Retrogamingradio About The Gp2x

[DaveC]

I think its funny how people keep goin on about emulators. I can play snes games on my ps2 nintendo cant do anythin about it. As someone else already said pc`s can emulate just about anythin too. As long as they dont try to sell emulators or roms then they will be fine. Maybe Nintendo could ask them to stop using there name thats probably about it  :blink:

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The point here is not the ability of the GP2X to play emulators. The point is that they should not be advertising that on their website, that is a dodgy practice. Especially when they mention the Nintendo systems by name Not good.

 

[Alpha2]

It's not good but as long as they donst get too big off the bloated carcass of Nintendo's past they probably wont be too noticed. Remember Nintendo's got enough problems with Flash carts and rom dump sites not to mention trying to launch the Revo next year, they'd be spreading themselves thin to chase after one small company.

Not saying they wont try but I doubt GPH has weight to show up on their radar anytime soon, and by then the system can trade on it's rep more than the innitials of the consoles it can emmulate... atleast thats the hope.

 

[Digital Awakening]

The reason N is beeing bithcy about emulators is Revolution because it allows owners to download old games. However, that feature won't allow you to download all games since N doesn't have copyrights on all gmes and the controller doesn't have enough buttons to emulate anything but NES unless you buy a more regular controller. That is you would need both a "remote" and a regular controller for every player.

 

[Vimacs]

a "regular controller" expension ships with evry rev...

 

[Digital Awakening]

Ah, didn't hear about that. That's great for the Rev buyers.

 

[wildo2ne]

I happen to know Shane, we both live in the same state and he is a very big supporter of classic gaming in all of its forms, after all it is called "Retro Gaming Radio" this is a guy deeply rooted in the past during the golden era of gaming like many of us, and I agree I think modern gaming has lost alot over the years, rather then inovation what do we get...50 sports games, 30 fighting games, and 20 racing games. What ever happened to the platformer? the rpg? the action and adventure games? or even arcade style?

This is the reason I support the Gp32 and the Upcoming Gp2x, we need to go back to our roots of game playing, otherwise we will keep getting the same crap as we have gotten for the past 10 - 15 years. People don't like Shanes in your face attitude or the fact that he bashes modern systems....I say hurrah!!! If we had more people like him we would have more inovative games and less of the same old junk.

B) Wildo2ne

 

[x68000]

we can safely say that the total lack of great games these days can be attributed to sonys market domination. Ever since the playstation came out in 1994 things looked bad for 2d and it's main supporter - the saturn.
Although in japan, the saturn continued to outsell the psx until sony got squaresoft onboard and that changed everything; Especially in sega's last stronghold.

In my eyes, sony killed the videogame, stifled genuine creativity and put sega out of the console manufacturing business. Very sad indeed.

 

[RoboJoe32]

>>In my eyes, sony killed the videogame, stifled genuine creativity and put sega out of the console manufacturing business. Very sad indeed.<<


I think it was the genuine lack of anyone even -trying- during the end of the SNES/Genesis's lifespan, (which coincidentally was around the release of the playstation) I mean the last SNES game was frogger, FROGGER!

That and sega kinda drove their own nails into their coffin, great games, utterly -god awful- business practices and decisions. (Like their recent "major" announcement being some so-so- investment deal, no one cares about those sega, they care about hardware and games. And you shot yourselves in the foot -again- with that.)

And do you honestly think that if sony never made the playstation we'd have some sort of artsy videogame utopia now? =P Someone eventually would have made a new gaming platform with 3D games and people would be drawn to it, also due to the fact the SNES and Genesis were on their gasping breaths as their life support beeped it's final beeps. And people needed something besides scraps of games to play.

 

[x68000]

>>In my eyes, sony killed the videogame, stifled genuine creativity and put sega out of the console manufacturing business. Very sad indeed.<<


I think it was the genuine lack of anyone even -trying- during the end of the SNES/Genesis's lifespan, (which coincidentally was around the release of the playstation) I mean the last SNES game was frogger, FROGGER!

