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Games Entertainment

Playstation 2 delayed again 259

Posted by Hemos from the um-so-how-do-we-make-this-chip-again dept.
D4MO writes "Saw the news that the Playstation 2 will probably be delayed. Apparently, Sony is having a really hard time getting the graphics chips right, and so they will miss their December launch, and probably be in more of a Feb/March range. Sega's Dreamcast, OTOH is out already in a lot of areas."
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Playstation 2 delayed again More

Playstation 2 delayed again

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  • True, but the post I was responding to was treating it more like using an emulator to actually play the games. Sorry, gimme full speed, please.. ;-P
  • The very notion that anybody would have bought a Genesis puts an interesting light on the idea
    that American consumers will buy just about any junky thing so long as it has a good advertising campaign
    (in Japan Sega wasn't even a contender.. Nintendo won hands down).

    Hey! I was playing (and thoroughly enjoying) Sonic 2 only this weekend. Got further than ever before, too. Does this make me an idiot?
    --
  • I would be anxios to see the Dolphin, but Nintendo seems to have lost my two favorite game series (Final Fantasy and Mega Man) to the Playstation, and Playstation seems to get better games in general.

  • Well, after rereading my post a few more times.. I've come to the inevitable conclusion that I never really committed myself to any one opinion or another with regards to this question (and others like it). Saying that one idea casts an interesting light on another doesn't mean.. well, much of anything. It was purposefully vague. Unlike many others, I at least attempt to choose my words carefully. Of course, it's not always possible to be 100% clear and concise, especially since many people I've come across like to read way, way, waaay too deep into.. almost everything, I guess. The world isn't completely populated by ulterior motives and overly subtle "you've got to read in between the lines" commentary.

    And just to let you know where I stand on things, I happen to like all of the Sonic games (well, the ones for Genesis, anyway), although I still don't think the Genesis was a good game system because a) it was technically inferior to the SNES (even though the Fatal Fury for Sega was much, much better than the SNES port) and b) aside from Sonic (even though he sure beats Mario as a mascot) there weren't very many actually good games for Genesis as compared to the Super Nintendo. Is that a verbose enough response to curtail further trolling in the area of Sega vs. Nintendo? Probably not, but hey. Kirk out.

  • It was blackbelt not dural & katana was the japanese one...
  • It is not like nintendo and sega are sitting there saying, "now why didn't I think of that?" There have been several backwardly compatible consoles, and it was never a big selling point. Examples: the atari 5200 (or was it 7800) played 2600 games. Basically made the 5200 an expensive 2600 -- and nintendo kicked atari's butt. The genesis/mega drive played master/game gear games with a converter. Not many people know about it because not meny people cared. Coleco vision played 2600 games with a converter -- they quickly got sued. The 32x, sega CD and would be Neptune were pathetic attempts at backward compatibilty -- let's not even go there. I might also add the backward compatibilty is what makes PCs suck. Even we weren't stuck with chips that are made to run 8088 programs, PCs would rock much more. And by the time the psx2 is out, most people won't care about psx1 games. And those who do won't mind having more wires out of their television. Or, you could just get an emulator. Does anyone care about SNES games anymore? To bad the N64 doesn't play them :|
  • The issue isn't with Sony designing the chip; it's with manufacturing problems. Supposedly they've been working on the chip for years now, and the design is finished.

    Bingo. The Emotion Engine is a huge sucker. The thing is 279mm^2 at 0.25 microns. I'm not sure what a Pentium III or Athlon measures, but the MPR I have here states that 180mm^2 is considered dangerously large. Yeilds are probably not going to be too good on this thing.

    --

  • So, by your logic, we should ignore anything that needs improvement, simply because it is not "fully implemented" or "fully supported?" It doesn't matter whether or not there are games at launch that fully support the connectivity features. The design of the console is poorly concieved for that purpose. How many people do you think are going to go out and purchase the upgraded modem in the future? Only those that think like us. The vast majority of users, like my brother, are going to assume that they bought a fully functional and implemented design, and won't need to upgrade. What systems prior to this had the major upgrades planned that Sega does?

    Again, I say that as a game console, it's a good buy, but if you're looking for the entire package that was promised, look elsewhere. As a game console, I really enjoy it, but, then again, I got mine free.

    Saga would have been better off waiting a little while longer and releasing the entire package so that there would be no need for major modifications.

    As for the browser: many of the planned game releases will require users to connect, and there will be online gaming forums and such for the Dreamcast. My concern is that it will be rather difficult for novice users to get there, and just annoying for those of us who are more experienced. It would have been better if they had left the browser out, and just had the games connect themselves up.
  • Have you any idea how much of the cost of your average console, or game for that matter, is distributer and retail markup, and dont forget that the cost of any console system is more than just the component cost to manufacture you also have to take into account the R&D budget, this has to be made back as well. The reason that consoles start off so highly priced, then drop rapidly is that as the manufacturer pay off their R&D costs, and start making enough on the Games they pass the saving back to the consumer.

    On a secondary note, Sony have already made inroads into programability with the PSX, with their Net Yaroze project, where you get everything you need to develop software for the PSX (except a PC or Mac) in one box, of course the libraries are a cut down version of the full developement libraries, I forget how much they cost now but I believe it's about $200, compared with the cost of a full developement kit this is a bargain, infact compared to the cost of a PC this is cheap, and the libraries are easier to use than DirectX, and you're only programming for one specification. I'm wondering if Sony will do something similar with the PSII.

