General gaming discussion

Potential-Monke

Think I might be one of the few who never got into the skating games... BMX XXX though... That kept teen me occupied for a while!

Also, that lightsaber VR looks bloody amazing!!! Get on it Sony, I might buy the PSVR then!

kunst nugget

Wasn't there a bit of a battle between HD-DVD and BluRay at the beginning of the last generation? I remember people waiting with bated breath to see which format the porn industry was going to adopt...

Loved that Aggressive Inline game on ps2 back in the day.

Retr0gamer

Jerichoholic wrote: »

Dreamcast didn't have DVD support just a weird GCD thing, so in that sense it had nothing to do with marketing or support, just a bad design choice.

I hear this a lot but DVD wasn't an established format the time. People held on for the PS2 since they didn't entirely trust Sega and PlayStation had become ubiquitous with videogames. DVD was a nice bonus. That first Christmas for the PS2 was what killed the Dreamcast. DVD then took off majorly that year due to the PS2 and people did buy a PS2 as a DVD player even though it was awful for it but by then the Dreamcast was dead. It had stopped being manufactured before that Christmas.

Penn

kunst nugget wrote: »

Wasn't there a bit of a battle between HD-DVD and BluRay at the beginning of the last generation? I remember people waiting with bated breath to see which format the porn industry was going to adopt...

Yeah, Sony went Bluray and Microsoft went HD-DVD (though you had to buy an external reader and plug it in to the 360). Once the porn industry went with Bluray it was pretty much game over for HD-DVD. Movies that had been released on HD-DVD started getting re-released on Bluray.

kunst nugget

kunst nugget wrote: »

Wasn't there a bit of a battle between HD-DVD and BluRay at the beginning of the last generation? I remember people waiting with bated breath to see which format the porn industry was going to adopt...

This is how I know VR is here to stay

Kirby

Porn wasn't the big reason bluray succeeded simply because streaming replaced physical as the format of choice. The most popular sites both then and now are free streaming sites. Couple this with the rise of amatuer, non studio produced content and most of the big studio's lack of innovation.....and instead you have an industry that is stuck in the mud. Instead of being innovators like they used to be, they are dinosaurs desperately trying to hold on to the way things "used to be". Be honest, how many people do you know who pay for porn? It's rare. And the people that do, pay for a service. They don't buy individual movies.

There is a good paralell between them and most of the music industry.

People put too much stock into what happened with VHS tapes in their decision with Bluray. What ACTUALLY decided the victor over HD-DVD was that Sony included a bluray player as standard with their console....even though it cost them money. It was a long term plan based on short term loss.

The other big reason was the big studio's sided with Bluray because it had better DRM. HD-DVD was too open a format for them and the risk of piracy scared them.

Thats it basically.

Potential-Monke

You seem to know quite a bit about porn Kirby! :pac:

J Mysterio

Retr0gamer wrote: »

super Mario odyssey, one of the best games ever made.

Woah... take it easy there champ.

Kirby

Potential-Monke wrote: »

You seem to know quite a bit about porn Kirby! :pac:

I could just say I know so much about it because I'm a nerd for technology.....which is true. But that would imply I don't like porn. Which is untrue.

Retr0gamer

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I hear this a lot but DVD wasn't an established format the time. People held on for the PS2 since they didn't entirely trust Sega and PlayStation had become ubiquitous with videogames. DVD was a nice bonus. That first Christmas for the PS2 was what killed the Dreamcast. DVD then took off majorly that year due to the PS2 and people did buy a PS2 as a DVD player even though it was awful for it but by then the Dreamcast was dead. It had stopped being manufactured before that Christmas.

DVD had no way of failing though. It had massive storage and high speeds and allowed for a level of interactivity VHS simply couldn't.
They were also cheap to produce so consumers could easily afford to upgrade.

super_furry

Yeah, everyone wanted a DVD player at the time and the PS2 released with one build-in at a price-point that was cheaper than many stand-alone DVD players.

I remember Sega eventually trying to bundle separate DVD players with the Dreamcast, but it was never going to be enough.

Jerichoholic

The Dreamcast was never going to get the same 3rd party games since the GCD was too small and couldn't hold the data a dvd could. That was why it never stood a chance.

