onlysublime

but it appears to be single player. i didn't see another port for another controller...

WTH? they're even shutting down the ability to send messages? http://arstechnica.c...g-down-in-june/ excerpts: Nintendo is slowly phasing the original Wii out of its hardware lineup, announcing today that many of the system's online services will be permanently shut down on June 28. The shutdown applies to the following free online channels, which most users probably aren't using regularly in any case: Nintendo Channel News Channel Forecast Channel Everybody Votes Channel Mii Contest Channel You'll no longer be able to send messages or Miis to other Wii owners over the Internet, either. Nintendo also said that "message/data exchange within some games will be disabled" but didn't clarify which games this applies to, or whether online gameplay in popular titles like Mario Kart Wii or Super Smash Bros. Brawl would be affected (Nintendo refused to comment on this matter in response to an Ars request). But the writing has been on the wall for the original Wii since well before last November's launch of the successor Wii U, with hardware sales cratering from the record-setting highs of 2007 and 2008. Today's announcement is even less surprising considering that Nintendo started selling an online-free Wii Mini in some regions last year. Despite selling nearly 100 million systems worldwide so far, the Wii doesn't look like it's going to continue as even a niche player in the market. The only upcoming game currently listed for the system on Nintendo's site is a port of Disney Infinity, which would be the second retail title for the system this year (after The Croods Prehistoric Party). There might be a few more licensed releases to come in the holiday season, but publishers seem almost totally uninterested in reaching out to a potential audience of tens of millions of players who might still be holding on to their aging hardware. The real risk for Nintendo, of course, is that the Wii U isn't yet prepared to pick up the hardware and software sales slack being let go by the fading Wii. Sales for the new console in 2013 have been historically bad, forcing the company to slash sales projections for the fiscal year. With only a few anticipated titles in the pipeline and impending new hardware from Sony and Microsoft to contend with soon, Nintendo seems to have an uphill battle on its hands to remain relevant in the console market.

Lucas got tired of everyone criticizing his every move. A lot of people who have followed him, written articles and books about him, and interviewed him have said so. He spent a ton of effort building up the extended Star Wars universe beyond just the movies that a lot of people don't appreciate. A lot of Star Wars fans somehow feel entitled. That Star Wars is theirs and Lucus is the one messing with their childhoods. How do you do your thing when everyone is criticizing everything you do? writing petitions. writing hate letters. building up all the i hate lucas web sites. selling SW was the hardest thing for him. BusinessWeek wrote a great "last days" piece in the Star Wars sale: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-03-07/how-disney-bought-lucasfilm-and-its-plans-for-star-wars#p1

this is very EA-esque. I'd understand if the Wii was discontinued. But it's still being sold and we're not just talking leftover inventory but actively manufactured.

guy was pretty dedicated! http://www.made-by-bacteria.com/unity.html Unity crams a stunning 15 different consoles (including classics like the SNES and not-so-classics like the TurboGrafx 16) into a single, admittedly bulky box. The one of a kind entertainment center is the culmination of three years and $700 invested in bringing this dream to life. All of the hardware inside is either from the original consoles (no emulation of clone systems here!) or custom built -- such as the 16-position switch. And, it should go without saying, that it took a whole lot to get these gaming machines to share a single power supply, video cable and control pad.

actually, I ran into this problem too! sometimes when I'm setting the queue on the PC side of things, it would not be assigned to the correct console. I think this happened when I did the queue when both Xbox's were turned off. I think I worked around this by having the desired Xbox turned on when I was setting the queue.

good info! I never got around to rearranging the HDD's because of laziness. and yes! I like the interchangeable faceplates. never got around to paying directly for a faceplate. but I have a faceplate I'm using that came with Deathsmiles: my arcade... I tried to hide its ugliness with a skin...