    Oh BTW someone also has to pay for the QC on all those extra games, Sony submission can take several months at the moment, can you imagine how long it would take if there were ten times as many submissions, not to mention how much it would cost Sony to do all this testing. Anyway Sony is getting much more choosey about the games it accepts for submission nowadays and I can see it getting even more so for the PSII.
  • Well i'm seeing all this and stuff, and I still love my Turbo Graphix 16....
    Why bother w/ those when we could be doing this all on our computers.. Just hook up some game pads and stuff and Wah lah.. I know emulation would suck w/ the new consols comming out, but alpha just noted that they are comming out w/ a new cpu. I just wish the x86 chip set would start doing gflops instead of mflops..
  • ITs increadible how you people completely forgot that DC whoops most current PCs. The graphics system is about the speed of a non Ultra TNT 2 (Its what the PVR Neon 250 is based on) In addition to an amazing CPU (The Hitachi based machines on the Top 500 super comps are number 2 and below. The #2 is a Hitachi 64 processor with half the performance of the Intel Teraflops which has 9000 200 mhz P Pros.) An emulator can barly emulate the 94.75 MHz Mips 4300i thats in the N64 (play goldeneye on HLE) well. Even a 1 GHz Athlon couldn't emulate a DC well. (It takes at least a Pentium 75 to emulate the 3.7 MHz SNES well and a 600MHz still can emulate a 33MHz PSX well.) This is dreamcast, PSX 2 will blow PCs even current then out of the water (import from Japan and learn Japaneese!)
  • that article was the sorriest piece of drivel I have ever read. guess that is typical of any ZD company though. they out to do more research from now on. Playstation II will kick dreamcasts butt into oblivion
  • You're not wrong there, I worked on GTA for the Saturn before it was dropped and I can tell you, trying to make full use of all the processors using Sega's libraries was almost impossible, I did manage to get the two main processors running in concorde, but there was no easy way of syncing between the two, the memory layout was a nightmare,

    Of particular note was the graphics system, it would only handle quads (no triangles) and had no concept of texture UVs, every texture map had to be square and based on a power of two width/height, oh and the actual texturemapper was weird, it wasn't a scanline mapper, if you pulled a corner too far up you would end up with a curved edge, cool in it's own way, but not exactly useful.

    The fact that I actually managed to get GTA running (albeit very slowly) on the machine is perhaps more testament to my tenacity than to my skills as a programmer, and I was glad when DMA finally dropped the version.
  • Both wrong. Dragon is the code name for the Direct 5.1 version of WinCE. The propriotory Sega OS is a very low level type of thing. C'mon, these can't even be called full OSs. Basically a kernel with some support libraries. I think the PSX OS is like 30K or so. You really are programming directly to hardware (the only way that is good).
  • I've played with Dreamcast -- though I only played 3D Sonic. I loved it. I don't know if I would buy one (haven't seen the other games) but I wasted a lot of time at E3 on it :). The graphics were way ahead of the other consoles, but that's not saying much. I don't think the graphics were up to par with a high end nVidia or 3dfx.

    That said, I don't expect to be impressed with PSII. Sure the numbers sound good now (even accounting for the blatant lies that they put out -- don't believe anything like those poly rates, or any other numbers from any 3d hardware company), but the PC industry moves damn quick. GeForce sounds pretty bloody slick (I want ... ) and 3dfx and nVidia will be out with new cards in the spring. PSII will realistically be available for XMas'00 (i.e. will definitely be ready). If it's ready this spring, it'll be pretty cutting edge for about 6 months. If it's ready in the fall (I think this is more likely) it'll already be outdated.

    Not that I do spend money :) but I'd rather pay $100-150 every year for a new 3d card for my PC that will keep me up to date, and since I already need a new PC every ~18months, than pay $450 for a console that will be cool for a few months, then old for years to come while I can't buy the competitor's console and still play the same games... but then I'm kinda PC-biased...
  • This might be the boost that Sega needs. I can't help but think that Dreamcast will succeed, but if Playstation had come out right away, I think you would have seen more people go for that.

    Just remember...Sony is to Sega what Microsoft is to RedHat as far as marketing dollars and muscle. It's hard to mess with giants....especiailly Sony whose products are actually GOOD. :)

  • Does your VCR permit you to recompile?
    No, but then it's not capable of playing space invaders, either
    Mine has a version of breakout, and I don't feel ripped off because I can't reprogram it to play Tron...

    CJ.

  • I just checked (very thoroughly, I might add) and the only reference to MS anywhere in my DC package is the 'compatible with WinCE' icon on the box. No MS license agreement. There is a EULA included with the web browser disc, but the licensor is Sega, not MS.

    Now, I don't have any games yet (they won't come in 'til this afternoon... sigh), and if there was a CE EULA anywhere, that's where it would be -- there's no OS packaged in the DC unit itself.
    --

  • I like that response :) (Score:3)

    by Chris Johnson ( 580 ) on Thursday September 09, 1999 @04:24AM (#1693581) Homepage Journal
    The proper response to statements like 'Microsoft has never made a bad product' is to burst out laughing. The more people out there 'feeding that meme' the better- it's one thing to make a big argument, but laughter is a wonderful deflator of empty hype, and it's fun, too!
    Here, I'll show you: "Windows 2000 will ship in the year 2000 and deliver great benefits to IT professionals everywhere." *ROTFL* :)
    In extreme cases you might want to go with the Daffy Duck sort of over-the-top Hysterical Laughter... it all depends on just how funny the statement really is, and how serious the person stating it seems :)
  • Yep, I've seen it, it's running Linux. Connected one to my network at work for the developers, in fact. It's using a MIPS cross-compiler setup with gcc (unknown version) from what the developers tell me. It's running a slightly aged version of a popular (now public) Linux company.
  • With the massive jump in processing power and fill rate they've been hyping for this thing, it really doesn't surprise me that it's slipped. It's not easy to design and manufacture a new chip of this kind of architecture and power with a short design cycle.

    I think Sony overestimated their ability to produce the thing in a timely fashion, but I also have no doubt that they'll actually ship this beast sometime soon.

    Maybe NOW we won't have to wait 9 months - 1 year after the Japanese get it to get our greedy American (and European and whatever) hands on it.
  • They should halve or quarter the port's bandwidth and make sure the product has to be delayed another year?

    Will that help? ;P
  • I don't know what the sales numbers are for Nintendo, but it seems that the quality of games that keep coming out gets lower and lower... Have you played that SuperMan game? If so, you know what I'm talking about!

  • MY point is that consoles fit better into the "microwave/VCR" category than into the "end user programmable general purpose computer" category.

    Not really. VCRs and microwaves are designed to do one thing (well... a couple things). VCRs let you play or record a VHS tape (and you can record your own movies and play them on the VCR if you like). Microwaves let you heat something up. Beyond that, they can't do much.

