onmode-ky

Carla Minensky worked on the 2600 version of Warlords prior to the arcade version. Not sure if that counts. Also, the arcade title DariusBurst Another Chronicle could be considered a large expansion of the PSP's DariusBurst, though certainly not a direct port. onmode-ky

Well, the simple answer would be that Sega simply doesn't believe it would sell well enough to be considered profitable. My copy of that book arrived last week. I'd had it preordered since last November, so I even got it for less than the current Amazon price, just over 50% of retail price. I'd gotten the Japanese edition of the book a good long while back. Staggeringly huge (thank goodness for free/flat rate shipping!) and lavishly produced, they're probably the most impressive art books I have, and I have many. onmode-ky

I'm not sure how many others got this, but I did. Sehr lustig. onmode-ky

I think you should make reference to the marketing/official name being all caps but use "Pong" in the rest of the article. After all, what you're writing is a journalistic work, not Atari promotional material. This all-caps thing is not uncommon; the "real" name of Final Fantasy is "FINAL FANTASY" (technically followed by the ® symbol as well, and that comes before any Roman numerals). However, I've never seen the name written that way throughout a piece of journalism. I think it gives an impression of bias if you do that. In my opinion, the name of the genre is "ball-and-paddle" rather than "Pong"; however, it may certainly be the case that "Pong" is now a de facto name for the genre. onmode-ky P.S. As another example, most people write the name of 2009's Darius-series game as "Darius Burst." Taito themselves always refer to the game as "DARIUSBURST." I use a compromise: "DariusBurst."

Ah, I see.. I will give that a shot later. I generally used the other method for advancing the planets, as it was much easier and safer (sometimes, the ball will head for the outlane after hitting that target, as I recall). When I had to hit that target, though, I think what I did was wait for a good upward bounce off the right flipper (when it's up, with the ball coming into it from the right lane) and then smack the ball with that flipper. It's been a while, though, so maybe what I'm describing is just my imagination. onmode-ky

What didn't you like about Ultimate Shooting, specifically? I haven't played the boss-rush-only Chaos Field on it (I have the enhanced GameCube release of that), but I enjoyed Radirgy and Karous' systems, Radirgy's more so because the object collection was tied to a score multiplier rather than weapon upgrade, which seemed to unbalance your weaponry in Karous. Admittedly, the text seemed poorly translated in the US release. I note that I've only played/beaten Easy difficulty, as I was more interested in reaching the end rather than mastering the games. onmode-ky

Here's a brief update: Jakks Pacific never responded, but many months later, I sent that e-mail to the development studio who programmed this collection for them. One of the programmers wrote back and basically said, "Sorry, we'll look into it," and expressed interest in fixing it if Jakks ever makes a new Namco TV Game with Xevious in it. Also, a few months ago, I talked to the guy who programmed Xevious for the Jakks TV Games platform (back in 2003/2004, so not related to this recent model's new problem) and thanked him for making this port so faithful to the arcade original. It was programmed for the Sunplus u'nSP architecture in C via line-by-line conversion of reverse-engineered source. onmode-ky

Then don't. Well, it's good that I didn't say anything mean, then. I was surprised by the Woot allegation, too. I assumed that Gamasutra's source for that was Legacy, though (through Atari), so if it's not from you, then it could simply be an error arising out of what they assumed, based on Woot's association with Amazon. onmode-ky

I don't want to sound mean . . . but these questions were answered, in detail, in the Gamasutra news article linked in the original post. . . . Curt, do you foresee Tommo actually getting blacklisted as a likely outcome? While they should certainly face consequences for their crime, their being blacklisted would be a fairly sizable hit on the video game industry, I think; aren't they a fairly large games distributor in the retail space? It might be pretty bad for some of the smaller publishers to lose Tommo distribution. Of course, blacklisting could be the least of their worries if the court case kills them outright. onmode-ky

Based on a press release I discovered, it looks like this is being done by AtGames, the firm who has been putting out Sega SMS/GG/MD-based plug-n-plays for a few years. Their SMS/GG stuff ran on SMS-on-a-chip hardware, according to Curt, but their MD stuff ran in emulation on ARM-based hardware. So, their history is of little help in figuring out what route they took this time, other than indicating they're likely using the original binaries rather than ported-over versions of the games. onmode-ky

You tried working with Sunplus as a business interest going through their American representation company, or you tried working with them as a homebrewer contacting them directly? I've heard that Sunplus has very good support--but only if you've done all the stuff with money and signed NDAs. They're not going to want to talk to you otherwise, unfortunately, but that's hardly a policy singular to them. Companies don't like it when people outside their control poke around in stuff they sell; that's nothing new. onmode-ky

