in my eyes. Give me the gameplay types I've come to love with an extra dose of pretty and I'll be happy. Obviously I'm not alone. If graphics aren't important to you thats fine, but don't say they aren't important to the genre.
I played and enjoyed the hell out of a Link to the Past. I've probably played through Zelda OOT and FF6 five times each (OOT as recently as a month ago). Those games are no less great now than they were then, but they also were graphically fantastic at the time they were released and that certainly contributed to their success.
Re:sad (Score:3, Insightful)
Played on about 10 of them for a fairly short period of time and that was only when we had hooked an X-Box in to a jamma cabinet.
Getting every game in existence usually means you play none of them. On the other hand my megadrive stack (MegaCD, megadrive, master system adaptor.) has us playing while drinking, chatting and generally relaxing.
Why this is is probably for various reasons. Easier to pick out games when you only have a shelf of specially bought ones. My friend likes the fact that he has a collection of games that he was once denied due to being too young to come close to affording them. Far more tactile having all the original controllers. Aesthetically pleasing to see your systems all set up (I have megaCD1 and its about the meanest looking console you can get.) etc. etc.
Emulators are good for a tinker, I could imagine being fantastically pleased if you were writing one, but ultimately playing them, at least in this house, is completely unsatisfying.
Which is probably why we have, SNES, Megadrive, MegaCD, Mastersystem (In three different forms), Gamegear, CD32 (My particular favorite.), Spectrum, Dreamcast, Original Gameboy (If only for the original and best Nintendo Tetris.), Jamma cabinet, all set up to play at a moments notice. Every bit of it, well worth the cash.