That and sega kinda drove their own nails into their coffin, great games, utterly -god awful- business practices and decisions. (Like their recent "major" announcement being some so-so- investment deal, no one cares about those sega, they care about hardware and games. And you shot yourselves in the foot -again- with that.)

And do you honestly think that if sony never made the playstation we'd have some sort of artsy videogame utopia now? =P Someone eventually would have made a new gaming platform with 3D games and people would be drawn to it, also due to the fact the SNES and Genesis were on their gasping breaths as their life support beeped it's final beeps. And people needed something besides scraps of games to play.

​

at the time of the saturn and psx's launch 1n '94, the 3d0 was a viable platform, 32x was a stop gap but still offered arcade game graphics in the home. Sega knew that they wanted to cross the gap into 3d gradually rather than instantly, unlike sony. As a coincidence, sega made fantastically playable 1st and 3rd party games, whilst sony had the support of the european and us game houses. Companies that could make good looking games and that was about it.

this is where the problem lied, sony had the muscle to attract a whole new demographic to videogames, people who didnt know their arse from their elbow never mind what a good game was. But they did recognise flashy graphics regardless if they had any gameplay value. Sega's third party licensees on the other hand made mainly 2d arcade perfect translations of shooters and platform titles. Hardcore games for real gamesplayers. Sega themselves started to outgun even sony in the end when it came to flashy 3d games (panzer dragoon zwei) but the damage was done, a new gamesplayer was in town.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhh, not the casual gamer

 

[RoboJoe32]

True that, The classic "Hey, gaming is -cool-" shctick kinda screwed up alot of things, but sony didn't really kill gaming per say, but you make alot of good points.

 

[x68000]

not so much kill it, but brought the wrong people to the party. Sony's shove made sure that magazines found 2d games 'uncool' and dated with little to no depth and that 3d games were the way forward, playing straight into sonys stranglehold.

Very unfair on sega, who had a great balance, but in the end were a little too honest for their own good.

Sony = The Microsoft for the 21st century - bastards.

 

[Alpha2]

Sorry but no.

Sony simply did what the other companies were unwilling to do, They actually tried to meet expectations and didnt make their money sole on conversions of arcade games like sega was doing. Yes they did bring new gamers in but that dosent mean these people knew nothing about enjoyment, you can still plunk a turd of a game in front of someone and they'll tell you it's crap. Most of the gamers that were already there were happy to see a new system that seemed to run rings around the saturn (no pun intended) and so that what they moved over to. The jump from 2D to 3D was inevitable and they simply made it first, not to mention the RPG genre that sega was so frightened to touch because they felt the market was too small (remember Sega almost killed the Phantasy Star series after 3 and english speaking gamers almost didnt get 4 at all!) was one of Sony's biggest successes. The only thing that would have improved things was if they were a little less insistant on every game being 3D in some fashion.

You might feel Sony hurt gaming but technically the PSX did the same thing that the NES did back in the 80's (although the NES had a much harder time since gaming was so dead back then.)

 

[x68000]

sorry but no!

sega did a lot more than just make arcade conversions, graphically the saturn was easily as good as the psx for 3d games, just harder to program and things such as transparencies were also possible. The lesser skilled coders, the likes of those who worked mainly on psx games in the western markets could not turn their hand to saturn development, however the japanese pulled wonderful things out of the saturn. 2D was always much stronger on the saturn, and some of the best 2d games of all time came from the platform.

The amount of quality saturn games in japan far far out weighed what the psx had to offer. Just look at the first two and a half years worth of japanese sales as an indicator.

I'm all for people making their own decisions, but what i have always dispised was and still is sony's monopolistic approach towards the market, not unlike microsofts approach with windows. Of course, since ms entered the console market, they are a little harder to push around, but sega were easy pickings for sony and now the greatest all round developer of home and arcade machinary are just a shadow of their former selves.