    Consoles, on the other hand, can play all sorts of games, and the newer ones could go even further by including modems and other communication capabilities. They could do many of the things that computers do, but they are geared specifically for games, and are a hell of a lot cheaper than a decent pc gaming rig. It would actually make sense to write programs for a console. Unfortunately the price of admission is very steep.

  • Re:Don't buy dreamcast! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    No it doesn't! How many times to we have to say it: windows CE is on SOME game disks -- not on the ROM. If it bothers you, get a DC but avoid all windows CE games (there haven't been many.) Then, put BSD on it. Asking people to avoid the DC because of CE is like asking people not to buy PCs with linux on them because a lot of PCs have windows 98. In short, buy a DC it is only $199 for gods sake. There are already 16 titles for it.
  • From what I've read about the PlayStation 2 platform, it appears that Sony is attempting technologies that is just as complex as nVidia is doing with GeForce 256, but they're trying to do it with 0.18-micron etching process!

    This makes the manufacturing complexity on the same level as Intel's new "Coppermine" Pentium III CPU's and the Athlon 0.18-micron versions; Intel has run into serious production problems with getting decent yields, while we don't know how fast AMD will get their 0.18-micron Athlon CPU's into production.

    This complexity of the "Emotion Engine"--not to mention the support of Rambus memory--will mean that I will not expect PlayStation 2 to ship until at least February 2000 in Japan and very likely November 2000 in the USA.

    This is where Nintendo's "Dolphin" project may have an advantage. Unlike Sony's project, the Dolphin machine will try to use as much available technology as possible, including the very smart decision to incorporate a PowerPC processor and the use of a DVD-ROM drive from Matsushita Electric. The only thing that Dolphin needs developed is the ArtX graphics processor, which I believe is almost done. I will not be surprised if Nintendo can have the machine shown in prototype form at Winter CES in January 2000 and have the machine shipping worldwide by the fall Tokyo Game Show in September 2000.
  • Please DO buy a Dreamcast. I don't like Microsoft either, but I think Sega has a really good product. :) Plus, you can never have too many game consoles. :)
  • Raid Over Moscow was by far one of the best games I can remember playing in school.. Did anyone else really get frustrated by how tedious the start of the game was though? I mean c'mon you had to fly your ships (or lives) out of the hangar to determine your overall lives for the game. I must have played that game everyday for months and I don't think I ever mastered that part. You could get good, but the slightest poorly timed thrust and you were screwed.

    I'm still waiting for Karate Champ to make a comeback ;)

    -JP
  • I may be utterly mistaken, but wasn't this discussed a while back about how WinCE was /not/ used in the DC because of delays in shipment to Sega? Each game is using it's own OS, and only a couple games actually use the WinCE OS.
  • Rumor has it that the GD-ROM format differs from an ordinary CD-ROM only in that it stores data where a regular CD-ROM has error-correction coding. I'm not sure if this is true, since it sounds like a really bad idea, but if it is then Sega should be able to have 'em made anywhere you can get CD-ROMs pressed.
    --
  • Sony, IIRC, was supposedly premanufacturing the "emotion engine" chips in order to compete with the Dreamcast, but, apparently... However, they have had problems like this in the past before... didn't the have a hard time getting CD-ROMs for the original PSX?

    And as for the CE issue with the dreamcast, that's supposedly optional. Although I'ds like to see the licencing aggreement...

    Also, delays do not necessarily mean failure. Remember, Sega released the Saturn about a half to three quarters of a year before the PSX came out, and I just bough my neighbour's for $15...
  • Do you really think that a "New PC" will be able to realistically emulate a Dreamcast, PS2 and a Dolphin???????

    The problem with trying to emulate a dolphin is getting it to do all those snazzy backflips [dolphin-synergy.com].

  • I totally agree =)

    And besides, doesn't anyone play games for fun anymore? People I see here are arguing about "which have the best graphics chip" or "which is faster". Phooey I say, it's the games, that'll make this machine (or any machine for that matter) and will make me buy it.

    The main reason the SNES was such a big hit was because it had an incredible, varied array of titles. Now, with the N64, Nintendo completely shut-out 3rd party developers with it's high licensing and production costs. Look what happened to them.

    I believe that many developers ran to Sony because games were cheaper to make and therefore less risky had it bombed.

    --red

  • This comparison could be taken further by the fact that Sony does not produce its own games (unlike Sega & Nintendo). Sony relies on 3rd party developers for its PSX library.

    How can this be related back to Microsoft? You be the judge *grin*

    --red

  • I just picked up the US Dreamcast today, and on page 12 of the manual appears this warning:

    Main Unit Memory
    The Dreamcast contains a Main Unit Memory. The main unit memory contains: 1. Main Unit ID (identification number) which is set when the Dreamcast was manufactured and 2. Play History.

    Interesting... I wonder what "Play History" means?

    "Hello, Sega technical support. You brought your system in for a repair under warranty last week, but when our technician examined it, he found that you have used it to play three imported games and two games with specific serial numbers which are known as widely pirated. This constitutes improper use of the system, and therefore your warranty is void."

  • The thing that saddens me, is the thought that the delay of the PS2 will directly effect the release date of the next Nintendo system. While Nintendo has been swearing up and down that they'll release their next gen console at the same time as Sony, many people have strong doubts that the big N will be able to hit that deadline. Besides, Nintendo has a pretty bad record when it comes to meeting deadlines. Since the only reason Nintendo wants to release in 2000 is to match the release of the PS2, if PS2 changes to 2001, Nintendo will probably follow suit, more than glad for the breathing room. Of course, Sony might just be jerking everyone around. It would be an awesome bit of manipulation if Sony could trick Nintendo into delaying the release of their next console. =) jackal!
  • Oh BTW someone also has to pay for the QC on all those extra games, Sony submission can take several months at the moment, can you imagine how long it would take if there were ten times as many submissions, not to mention how much it would cost Sony to do all this testing.

    You're completely missing the point I made. I'm saying there should be no Sony testing, no Sony submission at all. If someone wants to release a game, just let them go ahead and do it. The market will decide what's good and what isn't. The crap software houses will die off due to lack of sales, and the good ones will make money. Natural selection.

    At the end of the day, all I want is for the consoles to be market driven, rather than prorietary, as they are now. It works for the PC games industry. The console makers are just being greedy, at the expense of the customer (i.e., me!)