So, we know that Atari licensed this, but do we know who the licensee/manufacturer is yet? If we know that, we at least know who to bug to get more details on the thing, like what's under the hood. Incidentally, I have a hunch it is not Sunplus-based. onmode-ky

No, it is not moving the entire game. I hesitate to even call it cloud-based saving, since, at least for the PS3-PSP implementation shown in the video for Peace Walker, the data transfer is merely between PS3 and PSP over USB cable; there is no client-server architecture involved, just a locking mechanism between two peers sharing a resource (which is the save data). In the case of the PSV, I think you're under the mistaken impression that it will be able to play PS3 games. That's not the case. The PSV will play [PS Store purchases of] PSP games. If you're thinking of the January demos of PS3 games like MGS4 running on the PSV, those were demonstrations of quick code conversions from PS3 to PSV, not demonstrations of PS3 code running natively on the PSV. Whether or not there will be special lower-priced bundles of PS3-PSV game combinations, that I don't know, but they would definitely be distinct products. Incidentally, I do think it pretty cool that the purchase of the MGS HD collection for the PS3 will include a free download voucher for the PSP version of Peace Walker, so you could immediately put that Transfarring to the test. Some of us already have the UMD, of course. onmode-ky

1943: 151,800 onmode-ky

The game you're thinking of is Odin Sphere. Vanillaware also created Muramasa on the Wii. onmode-ky

Why do you think so? Most of the games in Vol. 1 have an additional 1998 copyright date on their main title screen (i.e., they could not be running the original arcade code). There are 6 which do not. Hm... it just didn't sound like a reasonable thing to do. Given the quality of the games, it means they must've reverse-engineered the original assembly code and translated it line by line into C++. Of course, if they still had the original source code that would have helped. But it'd still require an army of coders and thrice the beta testing. Coding 2-3 emulators for the arcade platforms involved just seems much more reasonable and accurate. Of course if the PS1 didn't have the horsepower for that, then it probably was the only way to go. A few of the retro models in Jakks Pacific's TV Games plug-n-play game line were in fact produced by the method you describe, line-by-line conversion of reverse-engineered source to C. At least one, the Mortal Kombat unit, was done by line-by-line conversion of the original source code. These were largely one-man jobs, too. So, it's not quite that infeasible, and you can get results with good fidelity, even with hardware much less powerful than the PS1. It might also be worth noting that the Capcom Generations series was made up of 5 separate PS1 releases, so there might have been more manpower/time allocated. onmode-ky

So they used your idea's and cheapened them, that would make me upset. If I'm understanding everything all correctly, it's more like someone else cheapened them and asked Atari if it was okay to slap the Atari name on the box. Atari's response was "Sure, whatever!" I don't know if Atari realizes that this reflects much worse on them than the typical licensed product (I mean in terms of the build and packaging looking as atrocious as they do). The "Flashback" name previously applied to actual Atari product; with this licensed product using it, too, it makes both the Flashback series and Atari itself look bad thanks to consumer confusion. It would be like allowing a third party to call something "Atari Puma" or "Atari 10400." onmode-ky

Yeah apparently the guy who invented the controller thought the X and O were obvious. Maybe in Japan X means yes? You (both) have it backwards. In Western territories, the PlayStation uses X to accept and O to cancel. In Japan, O means accept, and X is cancel, which is as the guy who designed the controller intended. Japan's PlayStation layout matches the Nintendo positioning, since X is where B is and O is where A is. onmode-ky

Hm... I don't get that sentence from the Wiki. It's quite obvious that *all* games in the package are emulated. If anything then the emulator code was ported from PS1 to PS2... Why do you think so? Most of the games in Vol. 1 have an additional 1998 copyright date on their main title screen (i.e., they could not be running the original arcade code). There are 6 which do not. Easier way to tell if it's an emulated game or not: the emulated ones are the only games that start immediately after you press the Start button once loading is done, and that press of the Start button is accompanied by a Capcom chime. On all the other games, there is first a Capcom logo that fades in and out before the game starts, and among them, only the Street Fighter II titles have the Capcom chime when you push the Start button. You're clearly much better at that game that I am. The best I could do was 52,900. Only unlocked the artwork. onmode-ky

cimerians did not copy and paste the entire post from the PS Blog. There's plenty of other stuff in the program coming up (though none of the June stuff interests me, unfortunately). See the original post for the details. You can click on the "playstation plus" post tag on the right side of that page to check out the older offers in the program, including what's currently still on offer from prior updates. The discounts are what interest me more than the free games, but that's because I don't intend to continue with the program. Discounts are things you can keep once you leave the program. Speaking of which, all the Neo Geo games, for both PSP and PS3, have PS+ discounts still. onmode-ky