The 120 GB HDD is on an Elite black console with the chrome finish. The 250GB one is on the arcade console with that ugly putty color and no chrome finish. So I was thinking of pairing the 250GB with the Elite and the 120GB drive with the arcade. Not only is the Elite better looking, it's quieter than the arcade model (in my situation, in case someone out there wanted to argue otherwise) and the arcade model, when I open the drawer, there's a momentary initial hitch when it's moving. It doesn't affect operation at all but it looks cheap when it does that. the tray on the elite is just really smooth when it's sliding.

now you guys have me thinking... right now, I have a couple of 360 systems (Jasper revision). If I snap the HDD from one of them to the other 360, is the only thing I need to do is transfer the license? or do I have to do the redownload thing? I've done the HDD to HDD thing before and the HDD to flash drive to HDD before (both times, extremely tedious because of all the handholding...

some more details: Is it the same story? The story is true to the original scenario, and all the characters and their enemies from the first game are all back. It has been beefed up and modernized though. Some characters that were sort of in the background in the first version were developed and have taken on more importance. We also went back and took a longer look at some of the blurry spots in the first Flashback and the fans will hopefully discover certain aspects of the world that might have been overlooked. What are the improvements brought to the original game? Our first objective was to remain faithful to the spirit of the original game, but to also take full advantage of the computing power of today’s machines. Quite a few points were considered to bring the game up to standards. The first was obviously in the graphics department. We also gave a facelift to the gameplay by making it more reactive and dynamic, the reactivity and instinctive control of Conrad being two points that we really take to heart. We also integrated an experience progression system for the character and his equipment, with upgrades that can be found throughout the various levels. Accessibility was brought up to current standards as was the Level Design that would seem rather punishing through today’s lenses if we had kept it exactly as it was. All in all, though, we’re extremely happy with the result. We feel we were able to keep Flashback’s soul and put it into a new body. What team at Vector Cell has been working on the game? Did they take part in the development of the original game? We’re a team of fifteen, and five of the lead were part of the original project. To that you have to add externals that came in to work on various specialized domains: film direction, sound design, music, dialogues & scenario.

it's not a HDD mod. the drive is still a Western Digital Scorpio drive underneath the plastic. you're doing nothing to the drive. you're just replacing one plastic shell for another plastic shell to move between the old and the new. you can't substitute any 2.5" drive. you also need the right firmware. those cheap knockoff drives are scorpio drives that have been flashed to work on the 360. since they've all be flashed with the same identifier, it'd be very easy (though they would never do it) for them to ban everyone that has a fake HDD.

I'm surprised no one has posted this yet. But anyone here play Flashback back in the day? a remake is coming out for XBLA and PSN: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/400382/flashback-hd-announced-for-xbla-psn/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W_tRZwpSYk Ubisoft has officially announced an HD Flashback remake for Xbox Live Arcade and PSN following a leak earlier this year. The new game, rebuilt in 3D using the Unreal Engine, is being helmed by original creator Paul Cuisset and his French development studio VectorCell. "It's not a reboot. It's Flashback re-imagined," describes the game's official docs. "You'll find everything you always liked in this classic that set standards of the genre in the 90's, and brought up to speed with the 21st century technology and expectations." The original Flashback was released for Amiga in 1992, then later ported to Mega Drive, SNES, CD-ROM and Mac, among other platforms.

no. the hard drive is replaceable on the slims as well. in fact, you can use an old HDD on the slim as well as vice versa. to use the old HDD on the slim, you just remove the external plastic casing to reveal the 2.5" HDD. then you insert it into the bay of the slim. Or if you don't like the idea of a bare drive kind of dangling in the bay, you can buy a cheap slim caddy to put the drive. similarly, you can buy a slim hard drive, remove the caddy, and insert the bare drive into the external shell of the old HDD. and then plug into the old 360.

