Mr_8bit_16bit

Gregory: My bad. Kevin: the jaguar was 3D focused and 3D dominent. Therefore, the fact that it's 3D games looked like butt (for the most part) is irrelavent. It's still a 3D system. B'sides, we thought they looked kinda cool back in 93. Faux: welcome to the forums. You're right about the dreamcast having developed a cult following while the n64 has been fading from memory by and large. But like I said in one of my previous posts: "collectible ≠classic" Sure, often times classic and collectible go hand in hand, but they are separate designations and it is possible for something to be one, but not the other. I'll use the same two cars I used last time as examples. A 1991 Corvette wont be a classic til 2016, yet people are nuts about them, it is most definitely a collectible. Inversely a 1973 Pinto became a classic back in 1998, yet still doesn't have much of a fan following, ergo, not much of a collectible. So I would be willing to call the dreamcast a collectible (all extint systems are to varying degrees) yet I wouldn't call it a classic.

Thanks Steve! I was four when the 1984 crash happened, so I really have no meaningful memory of it either. But it sure did change the face of gaming that's for sure...sure, it wasn't american anymore which does nag at me a bit, but with guys like Mario and Sonic and Samus and Link, well, I can't complain too much...can you?

Which is more or less just what I've been saying. My only objection is that you seem to lob the jag in with the classic stuff....but it's mostly 3D...I say it, or the 3DO (whichever came first) was the first system of the "modern" era...but other than that, we more or less agree on this issue. p.s. define a lot of polygons. We laugh at the PS1's paltry polygon count, but we didn't laugh then... and we'll someday laugh at the 360's pathetic polygon count.... millions...ha!

So if I follow your theory, then you consider the Atari 2600 or Magnovox odysee 2 in the same group as the Commodore Amiga or Sega Genesis/SNES? That's kind of ridiculous! Personally I split everything by generation. A system becomes "classic" sometime after it's been replaced by the next gen at this point it is usually about as valuable as a doorstop but then when one more gen eration passes, people tend to get nostalgic and start looking back on it, when one more after that passes, it becomes a vintage collectable. 969440[/snapback] I had said two major eras of video games. There are several generations in each era and there is a good deal of difference between them. The Genesis belongs to the 16-bit generation, and the Atari 2600 belongs to the pre-crash generation, which are not the same thing, yet since they are both 2D dominated, I would consider them both classic gaming...as opposed to 3D dominated stuff such as PS1 or PS2 or whatever. The fashions, trends and ideas in 1980 were not the same as in 1989, but both are considered "80's" So, the same with the classic (and modern) era of gaming. Is what I'm suggesting really that ridiculous? I mean, we've got people here who would Identify the Dreamcast a classic..along with the Atari 2600. I'm proposing the dividing line goes at the transition from 2D to 3D dominance, and I postulate that there wont be another major paradigm shift until we move from off-line dominance to on-line dominance (which the 360 era is purported to do). So, not that this opinion of mine is gospel, by any means, but I have yet to hear a more solid definition of modern and classic, and I have yet to hear a clearer idea of what the future era will entail and be defined by. It seems that everybody is defining classic vs. modern either based on their own nostalgia or by a generic "if it's not producing games, it's classic...or wait a gen and then it will be." You really can't just go generational, cause a lot of times, as is the case with SNES vs NES or similarly, with PS2 vs PS1, the new generation isn't really doing anything "different" than the previous generation, it's just doing "the same thing"...better. However, with the PS1 vs the SNES, they're doing things totally different. One's 2D, one's 3D...a new paradigm, a different era. I do agree with you though that after about a generation or two they do begin to tug on our heart strings again and begin to become a collectible, but as a 1991 Corvette or a 1973 Pinto shows: collectible ≠classic.