  • You are an idiot!!!! First of all, Not every dreamcast games makes use of the Microsoft CE OS, you only use that OS when you want to use the directx API, and this is good for people who are developing both on dreamcast and PC. The Microsoft CE is not in the rom to say, so Sega does not pay Microsoft for every game it sells. The OS is loaded at the boot sector of the CD if it use used. A lot of game developers are very stubborn, and will probably not use directx API, but rather develop their own library, meaning, that they probably will not use the CE. Only softcore developers who are starting out in the console world, will be very attracted to it. I am tired of all this do not support microsoft crap, sure, don't support them, but you probably support .doc format. if you were asked a resume in .doc format, do you yell no? and insist that you must send it in .ps or .pdf? Dreamcast is great, and so will be PSII. As of now Dreamcast is a worth while system to get. Besides from a few dreamcast developers that I have talked to, the CE for DC is very well optimized and is good enough. And I say, if it works use it!

  • Take it from a guy who has worked on both. (In the last year).

    FireWire, trademarked by Apple, is IEEE 1394. It is a peer-to-peer network architecture with the limit that no "loops" can be present.

    While USB2 is hugely fast, that's no reason to say it will replace 1394. The next generation 1394 will be monstrously fast too. But they're intended for different uses.

    The communication styles is vastly different. 1394 is peer to peer. A node can initiate a request for any other node and the data follows the path between them. USB is hub to leaf, to get data from a USB device you have to poll it and ask if it has any data to send.

    1394 is ideal for connecting the various components of a home entertainment system. No one device is the root, etc. If you want to play the audio track from your camcorder you don't need to involve your VCR or TV.

    USB/USB2 is ideal for connecting things to a computer. The computer is the root node, everything else branches off it. So if you have a USB camera that lets you record audio clips, and USB speakers, the data first goes to the computer, then out to the speakers.

    IEEE 1394 is not proprietary, though it's true that FireWire is trademarked.

    Neither technology is inherently better, they're just very different, intended for different uses.

  • First of all, if the consoles are open, there is no way the console makers will make money. They don't make money from hardware, but rather from software. Sega just spent $100 mil to advertise in the US alone, they have around 300,000 pre ordered consoles. at $200, that is $6,000,000 in hardware sales. Now, how do they make back the rest of the $94 million? through software. So open source does not work. To hack consoles, you have to be a darn hacker. I have coded for gameboy, nes, snes, psx and n64. It cost around $60 to setup hardware to code for psx. I do gameboy and psx dev with FreeBSD and linux. You just have to have a clue, go learn electronics kid, learn asm programming, and you will easily figure out how to code for consoles, shut up and stop crying. I am tired of yall babies crying.
  • Just give me my Tekken {4, Tag}! That's all I bought the original PlayStation for. The FMV is quite impressive and the gameplay beats all other fighting games.
  • I thought the psx2 could push a Max of 75 million polygons? And when in a real life situation (ie fully textured w/ effects) it was closer to maybe 20 million. 80 million per second is said to be enough to emulate what the human eye sees(double that for stereoscopic), and I'm pretty sure the psx2 can't handle that.


    If what you say is true..... then I still don't care.
  • I'm truly excited that Dreamcast came out today. Hurrah for you Sega fans :)

    The thing is, it doesn't really matter what console system I get anymore as long as certain game developers are developing for it. I used to have hardware loyalties in the eighties (Nintendo or bust!) but ever since I switched over to PSX, that's when I realized I could really care less about hardware after all.

    If Sega wants me to get a DC, it's easy. Just get Capcom, EA, Konami, etc..etc..all them awesome game comanies to develop for their system. The same goes with PSX2. The reason I switched to Sony in the beginning was their developers anyways (I still don't know what chip's running my PS. Like 33mhz or something) As soon as they announce their game developers, I'll decide then. Besides, it turns out that game developers usually want to go with the system that is more powerful to create better games on (usually).




  • Again, you are dead wrong like the rest. I hate you all clueless idiots. First of all, you can develop for any console machine today, using an Unix system. You just need to have a compiler. You might say, hrm.. well that is the devkit. NO!!!, here is an example. If you wanted to write code for psx write now. You just need to figure out the psx executable header format which you can easily find on the web. Compile gcc to produce code for psx cpu mips r3000 which is target mip-sel. Hack a gcc elf exe to psx exe header with bfd (binary format description). and viola you can use gcc to code! There is free way GNU psx dev kit, which have been hacked up by a bunch of hackers. Go learn to search the web. I have been in the psx dev scene, and have been using linux since 1996 to write code for PSX. Now some of you might ask how about the hardware, it is not hard to build, you just need to find a way to communicate with the PSX, and those AR thingys that let you load cheat codes in memory are what you use. You hack the rom, replace it with a program which will let you load to psx memory, read from psx memory, and you have the psx under your controller. There are such things already. blah blah, i hate all this crys.
  • Yes, Superman 64 is probally one of the worst games on the N64, if not the worst. But remember, Nintendo didn't make it, Titus did. And its' just one game, there are tons of other great high-quality games from Nintendo and it's thrid parties. As for the sales numbers, it was just relesased that Nintendo owns 58% of the "console" market, but that includes handhelds, so the GB pushes it over the top. Remember, that means it owns 58% of the market over Sony, Sega, Neo Geo, etc. If you count only real consoles, then Sony holds the led in this generation's war.
  • This is not a public forum. It is a moderated forum, and the owners of slashdot will do whatever the hell they want to :)
  • [begin offtopic sarcastic comment] .ps or .pdf? What's wrong with you? ASCII or HTML is the only way to submit a resume. [end of offtopic comment] I think that you should have read the previous 50 comments saying pretty much the exact same thing you said. Granted, it's a good point but c'mon.. it's a game -- the only reason why I have windows on any of my computers is to play games, battle.net fails under wine; tribes isn't available (yet) so dreamcast is really no difference.
    -= Making the world a better place =-
  • Plus, the whole point about the /. community is that since (most of) the software is open-source, there is nothing pirate about it.

    Did those game manufacturers release the game open source? I didn't think so. Just because you think that all software should be open source is no excuse to steal.