For game recommendations, check out this recent thread. There is no region lock on games, though for content downloaded from the PS Store, I haven't determined yet whether there is any limitation on account-switching on a single PSP--unlike the PS3, the PSP only supports one PSN account at a time. You can deactivate the current account and switch to another one (e.g., your PSN account for a different region), but I need to find out if you can only do that some X many times. I'd like to be able to download and play my Welcome Back PSP allocation from my Asia-region account. Regarding the matter of having to get lots of Memory Sticks, you don't really have to. The PSP can connect to a PC via USB, and you can shuffle games back and forth between your PC hard drive and a Memory Stick (this management is much easier if you use the Media Go application (free download), since you won't be stuck looking at directories named by game identification numbers rather than actual titles). Media Go is also good for managing backup of save files. I should note that there is no Mac version of it. Anyway, unless you're adamant about having all your downloaded content with you on the go or don't have a PC with sufficient hard disk space, you don't need to worry about hoarding Memory Sticks. The PSP-3000's retail price was recently dropped to $130. Sony might drop it again when Vita releases, but I don't think they would have such a short interval between price drops. Would mean it was $130 for less than a year, I think. onmode-ky

My copy of the first one (PS2) just arrived, but unfortunately it doesn't offer state saving. It has lots of other goodies though, like auto-fire and improved music. I started playing Vulgus and it's definitely a lot more fun with those two features enabled. I got the first unlockable extra pretty fast, next I need to score 100.000 points Wikipedia notes, "Volume 1 of Capcom Classics Collection contains all sixteen games from [the PS1/Saturn anthology series] Capcom Generations (converted from these ports rather than the arcade originals) and six added emulated titles, while Volume 2 features all titles not included in the Capcom Generations series." I think that because Volume 1 was primarily converted from the earlier ports rather than running an emulation engine, the developers couldn't insert features like save states. With Volume 2, they had that flexibility. I'm just speculating, though. Save states would have helped me in my quest to beat 1942 in Volume 1. Sure, the game lets you continue infinitely, but I got tired after several hours. . . . In Volume 2, I used save states to do well enough in Last Duel to unlock something or other. onmode-ky

Crap, when I started playing R-Type Leo, the thread was still open. For the sake of that game time not going to waste, even if I can't get a score on the leaderboard: 297700. onmode-ky

It's run by a political organization calling itself "Communist Party," and that's about it. Like every other communist revolution in history, the actual process of transforming into a true communist society stopped at the "all power becomes controlled by a single group" intermediate stage and never progressed to the "every citizen is equal and is part of the government" final stage. In other words, it's an oligarchy, and it maintains power by outlawing all other political organizations. In the case of mainland China, though, they went so far as to backpedal the economic system and turn it more or less capitalist. You could say it's an even more failed attempt at communism than usual. Indeed, there are lots of poor people, but the lot of rich people (and almost-rich people) is sufficient to provide a subpopulation large enough to support something like the i-Dong. Yeah, that was a stupid thing for her to say. But again, it's not that nobody can afford them; it's that there are not enough who can afford them to theoretically fill more than some fraction of the vacancies, and among those who can, there are really very few who want to move in. After all, if you're rich, why move out of one of the existing major cities, where all your rich buddies are, into what's currently a ghost town? Er, I assume you're being facetious with this paragraph. I've read about the prison WoW operations, too, but surely you don't mean to imply that the game is only a prison task for every Chinese player and not your typical WoW addiction. Ha, never in a million years would I have thought I would find myself trying to improve someone's perception of one of the most disgraceful incarnations of China in history. It should be obvious from things I've written earlier in this thread that I'm not exactly a fan. But then, I never thought I'd run across someone with such an unusual view of the country. That aside, you don't have to be a fan of a country to understand that it's not filled with starving people. Anyway, I hope you recognize that it's not a wasteland of poverty now (wasteland of politics and corruption, that's a different matter). We should let the thread get back on topic. onmode-ky

That video does not support your apparent view that there is insufficient population who can afford a $250 piece of electronics in the country. Are there poor people in China? Yes. Is the government running a large number of infrastructure and construction projects without corresponding demand? Yes. Neither of those facts preclude China's population from including a sizable number of people living well above the poverty line. Did you think that those luxury apartments were entirely targeted at millions of foreigners? This is a country with 11 million World of Warcraft players (that number being a few years old, but anyway). This is a country with so many students studying abroad in other countries' grad schools that The Simpsons made a joke out of it. This is a country whose tourists positively clogged the sightseeing destinations in Taipei when I visited it recently. "Communist" China suffers from income inequality; that is, there are both very poor people and very rich people, much like the United States. I am puzzled why you seem to think it's like a Third World nation. You are honestly the first person I have ever encountered with that view; most people would probably not even be aware of the large poor population in China. onmode-ky