The current "modern" will be "modern" until a new "modern" comes along. Not just a new system, but a new paradigm. First there was 2D, now there's 3D. Next will be on-line. To me, unlike cars, there isn't a set timeframe for something becoming a classic. Rather, I think gaming operates in eras. (paradigms) Right now, by my estimation, there have only been two major eras of gaming: 2D and 3D. Granted, even the earliest systems dabbled in rudimentary 3D, and even this most recent batch of systems has the occasional 2D game. The way to determine whether it's a 2D gaming system or a 3D gaming system is whether the bulk of the games were 2D or 3D. if the former, then it's a gaming system from the classic era, if it's the latter, than it's a gaming system from the modern era. I'd say the last classic system was the CD-i (excluding the GBA) and the first modern system was either the Atari Jaguar or the 3DO (whichever came out first). As I said, the current "modern" will be "modern" until a new "modern" comes along. Not just a new system, but a new paradigm. First there was 2D, now there's 3D. Next will be on-line. Granted, many of the modern and even a few of the classic systems dabbled in online, but even with the x-box, the bulk of the games have still been off-line. Once online comes to dominate, then just as when 3D came to dominate, we will have a new paradigm and thus, enter the third major era of home video gaming. We will have a new "modern" Since we will have a new "modern", then if you persist in viewing things in only "modern" and "classic" then that'll automatically make everything we think of as modern classic...including the current big three systems. I would prefer to think of it not just as classic and modern at that point, as that would lob the x-box and atari2600 into the same group which I think would be kinda silly... rather, I would think of it as classic, modern and some sort of middle. What we now call modern will be that middle. I don't have a term for it, but the term itself isn't as important as the group it represents. The most important part of this for the purposes of this thread is: The 360, PS3 and GC are all focusing on on-line. If the bulk of the gaming experience is on-line and off-line is the exception, then there we have it. A paradigm shift. A new era, and everything we think of as modern will no longer be modern. If, on the other hand, these new systems are still more offline than online which I doubt will be the case, then it really doesn't change anything. Then everything we call modern will continue to be modern indefinitely regardless of it's age until something comes along to really truely take gaming to a new level. What about GBA? Are most of it's games 2D or 3D? Despite it's 32bit processor, in terms of actual performance, it's little more than a suped up SNES..and most of it's games are 2D. So regardless of it's age..it would be classic and it, rather than the CD-i would be the last of the classic systems.

Looks neat. I may pick one up. But I wonder how broad the games will be using the actual implements to control the game. I mean, a tennis racket for tennis, a ball bat for baseball, those are naturals and would work real well (from the pictures, and your own appraisals) But my concern is, using actual implements, how broad of a library can they have? Can the handle a racer, or a shooter that allows independant movement, or an RPG? I suppose this thing was never made to really take on the big three. It was just made to be a neat little niche item, and in that regard, it looks like it may be a success. At a minimum, I'm intrigued.

Well, it is elitist and it isn't. Perhaps it's no longer reserved exclusively for the filthy rich and senseless. But it's still quite a ways from being mainstream. By your own numbers, only 23% of homes have HDTV. While that's a gigantic leap from the 2-5% of only a couple years ago, that's still less than 25%. 77% of homes are not equipped for HDTV, and many of them probably wont make the change until the NTSC cutoff is imminent. The amount of programming and materials that take advantage of HDTV is vastly overshadowed by programming and materials that do not take advantage of it. Granted, HDTV is growing in leaps and bounds, and "price to play" is plummetting like a lead anvil, but it's still got quite a ways to go before it truely takes over and the advantages of 360 become universal...in fact, it's still possible that the pendulum shift wont happen til after the 360 is already on the decline...especially if 360 does nothing to distinguish itself from the original xbox to the 480i crowd, which for the moment, at least, is in the majority. And for the moment, at least the 360 does not appear to be doing. Now, I will agree with you on one thing: Playing 480i anything on any HDTV or EDTV set looks like crap. It de-interlaces it which makes it look very blurry and undefined. It even seems to do some harm to the color quality. Isn't it ironic, that if you remove the biggest drawback from 480i, it makes it look even worse? The interlacing and visible scanlines are apparently as essential to 480i as they are detrimental. I very rarely play games on my HD set (65" 16:9 Mitsubishi CRT rear projection HD-Ready) because of how bad they look. Except for Halo 2 deathmatches...not that they look any better, it's just there's something about slaughtering eachother in 65" That is why when I start replacing my existing SD sets with HD sets, I plan to keep one or two SD CRT sets around to do most of my retro video gaming on. Afterall, Sega Genesis looks alot better on a $100 20" SD CRT set than it does on a $5000 50" HD Plasma set.