    Also, why did you put illegally in quotes? It really is illegal, it's not even unfairly illegal. It's just plain against the law.

    I also object to your use of the phrase "has to". No one is forcing you to play the games, if you can't afford it, don't play them. Simple as that.
    ---
  • The machine is silk-screened on the front with a "Compatible with Windows CE" logo. It doesn't say "Powered by Windows CE". Some games use WinCE, some don't.

    Kris

    Kriston J. Rehberg
    http://kriston.net/ [kriston.net]

  • Ug, Nintendo says emulation is illegal, but they are only saying that because it is in there best interest to believe that. however, it is totally legal, and in fact part of the definition of a general purpose computer. The act of emulation has become "more" legal recently since the games came on CDs that could be placed in a computer and run from the CD-ROM drive.

    previously the only way to *play* the games was to get a ROM file, and in most cases, most people just got the ROMs of the Internet instead of making there own cartridge reader for NES games. but the emulation itself is still legal (The PSX emulator for the Mac was illegal, because conetix used to distributed a copy of Sony's boot ROM with every copy of "Virtual game console" Bleem, I believe is different, and perfectly legal)
    "Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
  • Works for me...
  • My siblings and I could not get enough of Paradroid. I will never forget the time that my brother managed to take over the 999 Commander droid with a pipsqueak 139 Trash Collector. Truly an amazing feat.

  • LAME (Score:1)

    by TummyX ( 84871 )
    So how does that differ from Sony and their Playstation games?
    Last I looked I couldn't stuff them into a N64 system - and aren't Sony suining Bleem for making an emulator for _WINDOWS_?
  • Check out the n64 demo scene. Check out the net yaroze. Once you buy a machine there is no way to keep you from reverse engineering it and making your own tools. Or are you mad because they're selling you a specialized graphics workstation at a HUGE loss and want to make part of it back on their tools?
  • so linux zelots can still use one :)
    "Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
  • OH well, so flame me:
    The ONLY reason the consoles and the games exist is because they make money.
    If everybody rips them off, no new consoles, no new games.
    If you run emulators and copies of games you are a thief.
    Get legit, if you like the stuff buy it.
    Or bugger off and go hang with your crooked buddies in the 'hood.
  • Hmm, lets think about this... You want us to buy a Sony product and give Sony my money so that Microsoft won't get my money? So pretty much to not support one large corporation, you want me to support another? I would rather give my money to Sega than Sony, Sega always does neat stuff but they are the underdog.

    moof
  • This is hilarious. You guys are suggesting that Sony drop a proven technology for something that is in the FUD and press release stage, and isn't suitable for this application anyway?? Juat because it's backed by Intel?? Intel doesn't have clue one about video, graphics, etc. They sell chips for Wintel desktops used by suits and other BusinessDroids. Where the hell is Sony going to get the chipsets to implement USB 2? They won't be available for a year yet! By that time HDTV, digital VCRs and loads of other IEEE 1394 equiped consumer products will be on the market in volume. Are you going to have USB 2.0 on your HDTV? NO!! Fact is USB 2.0 won't work in that kind of environment at all because it not isochronous and it's not peer-to-peer.

    In my opinion Intel is making a severe boner by not adopting 1394 for it's base hardware. It's going to delay integration of PC's into the HDTV world severely. Apple at least has this right - by making Firewire a part of their world they are making a much better machine for consumers, and potentially the integration of computers with TV.

  • Like the guy above me, the DC has a HUGE amount of games for a launch. I don't know how many the PSX had, but the N64 only had 2 games at launch, and a whopping 8 at Christmas, yet it's still doing fairly good in the states.
  • So I'm be able to PURCHASE the (15) $50 games. Doing the math for the new parameters, I've only got $650 left for my "state of the art" machine. Granted, it is a multi-purpose machine, so there are gonna be compromises....
  • I'm pretty sure that if you BUY the games, it's legal to run 'em on any "console" you want, whether a virtual one or theirs.
  • All I was saying was that it was ligal, not that it would be cheap
    "Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
  • The reason why microsoft wants wince in the game consoles is so that game developers will stick to using Microsoft API's-exclusively instead of making cross-platform games. That means fewer games for linux, mac, BeOS,other non-windows consoles. Microsoft has the lock on pc's-enough already.I don't want them to have yet another monopoly here.
  • It's all in the delivery. It's not funny unless the comment is being made in a serious tone as though the person saying it truly believes what they're saying.

    And just to stay on topic... PSX2, where do I sign.

    For all those bagging the release date, you'll just have to live with your PSX until that date.

  • Just 2 problems: 1) game consoles aren't upgradable and it takes a long time for the next version tocome out unlike pc's (how old is the original playstation vs athlon 650's you see today 2) it's very hard for a game console to come out of the woodworks. So what's it gonna be? Sega, Nintendo or Sony? Once you pick a console you're gonna stick with it for quite awhile so might as well wait for all 3 to come out and pick the best one. Otherwise you'll buy all these games for dreamcast, find out that sony's is better and you won't be able to get the really good ones.
  • > wait for PSII
    Well, it's a long wait, so I'm gonna get a PS now, and wait for a good trade in deal :-)
  • I agree, that's one of the reasons I like consoles more than PC's for gaming. I don't have to worry about incompatabilities, or upgrading my hardware. Well, actually, Donkey Kong 64 coming out in November will require a RAM pak, but it comes with the game at no extra charge, is a snap (literly) to plug in, and it won't mess with any of your other games. If PC upgrading were as easy as that, I wouldn't care as much.
  • Did you ever play SMB3? That is one of my favorite games ever made. If you just look past the Mario name, you'll relize they aren't all rehashes of the same thing (cough*tomb radier*cough) but totally different games. Sure, they all have Mario in there for name recognition, but Mario Golf, Mario Party, and Mario Kart are all completely different games.
  • You Idiots!!! Buy a Dreamcast!!! So what if PSX2 is more powerful? Which ones got better Games??? 32-bit PSX or twice as powerful 64-bit (Duh!) N64??? It does'nt matter how much power one's got!!!
  • I sure am. It sorta pisses me off that no one on Slashdot seems to even relize the potential power of the Dolphin. They just seem to ignore it. I, for one, am extremelly hyped about it. The announcement [ign.com] of the 1T-SRAM technology that Art-X will use is incredibly cool. I can't wait till the specs are officially announced, and then we'll see how the PS2 compares.
  • It's at Hollywood Video and it started on July 15th. I rented one then, and was pretty impressed. So whatever Rob said about it, was from renting it, unless he imported a Japenese one.
  • By that logic, most people should still be running the original version of Quake2 and have not upgraded to the latest 3.20 or whatever it is right now. I would have to disagree with you there!