I can't imagine transferring without the transfer cable. I remember the hours of transferring files with flash drives (when I had to transfer from a 120GB to a 250GB). It's just so tedious with the file system on the 360. If it was a PC, you could just rubber band it and then just wait for the process to happen. But with flash drives on the 360, you have to go through each game title by group. I think I would've saved a lot of time just redownloading everything because you could queue it up on a PC browser. But I didn't want to hog the bandwidth of the house (as well as other reason).

that's what I thought he said "broke" his authentication.

yes, it shouldn't be hard. you do the hard drive transfer. then the license transfer. you shouldn't have to redownload everything (and even if you decided to redownload, it wouldn't actually download it again, it would almost instantly pop and finish the download unless of course if you deleted it which in that case, you would have to actually redownload the whole thing). http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-360/accessories/set-up-transfer-cable

???

yeah, if it's new, you should exchange it. I still have the same 3 original 360 controllers from way back when. got a black one that came with the 360 Elite. and then had 2 white ones (one from the 360 Arcade console and one from the 360 Wireless Controller for Windows kit). they all still play great. though on my black controller, a lot of Call of Duty gaming has made the clicking down on the left stick loose (clicking down on the stick initiates sprint). which means nitro in Saints Row 2/3 is now terrible for me because I'm always accidentally activating nitro which is the reason I left nitro off my vehicles.

you really should check out XBLIG. a lot of fun games there.

wiki (not saying wiki is the be-all; just using it as a baseline): In marketing language, a gimmick is a unique or quirky special feature that makes something "stand out" from its contemporaries. However, the special feature is typically thought to be of little relevance or use. Thus, a gimmick is a special feature for the sake of having a special feature. so if gimmick implies a unique feature that is of little relevance or use, then motion gaming is not a gimmick. A lot of people use it and enjoy it. so you could say it's gimmicky to abrax. but not gimmicky in general.

yeah, I have a lot of XBLA, XBLIG, and Games on Demand so I could easily see buying a $99 360. Heck, I could sell one of my extra 360 consoles which just kind of sits there and have the new 360 be the streaming/XBLA box.

for the current 360 owners, there'd be no need to link. you have a 360. why would you want to buy one that doesn't have a drive? I guess if you wanted a smaller device that uses less power. I'm curious how the link actually works. because I don't think "network link" is sufficient. and if a network link is sufficient, then all that means is that both devices is on the same router network which is as easy as can be. the jokes are already that the new 360 will be like a 32X or Sega CD to the next Xbox.

it's looking like the "always on" for gaming actually applies to the rumored $99 Xbox 360 console since it doesn't have an optical drive and is meant to counter AppleTV, Google TV, Roku, etc. http://www.vgleaks.com/microsoft-xbox-roadmap-2013/ Microsoft is working hard in its new strategy for the next years. The company wants to expand its Xbox brand with two new Xbox. One would be next-gen, the other one would be a new redesign for Xbox 360. Take in mind the Wii Mini, MS would like to offer something similar to Nintendo. This cheap model would be focused as a set top box product, although you will be able to load games too, but the games should be load directly from the HDD. This Xbox wouldn’t have disc drive. When the Durango (game machine) launches, it will not support backwards compatibility for 360 games out of the box. Instead, this functionality will come from the other unit that will be networked with the Durango to provide this (not unlike the DVD add-on for the original Xbox). The purpose of the smaller Xbox unit is to compete with Apple TV, but also provides XBLA and 360 game support which will give it an edge over Apple TV. The rumors of “always online required” comes from the smaller Xbox unit which may not have a disc drive and like Apple TV it would require a network connection and internet to provide any real functionality. It may be possible they will design both consoles to be stackable. Durango itself will also always be online like any other device (correct with rumors), but it will not be a requirement to play local content and it will not prevent playing used games. Putting in an Xbox 360 disc into Durango will prompt the user to attach the supporting device that is sold separately. By separating the two devices and their functions it will ensure price competitiveness for both pieces of hardware. Microsoft’s delay in announcing these products from April goes more inline with not having a physical set of devices to show (among specification updates), which should be ready by May or June when this information is officially released.

yeah, it seems to me, when people say "gimmicky" what they really mean is they don't like it rather than being really gimmicky.

abrax... you're going to be disappointed. the next Xbox has Kinect 2.0 included. the PS4 has the Move and also upgraded the PSEye to a newer cam. It also has a touchpad on the controller. again, just because you didn't like it is completely separate from plenty of other people who do enjoy it. I'm not sure if you even enjoy collecting. You seem to collect just for the sake of collecting. It's more a hoarder's mentality than a gamer's.