Well yes, I have taken that into consideration. It's kinda like Doom 3. If you're at 640 x 480 then it'll run on a fairly wimpy computer (like mine. ) But if you want to play it at 1280 x 1024, then it takes a computer a whole lot more powerful. I do realize that, and I do realize Doom 3 looks better in the HD range resolution than it does in mere VGA, but not significantly enough to really constitute a whole generational difference. Likewise on the 360. Realizing that it takes several times the power of SD to do "the same thing" in HD, it's still more or less "the same thing". It’s more powerful, but will 1080i alone really be enough to offer gamers “a whole new revolutionary gaming experience?” We can see the advantages and benefits of HD...it's just not enough by itself. Not without more realistic character models, more detailed textures and landscapes and polygons polygons polygons! There can be no jaggies, there can be no pixelation, there can be no overblurring or texture layer pop-up...at least not nearly to the extent that they existed on the previous systems. That would be next generation...hell, even if they kept it in 480i, but made tremendous strides in all of these other fields, I still think that to my eyes that'd look better than x-box caliber everything, only at higher res. And like I said, the reason this bothers me so much is that, back in the good ol days of 16 bit, even the world’s laziest and/or most inept programmer would put out an SNES game that looked better than what the most skilled, and determined programmer could ever be able to produce on the NES. There was a barrier there, the previous system couldn’t touch the newer one. Well, Call of Duty shows me that that barrier is not there this time, unless you consider HD itself the barrier, and then that’s all the barrier there is. And while the ratio of lazy and inept programmers to skilled, determined programmers is no different now than it was then, what makes this situation so much worse is that back then, even if lazy programmers reigned supreme, there’d still be enough of an improvement to justify buying the new system. Here, since that barrier is absent, if lazy programming rules, then there might not be anything that stands above what the previous system could muster. If 360 be exactly the same as X-Box except in native 1080, then that would still be an improvement for the (using your numbers) 23% of us who aleady have an HDTV, but to the 77% who don’t, the 77% who’d have to use it in 480i, there’d be no advantage whatsoever. And then for those of us who have several TVs, and like to drag the system from room to room depending on the cicrumstance, then unless all of those TVs are HDTV, or unless the system can swap on the fly like that, then switching between HD and SD will become quite a chore. (I think somebody already mentioned that.) I think whoever called it "X-Box 1.5" is right....I just hope it doesn't go down in history as 32X2.

Of course, it could just be that this was an unfinshed demo, and that the finished version will have the polish and panache that I was looking for in the demo and not finding...so perhaps I'm being pre-mature on my attacks. I guess we'll just have to see what the final version looks like. Especially on my 65" 16:9 HD (ready) Mitsubishi CRT-Rear-Projection. It'll almost assuredly look better than on that 23" or whatever 16:9 HD LCD Flat Panel.