    But that is a computer user. Consoles and computers are too vastly different things. console users expect the game to work perfectly when they put it in the system. They don't expect to have to d/l stuff. Hell, thats why I like consoles more, I don't have to check for patches and updates every week. I don't want my console to turn into a PC if it means that stuff is going to be rushed into production because they figure they can just have you d/l a patch later on.

  • this is an old trick (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sega is coming out with a new system. To stop people from buying it Sony claims that there system, which they say is 100 times beter than the DC is coming out next week. But in reality the system won't be out for a couple of years and it will cost at least twce as much. Hope not to many people fell for this microsoft type of move.
  • With 3 really good systems coming out within a year of each other (assuming Nintendo can release theirs on time), you're going to see game developers taking sides. If you like one game on dreamcast and another game on playstation 2, you're going to be screwed for money. Rather than buying all 3 systems for a couple of games apiece, get a new PC and a really good emulator for each. You'll spend about the same and get a much better system.
  • . I've never read an article that claimed the PS2 would be launched as early as this one claimed. The date it's supposed to be "slipping" to, is the date I've always heard it would be released.

    December 1999 was the original release date for the PS2 in Japan. This was annonced when the PS2 was first annonced as a tentative release date. I never in my wildest dreams expected it to make that, so this delay is no suprise.
  • The Dreamcast has been out in Japan for quite a while now, and while it's sold a fair number of units, it doesn't look like it'll be able to withstand thw PSII onslaught, even with a long head start. Although, I must admit, Soulscaliber (sorry, I have no idea of what it's really called in English) looks pretty smooth on the Dreamcast.

    Ah well, even Sega seems to be resigned to its fate, if you believe the comments their management has been making (they would be satisfied with being a "niche market in the shadow of Sony", apparently).
  • I find it hard to get tremendously excited about all these new consoles. Sure, the specs are awesome. But at the end of the day, Sony, Sega and Nintendo are every bit as bad as Micros~1. They may be great for the average end user, but what about me? If I want to write some software for any of them, I need to splash out $25,000 to get an official development kit, and I won't be able to release anything I write without official blessing from the company that designed the console. There is no third party software industry for consoles. Everything you see is officially sanctioned. Sony made a step in the right direction with the Net Yaroze, but then deliberately crippled it to prevent Net Yaroze discs be used in a regular Playstation.

    Prediction: the first company that allows open development for its console with make an absolute fortune. Unfortunately, I think they're all too paranoid about losing intellectual property to risk it. Sigh.

  • FUD (Score:3)

    by drazi ( 69565 ) on Thursday September 09, 1999 @12:16AM (#1693679)
    Don't you think it's odd that a couple of Japanese Analysts start talking about how the Playstation 2 will be delayed on the very day the Dreamcast comes out?

    This "news" about the Playstation 2 is not from Sony. It is purely SEGA FUD.
  • Err, no..

    The prerelease machines are 25,000. The development itself will be (GASP!) Linux based.

    Correct me if I'm wrong, please.
  • Look, we all know that Sega has ferked up in the past, and a lot of people have lost faith in them over the years. But seriously now, the Dreamcast is going to be a solid product. Yah, when the psx2 comes out, its gonna blow DC out of the water. But since that's not happening for atleast another year, Sega is going to have the best system out on the market for a while.

    They've also got the best game line up for a system launch, ever. Plus the system is only 200, at launch, which hasn't happened since the super nintendo.

    I wish people would just stop dogging Sega so hard because they're really trying hard this time around, and Sega as a company makes some of the best arcade games around. The last thing I want to do is see them die.

  • Rumours and Half-truths and Lies, oh my! (Score:3)

    by mosch ( 204 ) on Thursday September 09, 1999 @12:22AM (#1693687) Homepage
    I'd take this as speculation at best. Has anyone else noticed that Babbage's (at least those near me) have large amounts of Dreamcast stuff, right near a sign which proclaims that the Playstation II release date will be '2001?'. Somehow I smell a fish with the fact that nobody's published release dates seem to mesh at all with Sony's announced schedule.

    Personally I loved the Babbage's manager who told me that 'Microsoft is backing Dreamcast, so you know it won't fail. Microsoft has never made a bad product.' I burst out laughing, purchased my copy of Kingpin and made a mental note to never ever shop there again.
  • The development itself will (GASP!) Linux based. Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

    OK, then -- you're wrong :-) Yes, PSX2 development will be Linux based. However, don't be fooled into thinking you can write PSX2 software with your Linux box at home. You need a specific devkit machine from Sony, which will effectively be a PC running Linux with some additional custom hardware, and a proprietary software development environment. The hardware will essentially consist of a PSX2 on a card. The software environment will give you appropriate access to the card. This lets you write and compile the software, and then run it, without the need to continually burn discs to put in a real PSX2. The software environment may include a full IDE/compiler, but will more likely let you use native Linux tools (e.g., gcc/gdb etc.) Of course, this is all conjecture, 'coz I haven't actually seen a PSX2 devkit yet, but I doubt it'll be far off, based what others in the industry have said.

  • Dreamcast? Don't make me laugh... (Score:3)

    by Max Planck ( 36538 ) on Thursday September 09, 1999 @12:29AM (#1693692) Homepage
    Okay, so here's the real scoop on the Sega Dreamcast: it's a joke. To be honest, I was waiting patiently for the release of the Dreamcast system, and now that I've had a chance to play with it...

    The system itself is not horrible. It uses a Hitachi SH-4 SuperH RISC at 200mhz, not too bad. The graphics card is a NEC Videologic PowerVR2DC capable "of rendering 3 million polygons per second." The funny part is the modem: a Rockwell HCF-based chipset. Now, don't get me wrong, for a cheap game console it's not too bad. The big problem with Rockwell HCF chipsets are that they have notorious connection problems. Connections over 43k tend to drop packets and drop connection. I hope Sega has thought ahead, because there have been all sorts of problems connecting HCF modems to USR-based modems... In the current version, there is no way to update the modem firmware or the init string.