Retr0gamer

You are putting way too much stock in how much DVD. It's a really popular misconception and is being perpetually spread by uninformed youtube documentaries.

Actual interviews with Sega employees are what have the truth. People just didn't trust Sega at the time and wouldn't invest in a system by them after the disaster of the Saturn. The first Christmas for the PS2 was a total disaster for Sony. They totally failed to meet the demand for the console meaning it was impossible to find, the launch line up was dire outside of SSX. And the system had horrendous reliability issues. And yet Sega couldn't sell Dreamcast. Everyone just wanted to hold out for a PS2. The Playstations second year DVD was a major selling point but it was the proliferation of PS2 consoles that lead to an explosion in the DVD market. The spiel from Sony is the PS2 drove the sales explosion in DVD movies, not the other way around.

As for the GD-roms having poor capacity for the time it was actually more than capable. There's very few DVD games on the PS2 that came close to filling a DVD and splitting a game across multiple GD-roms was not an issue considering how cheap they were to press.

There's way too much misinformation about the PS2-Dreamcast battle. The other nonsense I hear is how the Dreamcast had terrible anti-piracy on GD roms meaning it could just play games from CD rom which is total misinformation. It ignores how GD roms had excellent security that so far still hasn't been broken but a the weakness a bizarre CD rom format the Dreamcast supported. There's a huge amount of hacking work that had to go into getting a Dreamcast game to work from a CD rom.

Retr0gamer

J Mysterio wrote: »

Woah... take it easy there champ.

As opposed to what? Crash Bandicoot? It might not be your favourite platformer, it's not mine but if someone told me it was their favourite platformer of all time I'd tell them it's a great choice.

Jerichoholic

I dunno about the security, I have a US Dreamcast, and no original games, all just copies.

Kirby

Retro.... regardless of the actual REASON for the hackability of the Dreamcast, the fact was that anyone could do it regardless of technical knowledge. That's a total disaster.

The hard facts are that every console eventually will get hacked but the manufacturers rely on the robustness of its defenses early in its life cycle. Most consoles can be hacked day 1 but require a hardware hack. i.e installing a chip and some soldering. Things that Joe Bloggs can't do.

With the Dreamcast, if you could burn a cd.....you could run pirate games. It was that simple.

Dreamcast having terrible anti-piracy is 100% true. It's not misinformation at all. You can design the most robust security system known to man, but if you have a button that says "ignore security" on the console......then it isn't secure.

You can't on one hand acknowledge the MIL-CD problem and on the other claim it had great anti-piracy. They are completely antithetical.

Potential-Monke

Potential-Monke wrote: »

Nintendo was never really part of the cutting edge since the N64 days. But they don't need to be. They have their own audience which is massive, and they create excellent games, and a lot of choice out there. Nintendo haven't taken on the big 2 directly, instead showing them that it's not all about graphical power. The Switch was a genius move, as they will eventually only have 1 device to create games for, and covers both the home and handheld market!

I agree however it depends on the interpretation of cutting edge.
Nintendo make cutting edge games, regardless of graphical fidelity.
They also make games that stand the test of time.

Billy86

Retr0gamer wrote: »

You are putting way too much stock in how much DVD. It's a really popular misconception and is being perpetually spread by uninformed youtube documentaries.

I wouldn't be too quick to say that, I was 15 when it released and the DVD player was at least a huge, huge selling point among kids of that age at the time.

Kirby

Completely anecdotal but I got my ps2 for games however both my sister and one of my friends bought a ps2 purely for the DVD player in it. Neither had much interest in ps2 games at the time. It was simply the cheapest DVD player in Ireland at the time.

Rob2D

Billy86 wrote: »

I wouldn't be too quick to say that, I was 15 when it released and the DVD player was at least a huge, huge selling point among kids of that age at the time.

Yeah I agree. DVD was the number one thing all the lads who got one were talking about.

You have to keep in mind, to get those kind of PS2 sales numbers, you need the layman. Everyone bought a PS2 and the majority of those people didn't have a clue about the industry. But they knew about those newfangled disc movies though.

Most of the lads I knew who got a PS2 barely knew their Mario from their Sonic. So to say their decision was based on a mistrust of Sega's previous business practices is a bit much.