But this is more than just getting off to a bad start, for with the exception of the 32X and perhaps the Atari 5200 and 7800, even the least impressive launch games on any major system were good enough looking that you knew that the previous system couldn't do them at it's best. That's a very important element. It's what seals the technical dominance of the advanced system...it signifies that it's not just a couple optional, seldom used bells and whistles on otherwise the same old same old, but a true blue 100% real next generation that's going to completely change the paradigm of video games, not just spruce up the mundane. It says that the new system at it's worst is still better than the old system at it's best... Well, that wasn't the case with the 32X, and the atari systems, and that's not the case here. Call of Duty and Kameo were so very x-box that other than resolution and frame rate, there really was no improvement. Even if the 360 actually manages to achieve much greater than this, even if gears of war turns out to be everything we're hoping for, the 360's still not gonna have the impact of other systems in that, at it's worst, it fails to surpass the last system at it's best. And that being said, if programmers get lazy enough, then the x-box caliber graphics will be the norm and that which is truely 360 would be something just sprinkled in to shut up the masses. It would be half-assed like the 32X and it would be our new x-box...and that would be a true travesty. Do you remember the 32X version of Mortal Kombat II? It is a textbook example of half-assedness in utilizing advanced hardware.. if not the very best example of this, it is close. With the 32X version you had improved character models (arcade quality or damned near) and you had more voices (I.e. "Fatality", or "Friendship" and a couple added battle noises.) Yet the level graphics and the level background music was 100% identical to the genesis version. It even kept most of the generic genesis battle grunts and sound effects...the results were so awkward and discombobulated (spelled right?). In the sound alone, you could trip someone and get the arcade perfect "whup" and then high punch them and get the generic genesis "ugh" all in the course of about 1-2 seconds. Anyway, it just screams "half-ass". You know that if the programmers took their time and put thought and care into it, they could've produced an arcade perfect (or damned near) translation, that the 32X hardware was definitely capable of it, yet we got the genesis version with a few added bells and whistles. Rather than starting with the arcade version and making minmal change to accomodate the hardware, the started with the genesis version and did the bare ass minimum to justify slapping a 32x label on it and marketing it as a whole new advanced home version. Cheap cheap cheap! That sort of thing was typical on the 32X (well, and Sega CD too, I guess) and was typical on the 5200/7800 as well... my point is that I fear it's going to become typical on the 360 as well, and I hope I'm wrong.

Do what I do: Don't keep them all hooked up. Just provide easy access to video inputs and a power plug and then you don't have to worry about crowding your entertainment center. Plus that gives you the added advantage of being able to play a video game in any room in your house without having to have a copy of that system for every room in your house...Of course, on the flip side, even with it being as easy as it is to hook one up, it's even more easy to not have to everytime you want to play it. Just a thought. The upconversion from 480p to 720p that that graphic showed was impressive, no doubt. But I was just complaining on another thread about how little of a difference I noticed between brothers in arms (360) and any regular x-box game. Sure doing the upconversion would make the original xbox games look better, but it'd make the advantages of the 360 games over the xbox games all that much harder to see. So I'd probably opt to disable that feature myself.

Most of you know that places like Wal-Mart etc. have a playable demo of the x-box 360. Those of you who have played it: What were your impressions of it? Was it everything you hoped it to be? Was it more? Was it less? How so? As for me: I went into it knowing that it would be displaying it's graphics in 1080i rather than 480i, so I knew to expect an improvement there. But the things I was looking for that would make it either a big improvement or a big dissapointment in my mind were polygon count, texture mapping, how it handled draw distance (polygon pop-up or texture map layer pop-up), frame rates and smoothness, texture jaggies, bump mapping, pixelation, character flexibility (how realisticaly they moved) and effects like fog, shadows etc. The benefits of 1080i were immediately noticable, especially in 2-D images such as pre-game logos and the x-box demo menu and video clips, but if you don't have an HDTV, you're gonna need to convert it back down to 480i anyway and lose all of those advantages, so to the extent that HDTVs remain an elitist thing, so will those graphic benefits. The important question then is: how much better does the 360 look in 480i than the original x-box.... And from the demos that I saw (call of duty, etc.) the answer appears to be: "not that much." Based on the Call of Duty demo, the polygon count, the texture mapping quality, the draw distance, effects like bump mapping, edge smoothing, fog and shadows, the presence of pixelation or blurring and jaggies, and character flexibility never seemed to ever rise above the level of the original x-box. Where I expected to see significant improvements (along the lines of NES vs. SNES) I saw only minor improvements (along the lines of NES vs. SMS) It basically looked like an original xbox upconverted to 1080i with a better frame rate. Granted, Call of Duty may not be representative of what the 360 is capable of (kinda like basing your opinions of the SNES's graphical capabilities on Sim City) and still photos of Gears of War and some of the racing games look very encouraging, but I watched several of the demo videos from other games on the 360 demo and none of them really impressed. They all look like xbox in 1080. At most, there were evolutionary improvements, but nothing revolutionary. Here's the thing: Even if Gears of war proves conclusively that the 360's true graphical capabilities are everything I ever hoped for, Call of Duty proves that some programmers are gonna just be lazy, and unlike the days of the SNES and Genesis where even the blandest 16-bit game still looked generationally better than a similar game on it's 8-bit counterpart, Call of Duty proves that through programmer laziness you can have a game that looks no better than it would've on it's outdated older sister....except that it's in 1080......if you've got an HDTV. And the reason that scares me so is that if that's true, then the majority of games will most likely not take full advantage or any advantage of the 360's technical superiority and we'll end up with a bunch of games that basically look like x-box games sprinkled in with scant few stand-outs. (Kinda like reliving the 32X all over again) Now don't get me wrong, I still plan to get the 360. But without a doubt, my first taste of 360 left me very disappointed, and leary of the future. Will the systems from Sony and Nintendo be any better in this regard? One can only hope. Perhaps I'm making a bigger deal out of call of duty than I should..afterall, it's only a demo of a launch title, maybe it'll be the exception and gears of war the rule...but I just can't shake that creepy 32X vibe that it left me with. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I hope you guys liked it more than I did.