    The next, in a long list of problems, is the browser itself. The "Web Planet" browser is, quite bluntly, a piece of crap. Regardless of what Sega says, it does not handle JAVAscript. Period. And instead of a nice Javascript error, like a normal browser, it dumps raw code onto the screen, which will frighten most users. There are numerous other problems, like the inability to use redirect pages like come.to, and the lack of configurable options.

    I like the idea behind Dreamcast, but after playing with one most of this week (yes, my company recieved a handful early.), I've come to the conclusion that Sega missed the mark. With all the hype, it's going to be like the first Playstation all over again, but I see a lot of disappointed users in the future.

    For my money, I'll wait until Sony releases the Playstation 2. At least they're waiting and pushing back dates rather than put out a crappy product.
  • Does your VCR permit you to recompile?

    No, but then it's not capable of playing space invaders, either. The consoles are capable of doing any number of things, but only if I can program them. There's no benefit to being able to program a VCR -- there is a benefit to being able to program a console.

  • You know, you sound like a friend of mine about computer stuff. We try to get him to upgrade, but he will never do it. Why? Because there is something always better right around the corner. When the P2 and Dolphin come out, I will go ahead and say not to buy those either. Why? Because, Some startup company will have something better on the horizon that everyone will say is the cats meow. Just look at the Nvidia GeForce. All the sudden, 3DFX comes out of the woodworks spreading rumors (don't believe me? just take a look at that CNBC interview with the 3DFX CEO). Cripes. My money will be with Sega today.......

    Bryan R.
  • Keep that firmly in mind. Historically, the technically superior console (GFX-wise, sound-wise, etc.) has rarely been the most successful. If Sega can get enough developers to work on the Dreamcast and get that critical userbase locked-up, Sony and Nintendo will be in for a long uphill battle.

    As for Nintendo, they have more to worry about than Sega. Nintendo's market share has plummeted since the NES, dropping from ~95%+ to ~50% (SNES) and now to ~25% (n64). If the trend continues, Dolphin is in for a rough time in the market.

    Should be interesting, but Sega has the upper hand for now, having an actual console on shelves and a serious head start. Let's see what they do with it.

  • Do you really think that a "New PC" will be able to realistically emulate a Dreamcast, PS2 and a Dolphin???????

    Huh???

    firstly - a PC might be able to match a DC in terms of hardware, but certainly not the PS2 or Dolphin.

    secondly - it takes time to write emulators. The first PC PSX/N64 emulators are only just maturing. That's after the console has been on the market for >4 years.

    Maybe after a few years this will be possible, but not now. My advice - remember, the DC is available now, and the PS2/Dolphin will probably be >6 months away. Many good games may come out on multiple systems, so if you need a new console now, the DC is the only option. Remember, if you are own a PSX, that when the PS2 comes out, it will play all your old games, and use all your old peripherals. (The PS2 will use the PSX dual-shock joypad as standard.)

    just my 2 cents

    padzo

  • Sony like Microsoft..? (Score:3)

    by Kitsune Sushi ( 87987 ) on Thursday September 09, 1999 @12:45AM (#1693708)

    I'm not quite sure how Sony could be compared to Microsoft. I seem to remember a time when the only big game consoles around (with regards to sheer popularity at least) were the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis. The very notion that anybody would have bought a Genesis puts an interesting light on the idea that American consumers will buy just about any junky thing so long as it has a good advertising campaign (in Japan Sega wasn't even a contender.. Nintendo won hands down). Nintendo simply slipped.. it's their own fault, really. They had the lead, and then they lost it. That's what we call competition.

    Sony is still a relative newcomer to the game console arena (well, in my rather skewed perception of time, that is), and Nintendo is not exactly dead. Neither, apparently, is Sega. This hardly qualifies as any kind of monopoly. Sony's in the lead, but it's still anybody's game. Microsoft, on the other hand, has no real competitors as far as the average end-user is concerned. Of course, the recent waves caused by Red Hat's splash into public view may change all that, but for now..

    Also, I don't know about most people, but I'm still rather happy with PlayStation classic. It's a good system, and there a lots of good games (and hey, despite the usually horrible endings, who doesn't love the FF series?). I don't see any reason to drop more cash on a Dreamcast. I like using my money for desktop hardware, personally.

    Besides, why bother wasting money on a system when it firsts comes out when a few months later the price will drop? I certainly didn't get a PSX when it first came out, and I rather doubt I'll get the sequel as soon as it hits stores. Back when we made the jump from Nintendo to Super Nintendo, that was a different story. We've gotten to a level now, however, where more eye-candy isn't as much of an attention grabber for me anymore.

    As for closed consoles..? Well, why bother? If you want to make a real game, you might as well develop it for a real computer system. After all, why limit yourself to a certain hardware configuration? A lot more games are possible (not to mention more fun) with tons more RAM, faster processors, and all the other bells and whistles that are constantly being pushed past their current limits.

  • 1. I've never read an article that claimed the PS2 would be launched as early as this one claimed. The date it's supposed to be "slipping" to, is the date I've always heard it would be released.

    2. I also find it odd that Sony is called "inexperienced" with graphics chips, seeing as they've shipped 20+ million units of the PS1. And, yes, it included a graphics chip that was considered cutting edge for a consumer machine when it was designed.

    3. The issue isn't with Sony designing the chip; it's with manufacturing problems. Supposedly they've been working on the chip for years now, and the design is finished. Let's not start calling them overambitious and incompetent just because they've got a better chip than can currently be used under Linux.
  • Like others have pointed out, this sounds like Sega FUD. Fine. I don't care. Even if the PS2 is delayed until 2001, I won't buy a Dreamcast. It just so happens that we are in the gap between two generations of game consoles, as all the major manufacturers have a tendency to put out their platforms at the same time.

    So, the Dreamcast's only hope of making money is that gap. They probably know they have an inferior product, so they shipped it quickly before the Dolphin or the PS2 got here. I'm not touching this console any time soon.