Typical conversation at the time was something like: "yeah but shur it can play play the new DVD's like." "awwwww man that's savage".

Anyway, I was a complete oddity who went and bought a GameCube:pac:

Retr0gamer

I'm guessing most of you aren't talking about the PS2 at launch because then a DVD player wasn't that big of a deal. Sure the following year the DVD format was a big selling point but dreamcast was dead. The launch of the matrix DVD which set the standard for future releases and the proliferation of DVD players, most of which were PS2 consoles, meant during 2001 DVD became a must have. But it was Christmas 2000 when the dreamcast died.

Billy86

Rob2D wrote: »

Anyway, I was a complete oddity who went and bought a GameCube:pac:

Me too! But hey at least we got the odd chance to be smug with the two metroid games and RE4 exclusivity for a whole.

Picked up a ps2 a bit later on the cheap from a friends brother who was moving away though.

Billy86

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'm guessing most of you aren't talking about the PS2 at launch because then a DVD player wasn't that big of a deal. Sure the following year the DVD format was a big selling point but dreamcast was dead. The launch of the matrix DVD which set the standard for future releases and the proliferation of DVD players, most of which were PS2 consoles, meant during 2001 DVD became a must have. But it was Christmas 2000 when the dreamcast died.

No I'm talking about from release, it was a huge, huge selling point certainly among the school kid demographic, to whom owning your own DVD or video player, often on your own TV in your own room, was a very big deal at the time because without a ps2 it just wasn't really possible.

Also the matrix DVD was released before the ps2, on Sep 21st 1999 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_in_home_video . Depending on where you lived it would be another about 6 - 15 months until the ps2 was released.

In the UK and Ireland the matrix came out at the start of December 1999 while the ps2 wasn't out until October of the next year - https://www.google.ie/amp/s/variety.com/1999/film/news/matrix-dvd-breaks-sales-records-in-u-k-1117759936/amp/

Don't mean to be nitpick on the dates but I was sure we got the matrix DVD at Christmas in 1999 right (the dad was always huge into new tech and such so got an actual DVD player very shortly after they came out).

Sonics2k

I remember getting the PS2, not long at all after it's launch.

One of the main reason I was able to talk my parents into letting me spend my money on it was because it had a DVD player so we could use it for watching movies too. Was a big deal with a lot of friends at the time too.

ERG89

Sonics2k wrote:

One of the main reason I was able to talk my parents into letting me spend my money on it was because it had a DVD player so we could use it for watching movies too. Was a big deal with a lot of friends at the time too.

Back when renting DVDs or new games was a thing

RasTa

Dreamcast was an amazing machine although that was when I was buying 40 games at a time off some random dude on ebay for £40.

One thing is common is xbox has never really had any games( I only ever owned a 360) Although I did enjoy GOW 2 and it's also the first console I've ever owned to break so I'd never touch it again.

Jerichoholic

Mr E wrote: »

PUBG have pulled out of their Fortnite lawsuit.
Hard to see how they could have won anyway...

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-06-27-pubg-pulls-out-of-fortnite-lawsuit

How long will this Battle Royal fad last? I hope to God it dies soon.

Mr E

Mr E wrote: »

PUBG have pulled out of their Fortnite lawsuit.
Hard to see how they could have won anyway...

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-06-27-pubg-pulls-out-of-fortnite-lawsuit

I always felt that given the time that it was a nuisance suit to try and screw with Fortnite's Korean release.

I think that the one takeaway from PUBG's recent activities is that Brendan Greene and Co have no issue lifting ideas and content (they had to remove an energy drink for ripping off Red Bull and then tried to sue another company for having an energy drink in their game) from other places but as soon as a competitor cuts into their market their true colours come out and it's all about the money. The fact that Greene thinks he somehow created the concept of the Battle Royale game is nonsense and much as I like PUBG it's still a buggy, bland mess with little content.

gimli2112

Jerichoholic wrote: »

How long will this Battle Royal fad last? I hope to God it dies soon.

I really don't see the attraction either. I've played a few games of Fortnite but it does nothing for me. I'd say if you levelled up unlocking stuff (not just skins) I'd give it a go.
That kind of progression probably wouldn't work well with those game types though. It would be Christmas Noob season all year long.