that 8 turning out to be the sunglass guy was an accident, but a cool one. I like it. I'll just keep it.

My top four I'm solid on, the other ones I'm kinda shaky on (I could change my mind on all but the top four any minute..those top four are definite) 1) Genesis/32x/CD (counted as all one system)* 2) Super NES 3) NES 4) Atari 7800** 5) Turbo Duo 6) Master System 7) Neo Geo AES/Neo Geo CD CD-i 9) Atari 5200 10) Colecovision These are not my top 10 all time favorite systems, just my top 10 favorite classic systems. To me classic is anything CD-i (predominately 2D) and back. Modern would be anything 3DO (predominately 3D) forward. My all time top ten would be a little different. My top four would be the same either way, as the top four here are my top four period. *= I consider the 32X an extension of the Genesis rather than a whole new system. Same with the Sega CD, so if you have a Genesis with both add-ons, I consider that one big system rather than three separate ones. Now, it's for the Genesis software rather than the 32X and Sega CD software that I place it up top, but because of the added bonus of 32X/CD software I prefer the genesis with the add-ons to the genesis without them. That's why I specified the add-ons. And even though I like the standalone Genesis a little bit better than the SNES, I would feel that having Genesis/32X/CD as 1st and Genesis as 2nd would be too redundant. That's why the stand-alone Genesis is not on the list. **= Very similarly, It's the 2600 library of games that I love. The 7800 software library is just sort of a fringe bonus...a small library of mostly so so games with the occasional gold nugget and the occasional poop nugget. But since both the 2600 and the 7800 play 2600 games, the ability or inability to play 7800 games is what makes the difference....therefore I prefer the 7800 over the 2600. And like the Genesis, I feel having both the 7800 and the 2600 on the list would be too redundant. Has anyone else ever noticed that 2600 games actually look a little cleaner and sharper when played on a 7800 than they do when played on a 2600? I have. All the more reason for me to prefer the 7800.

I plan on buying all three, though I doubt that I'll be able to afford PS3 or XBox 360 at launch with the prices they're projecting (or last I heard, anyway: $300-400) But the revolution is supposed to be cheaper, so while it's not the one of the three that I'm the most excited about, it will probably be the first one I get, and possibly right at launch time. But Lord willing, I'll have all three within a year of their launch.

I used to like to play it and select foreign languages. I don't really remember why. I was little. I think it was because it was funny to either get caught by the wumpus, or fall into the pit, or kill the wumpus and then have the computer speak (in text) the equivalent of gibberish at you afterwards.

This is a real toughy for me. I voted for MK2, but for me it's just about a dead tie between MK1 and MK2. The only reason I like MK2 better is it's more ambitious. It's got more characters, it's got more moves, it's got better graphics. But to me, anyway, it still feels like MK1. None of the other MK games do to me. And thats why the first two were the only two that I really ever got into.

