EricBall

I was recently looking at the Apple TV as a way to cheaply provide AirPlay in a second location and I wondered if there were games for it. Surprisingly there aren't any. Sure there are rumors, suggestions, hopes & fears there may be in the future. But right now the Apple TV is simply a media extender - great for watching streamed movies, TV & music or duplicating your iPhone / iPod / iPad display. But there are no native apps - other than those developed in partnership with Apple. And that's kinda strange to me. Sure it's somewhat underpowered (similar to an iPhone 4), but that's seldom stopped developers in the past. It has Bluetooth, so it's just software to add a controller or two. The storage might be a little tight, but it's a streaming device so you can assume it's connected to the network. But maybe Apple has missed their window of opportunity. Somewhere in the transition version 1 (Mac like) to version 2 (iPod like) they forgot to take a step back and review their assumptions. So now with similar low priced micro-consoles like OYUA they will have competition and the limitations of the Apple TV become much bigger. Then again, I always wondered why Microsoft didn't create a version of Office (or even Works) for the original Xbox. Then they really could have taken over the living room.

My usual eBay sequence goes like this: 1. Research the retail price of the item. eBay isn't always cheaper, especially when shipping & customs are taken into account. Also check craigslist, kijiji, etc. 2. Use both the current worldwide and completed lists to find out what the asking & sale prices of the item and how common / frequent it is. For infrequent sales, create an email notification. 3. Given #1 & #2, determine how much you are willing to pay for the item. 4. Check the current items, in particular the Buy It Nows. Although you may be able to get something cheaper via auction, there is some value in a sure thing. 5. Although I look at feedback, it's not the end-all be-all. Look at everything and trust your instincts. This also is much more important for high value items. I've had very few issues. The biggest problem I've had is where people don't know what they are selling. e.g. the listing says the item supports SDHC but it doesn't. 6. For auctions, put a watch on it and note what day it expires. If you have questions, ask them now. Then bid your top price (minus shipping & customs) with only a few seconds to go. Finally, do be aware of shipping times and customs for out-of-country items.

Is it one of the earlier models which can be easily hacked? See wiibrew.org for details.

According to http://www.zophar.net/consoles/dreamcast.html the 2600, 7800 and Lynx (although the 7800 & Lynx are based on MESS for the DC, so the 5200 etc may also be covered.)

Taking 15% off the previous record is a significant accomplishment. I wonder if there was some improvement to the car (it is the unlimited class after all), or if it was just the driver & his guts.

The official way was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Yaroze There's probably unofficial ways using a modded PS1 and CDRs and cross-compiling on the PC.

I picked this up at a garage sale (not surprising as it's a single player, single story game). I haven't played any of the other modern PoP games, so I can't highlight the differences or similarities. I'm over half-way through the game and enjoying it. The basic plot is you've teamed up with Princess Elika to defeat minions of the god of darkness and heal the land in order to prevent the god of darkness from returning after being locked up by his brother, the god of light (who is MIA), 1000 years ago. Movement consists of a lot of wall-running and acrobatic jumping. Combat is one-on-one swordplay with a button-mashing combo+quicktime system. There's also a collection component as you need to collect light seeds after healing the land in order to open up additional areas. One of the interesting design choices for the game is you cannot die. If you fall or get stuck in the tar like "corruption", Elika conveniently brings you back to the last stable platform you were at. In combat she will block any death-blow, although your opponent will get some life back. As one review explained it: in most games dying will bring you back to your last save point; this just speeds up the process. (Although sometimes that last stable platform can be a long way back!) So while not dying does make the game "easier", it also decreases some of the frustration which would normally occur when you die due because you didn't press the right button at the right time. It also lets you take risks you might otherwise avoid and let the game designer increase the difficulty slightly. Progress through the game follows a pattern: journey (via wall running etc) to the next corrupted area, defeat a minor minion, journey through the region (more wall running & jumping) to meet up with the major minion. After defeating the major minion, heal the land and spend even more time searching the area for light seeds (even more wall running & jumping, although without the corruption). There are 24 areas to heal before the endgame; whatever that is. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of variety as you work to complete each area. Sure there's differences between the 4 major minions (especially the Warrior who can't be damaged by normal attacks) and the artwork team has gone to great effort to add unique architectural features to each area. But this ain't Super Mario 64 where each world is completely different. Part of the problem is while the world may look different, there's only one path to get to the major minion. So rather than thinking, "I'm here, how do I get there?", you're focused on finding the next step along the path (which is even easier as Elika will show you the path with a button press). Nor does it get any less linear once the area is healed and you start looking for light seeds. For the most part you simply have to follow the same paths you used to get between areas and to the major minion. And it's a shame that you can't get down to ground level and appreciate some of the artwork which you only glimpse from above. The inability to get to ground level, the constant wall running, and the "magic plates" also detract from the believability of the areas. According to the story, these were places where people lived and worked. And yet the only way to move around is by some beautifully animated super-parkour. Sure, have some places which are inaccessible without wall running or jumping from ledge to ledge, but there's nothing wrong with a staircase. Collecting sufficient light seeds allows you to unlock a magic plate and access more areas (conveniently indicated on a map). Unfortunately, three of the four magic plates (I haven't unlocked the last one yet) simply fling you out along the defined path. No short-cuts here, the path leads to a plate, you use the plate, then continue along the path. The yellow plate even forces you to play dodge-em with the architecture as it flies you along the most indirect path. It may sound like I'm down on this game. I'm not. But the wall-running and collecting parts of the game play is like the music in LEGO Star Wars - cool when you start playing but after hours of playing it gets very annoying. (It also starts to feel like a kind of rhythm game after a while.) Combat is one of the better parts of the game, although it doesn't play as much of a part as I would have expected. And it also says something when I'm glad when I'm able to kill a minor minion when they are forming rather than engaging in combat. As I mentioned, combat uses a combo system (which is nicely explained in the help). Pressing buttons in the correct order (and with the correct timing) can lead to long strings of attacks by you and Elika. However, there are times when it feels like I'm just as good mashing buttons rather than setting up that perfect combo. But the best part of the game is the story. While some of the backstory is revealed automatically as you proceed through the game, the majority requires you to talk to Elika (with a simple press of the button). And it's not all serious, there's lighter stuff like a game of I-spy which really helps with the characterization. The only annoying part is if the conversation repeats there's no way to interrupt it.