    Of course, PS2 is going to be more expensive. Of course, it ain't gonna be delayed for its December release! It's Christmas. The FUD here is so clear, Sega is hoping that by saying things like this, they're gonna be the choice #1 for Christmas console presents.

    But I'll say it clearly if Santa Claus happens to be reading Slashdot. :) Even if the PS2 is delayed, I don't want a Dreamcast for Christmas. When PS2 comes out, it's gonna be Christmas every day!

    "There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."

  • I heard a similar story from a friend in the office here. The dude working at babbages told him that this machine was "sooo cool" and that it's going to kickass etc. He said, "microsoft is working with sega on it" and my friend said "why is that good?" The dude just said, "because it's microsoft." My friend said "well, at least I'll know why it crashes."
  • Whoa! According to what I've been told, and I may be misinformed, Sega's proprietary OS is Windows CE-based, as well.

    Does anyone have more information on this?
  • bright moments [slashdot.org] wrote
    That gives Sony some time to make changes to the PS2 specs. What they need to do is dump the firewire port. Get out of that dead-end technology and get on the USB2 bandwagon. Everybody's doing it, so why get left behind in the dust with proprietary gear, even if it is better. I mean, didn't Sony learn anything from betamax?

    Have you got any evidence to back up your claims? My understanding is that IEE 1391 (aka firewire) is a peer-peer connection whereas USB is host-based. Sony is a very savvy consumer electronics company (one of the few Japanese companies to be truely international in scope) and if they've made the commercial decision to put iLink (their name for IEEE 1391 to avoid Apple's firewire branding tax), others are likely to follow. They would not have gone to the trouble of putting it into their digital TVs, camcorders, etc .... unless they expected they would benefit. While some PC-centered groups would be very happy for consumers to stick to their nice predictable upgrade path (RamBus, FutureIO, etc), I'm afraid the world doesn't work that way.

    As for your claim that everyone is doing it, I would be very interested to learn your sample size of "everyone". Parroting popular press with their own ad-driven agendas is OK if you wish to follow the herd but then in my observation of nature, herds tend to be driven to the slaughter house. Consumer market where unit costs are critical, is completely different from the techical market where robustness, functionality and future development path credibility is much more highly valued. For example, betamax is widely used in the media production industry.

    So, to return to the point, what evidence have you that firewire is a dead-end technology?


    LL
  • What I really want to know is why none of these dammed machines come equipped for a lan! I have a cable modem, what the f*ck do I want with a slow poke modem to take up my line! Use USB or some sort of PCMCIA derrivitve, just don't lock me in an old school thought, I don't live there anymore.

    Keep'n it real,
    Malachi

  • What's all this nonsense? (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 09, 1999 @08:51AM (#1693790)
    Honestly, I don't understand all these comments of "Sega Sucks, Playstation rules!", especially on a forum of "alternative OS users" as Slashdot usually is. What are you really saying? "I don't need to try out the new system, because I already believe in the brand name of the upcoming, super-duper one that has been announced to come out later." Isn't this how Microsoft and all other standard setters use their names and tactics? All this talk about FUD from Sega -- do you really think they're big enough to make up all this negative news on a system when they have enough trouble trying to hawk theirs? If anything, Sony and Nintendo are the ones this time putting the pressure on with their semi-vaporware announcements. It's almost certain that they both will release more powerful systems, but, as everyone here should know, software is the main draw. Dismissing a console because it's not popular brand-wise sounds horribly strange coming from this group. Sega this time has gotten the 3rd party support from Namco, Konami, Capcom, Bioware, Midway, and a lot of others, so the games are here this time, unlike the Saturn. Pledging loyalty to one label -- Sega, Nintendo, Sony -- is exactly why so many people got burned by the Saturn, the N64 (sorta), and so on. If there's anything that remains constant in console games, it's that what you do in the past doesn't count as much as what you do in the present and the future. Computer games follow the same credo -- look at the C&C following when it first arrived compared to its number compared to Starcraft today. This doesn't mean that you should go run out and buy the Dreamcast if there's no game that you like on the system (and I certainly plan to get the PSX2 as well, if it's got some good games), but waiting a year or more for no other reason than a company bias makes everyone a follower, and not their own judge.
  • Just to remember what is the "Missing Graphics Chip", after all.

    It is a customized Chip that integrates 4MB VRAM with 16 processors working in parallel, one for each screen section. I'd guess.


    And all of that at 150MHz. That makes for the aclaimmed 75 million polygons per second and 48Gbps data transfer rate (within VRAM) announced.

    Just check it [playstation.com] at SONY's official playstation page.
  • what could you program a console to do that you couldn't program a computer to do

    *Nothing* That's the whole point. A console is just a computer that happens to have the right hardware for playing games very well. I program my computer, and I want to be able to program my console.

    Mainly, I don't want to be limited to the choice of titles that a large corporation dictates I should buy. No-one makes certain classes of games any more. How many 2D scrolling shoot-em ups have you seen for a modern console (save the few "nostalgia" titles like Xevious, R-Types etc.)? But also, I'd like to be able to set myself up as a small independent software producer for consoles. At the moment, the price of entry is simply too high. It's not possible for an independent to write some software, get a distribution deal and sell it. You have to strike a deal with a publisher, who will pay you an advance that can cover the cost of a devkit, and rip you off when it comes to selling the finished product. Thanks, but no thanks.

  • From what I've heard, the WinCE used is so identical to the palmtop version that they had to suppress the mouse cursor subroutine. "Dragon", the native OS used, has been noted that it provides the usual console environment to develop in without using any CE code at all. I'd assume it would resemble SDL.
  • Basically, the game companies sell the consoles at cost, or close to it, in order to make money off of the games.

    Actually, that's mostly a myth. Console hardware still has a considerable markup on it, and they make a fair bit of money from it. Where they lose out is when they start bundling game packs with it, because then they have to pay the game publisher as well. Even then, I suspect it only reduces their margins slightly. I doubt they're actually making a loss.

    As for loss of quality, that's a non-issue. Having an open development platform would simply mean more choice (and yes, some of that would be rubbish!). There's no reason it should lead to a reduction in the number of "approved" titles that are released via the existing QC process of the major players.

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