But while the clock speed on the 65816 is more or less half that of the 68000, the performance of the 65816, while maybe not on par with the 68000, is certainly more than half. In other words, 50% speed yields 75-85% performance. Therefore, the memory cycle time either must be a whole lot faster (like, double) or else a 3MHz 65816 would be more powerful than a 3MHz 68000, which you're saying is probably not the case. I think, from my experiences though, that the SNES processor is adaquately up to the job. And the other components of the SNES's hardware make up for any deficiency the CPU has and then some. Not even so much the color depth, but the hack job way with which the Genesis handles it's colors. Take Sonic for instance. When you've got him standing against a blue sky, the smooth curves and details of his face are flawless, impressive even in this day of X-Box. Then, when you stand him up against something that's yellow or red, his face basically disitegrates. It turns into a bunch of square blocks. Likewise with the rings, in Green Hill Zone, if you're down in the lower parts, in the hills, if you get hit and the rings pour out of you, then they are smooth solid rings that look almost as impressive as Sonic himself, yet if you've got a blue sky behind you and you get hit and lose the rings, you lose a bunch of golden blocks in a vaguely ring-shape formation. I know there's a technical term for it, but have never found out what it is, so I've just dubbed it, The Sega Genesis effect. Notice how in the Genesis version of Altered Beast, on level one, in the two player mode, player one is a well rendered, beautifully detailed and well colored brown wolf and player 2 is the same character model with the same resolution, the same minute details and the same color depth, but it is a deeper green. A green which conflicts with the colors around it and turns it into blocks and washes the details right out of him. That's what I'm talking about, that's what nullifies the resolution advantage. "The Sega Genesis effect" Yes, but again, I blame shoddy programming. Were it a hardware restriction, it'd do it everytime the systems scrolls a background layer on any game in any set of circumstances, which it doesn't. Look, I can't deny that the CPU in the SNES is slower than the Genesis one, but I think a lot of what gets blamed on the CPU is really the fault of programmers. That I did not know. But still, that just serves to increase SNES's advantage of the Genesis in that way, not decrease it.

Honestly though, I bet if the Odyssey 2 really had been your first system then you'd have a soft spot for it right now. I don't like the system either, but I'm sure if I had one in the day then I'd love it now. There's a lot to be said for a system after it becomes tied to memories involving ring pops, Saturday morning cartoon watching, and pretending you're in your room at homework. 892764[/snapback] You're right. Nostalgia, in all honestly, may be an even more important factor of a game or systems value to you than the game or systems own merits. I don't think for instance, I would love Star Control on the Genny nearly as much if it didn't remind me of the Urbandale pool in the summer, or I don't think I'd enjoy the CD-i nearly as much if it didn't remind me of going over to my Uncles Chris and Steve's house (who at ths particular time in the past lived litterally five houses from where I do now) with Mom and Dad and grilling out and watching movies on his big screen and playing CD-i. Then again, it works the other way too... I don't think I'd enjoy Urbandale pool nearly as much as I do now if it didn't remind me of games like Star Control or Donkey Kong Country etc etc etc. For me, I remember most of the events in my life by what game I was playing at the time, (and to a lesser extent, what song I was listening to at the time) and most places I go have a video game tied to them too. Sometimes it works that way with people too. My uncles Chris and Steve, for instance. They're great hosts, pleasant conversation, nice people, I like them, but I don't think I'd be as compelled to visit with them were it not for that air of reliving the old days. But then again, that too is a two way street. I sometimes also remember the games by what I was doing and who I was hanging with at the time. Nostalgia is powerful, in small doses, it's a huge upper, and in large doses it's a huge downer, at least for me...it's bittersweet, but were it not for nostalgia, I wouldn't be half the retro gamer that I am now. Then again, there's one other aspect to retro gaming, where you can enjoy it for nostalgia sake even though you never had it, like Steve W's Odyssey 2. You could've spent your childhood lusting after it, yet never acheiving it (or aquiring I guess is a better word) and then when you get it, it's the realization of a childhood dream. Such for me was the Jaguar, the 3DO and the Neo Geo. It's indirectly nostalgic. It doesn't stir memories directly, but your fullfilled quest makes you feel like a kid again, at least for a bit.