Some NASCAR fans & drivers don't like the road courses, but just this past weekend AJ Allmendinger won the Grand National race at Road America and Martin Truex Jr won the Cup race at Sonoma - both road courses. And the trucks will be racing at Mosport near me on Labour Day. And unlike the pit strategy parade of F1 or the interval starts of rally, the NASCAR (and Aussies) race door to fender.

According to http://gamasutra.com/view/news/193162 , for Microsoft it's all about boxes. In summary, Microsoft limits publishers to one digital release for every two retail releases.

Personally, I'd be impressed with just playing 60+ games to completion, much less 100%-ing them.

Assuming MS can bring down the price of the Xbox One to match the PS4 (likely by not including the Kinect as dropping the HMDI IN port & functionality would require new hardware - maybe for the slim version), gamers will be picking consoles this November/December based on brand loyalty and exclusive launch titles. (I expect there will be very little difference between consoles for non-exclusive titles.) the Xbox One has the following exclusive games confirmed for 2013: Dead Rising 3 - a sequel to Dead Rising which sold 1.7M copies and Dead Rising 2 which sold 1M copies Forza Motorsport 5 - a sequal to Forza 3 (2M) and Forza 4(1M) and Ryse: Son of Rome - a hash & slash action-adventure by Crytek and the Playstation 4 has the following exclusive games confirmed for 2013: Driveclub - a street racing game by the creators of MotorStorm (3.31M), MotorStorm: Pacific Rift (1M) Killzone: Shadow Fall - a sequal to Killzone 2 (2M) and Killzone 3 (<1M) a sequel to Super Stardust (~400K) and Knack - an action-adventure / platform game directed by Mark Cerny IMHO the winner so far is the Xbox One as Forza 5 could be considered a "system seller". Also Ryse, with it's blood & violence gameplay, probably will appeal more to the hard-core early adopter than the cartoony Knack.

gbatemp period net You can probably still buy a slot 1 flash cart if you look hard enough.

As I said on my blog, my error in assuming it couldn't be changed was forgetting it's all software - and MS is still a software company.

I have to admit I was shocked at the news. I guess the pre-E3 discontent to the vague messages wasn't enough to make them change their minds. So something must have occurred after the E3 announcements. Maybe it was the pre-orders, or maybe they got some analyst feedback which would have impacted their stock outlook. And I was obviously wrong thinking it couldn't be changed. I had forgotten that it's just software, and software can be changed. Manuel, you're probably right. MS needs to bring the price of the XB3 in line with the PS4 and dropping the Kinect would likely allow them to do that. Given the two consoles are so similar, I suspect there will be little difference between non-exclusive games. Which means the "winner" will be determined by the exclusive games - especially the launch games. I should try to do some analysis.

Yep, they couldn't have said, "Buy a PS4 or a Wii U - they don't require Internet for DRM; and they're cheaper to boot!" although I suspect that's what will happen. The guys in camo will buy the PS4 and the families at the cottage will get the Wii U. I predict the PS4 will outsell the Xbone 2:1 this November - January, especially if MS doesn't drop the price or otherwise change the status quo.

I hope TG paid you for the effort you did put in, even if they decided to axe the project.

Thanks. It's all about starting from a positive which everything else can be linked to and trying to cast any negatives as positives. Another idea I had is for the discs to include a free demo in addition to the full install. So you could borrow the disc from the library and play the demo, then install the full version & pay the download price. But as I said in another thread, I think the Internet requirement and $100 price difference are going to have a much greater impact on sales than the used game restrictions. I'm not sure I could have made the RROD into a positive. IIRC in the beginning the cause wasn't well understood, then it wasn't known how widespread the problem was. Maybe at the end when you could spin it as a a free upgrade...

Gaming sites are filled with rants regarding the Xbox One and Microsoft's decision to allow publishers to limit or restrict sales of used games. I think Microsoft's biggest problem was not in the decision, but how they presented it. Imagine if they had presented it like: The power of the Xbox One isn't just the boxes in your home! Xbox One games can use the power of Microsoft Azure via your broadband Internet connection to provide even more realism and deep game play. And because the Xbox One requires a broadband Internet connection, all games will be available as digital downloads! In consideration for people without unlimited Internet, games will also be available on disc from retail outlets. And since you only require the disc to install the game, anyone else can use the same disc to install the game while only paying the digital download price. You may also return the disc to Microsoft authorized retailers to receive Microsoft Points.

Sorry, I meant using STA WSYNC outside the DLI. You can use STA WSYNC inside the DLI to sync the DLI to the next line (required to change the palette), but if you're just releasing the mainline then it isn't necessary.

I don't think MS will change their tune - they've built the Xbone around "downloads on disc" and I suspect there's no way to install a game without the Xbone authorizing with XBL. However, I think the bigger problem is they've excluded anyone who doesn't have broadband Internet. People may squawk about the ownership restrictions & privacy conspiracy theories, but they will still buy their favorite games. But if you can't play to start with, then that's a lost sale forever. The interesting question is whether Sony considered going this route with the PS4, but made the opposite decision. Maybe someday there will be an insiders article from one of the two camps. IMHO Sony also won big on price as now MS has to justify why their console costs US$100 more.

I usually advised against mixing STA WSYNC and DLI as STA WSYNC pauses the CPU, which may cause it to miss the DLI interrupt (or at least delay it to the start of the next line).

If you are mixing graphics modes then you will need to use 5 byte entries to change between each mode. It's probably not worth the effort to only use 5 byte entries when absolutely required.

You need one 5 byte header per frame to set the write mode (doesn't have to be visible) and you need to use 5 byte headers for character / tile strings or 32 byte wide sprites. But for normal sprites you can use 4 byte headers.

Any particular reason you're using 5 byte entries instead of 4? That would save you 9 cycles per zone (27 per sprite). I'd also recommend reviewing all of the code & calculations you're doing before the "Now Build the DL" code. Are you actually saving cycles/RAM/code by pre-calculating those values, or could they be done in the zone code? For instance ZONTEMP0/ZONTEMP1/ZONTEMP2 aren't required and can be calculated from VZLIST,X as required. Note: only try to eliminate CLC/SEC after you've finished optimizing everything. And always ask yourself "could C be different than I expect?" for all opcodes which change C. In http://atariage.com/forums/topic/104546-sample-7800-source-code-using-zpx/ I found a slight improvement using (ZP,X) instead of (ZP),Y to build the display lists. Although the store+increment is 12 cycles instead of 7 cycles, there's a savings on the start & end.

Completely reasonable answer. You want to make music which sounds like it was made by a 2600, so you've made a MIDI controlled TIA. My disconnect was if you made this expecting to get anything sounding like standard pitches. Or if you weren't prepared to work within the limited boundaries of the TIA. Does your software allow for more complex sounds than simply playing the different AUDC/AUDF combinations? i.e. "envelopes" which change the TIA registers automatically. Note: for people who just want to play AUDC/AUDF on a synth, I did a set of WAV file samples: http://atariage.com/...0/#entry2127668