 

[Esn]

I happen to know Shane, we both live in the same state and he is a very big supporter of classic gaming in all of its forms, after all it is called "Retro Gaming Radio" this is a guy deeply rooted in the past during the golden era of gaming like many of us, and I agree I think modern gaming has lost alot over the years, rather then inovation what do we get...50 sports games, 30 fighting games, and 20 racing games. What ever happened to the platformer? the rpg? the action and adventure games? or even arcade style?

​

Adventure games are alive and well, I'd say. Most people just don't realize it.

 

[digitaljez]

Gaming was dead in the 80's ?? It was the era that gave birth to gaming, Space Invaders, Pacman, Galaxian, Jetpac, Mrs.Mopp ......

 

[Eolair]

I think he is referring to infamous home video game crash in 83. Atari made some bad game releases (10 million copies of ET) and killed the market for video consoles. Atari 2600, Colecovision, Intellivision, et al. went the way of the dodo.

Gaming didn't die though because that opened up things for computer gaming with the C64 in pole position. Later the video consoles made a come back with Nintendo and the NES.

 

[Alpha2]

sorry but no!

sega did a lot more than just make arcade conversions, graphically the saturn was easily as good as the psx for 3d games, just harder to program and things such as transparencies were also possible. The lesser skilled coders, the likes of those who worked mainly on psx games in the western markets could not turn their hand to saturn development, however the japanese pulled wonderful things out of the saturn. 2D was always much stronger on the saturn, and some of the best 2d games of all time came from the platform.

The amount of quality saturn games in japan far far out weighed what the psx had to offer. Just look at the first two and a half years worth of japanese sales as an indicator.

I'm all for people making their own decisions, but what i have always dispised was and still is sony's monopolistic approach towards the market, not unlike microsofts approach with windows. Of course, since ms entered the console market, they are a little harder to push around, but sega were easy pickings for sony and now the greatest all round developer of home and arcade machinary are just a shadow of their former selves.

​

Japanese game were ALWAYs better for sega platforms, Don't get me wrong I loved almost every 2D game that sega came out with it's just sad that you have to import half of them. Sega was scared to bring them across the ocean and put a lot of weight on AM2 games for their money makers, It's one of the reasons they placed so much money into their arcade divisions. Sony was a LOT better about porting japanese games from their third parties. Yeah, they didn't bring over everything but they did a lot better at bringing them out AND localizing them. Coders chose the PS over the saturn simply because they prefered it to the saturn and it's clumsy set up. For example the creators of Tomb Raider went from it being a Saturn exclusive to multiplatform, to completing the the PS version of the game first and then deciding to finish it for saturn afterwards. They were impressed into coding NOT bought. Sony was never as Monopolistic as Microsoft. Microsoft was and is far more known for buying their exclusives than Sony. I speak from news reports and articles from dozens of videogame magazines and websites over several years before and after the PS was released.

I will admit Sony's arogance about things like build quality and their desire to get you to buy all their products in various genres by linking them in a synergistic way. I've said it once before Sony would like nothing better to have you playing PS4 connected by Cell technology to their Sony brand TV, sony brand Refrigerator holding Sony brand food, under Sony brand light bulbs after you get out of your Sony brand car. But they don't strong arm the way MS does.

 

[x68000]

From my experience of being an import games retailer, and having quite a bit of experience of speaking to the press and the trade in general, Sony came out from nowhere and immediately spent millions upon millions on advertising their new product. This was fine, but what was not so fine was that this created a less than impartial view of the market as a whole from the press, whether it be a games mag or a newspaper. Before long, supposed reviews of the system from reporters read more like a sony press statement.

A raw deal was had by sega and to a lesser degree nintendo as they were not seen as one of the 'big 2' at the time. Fortunatley for Sony, money bought them great publicity, sega hobbled on and the rest was history.

 

[junker]

You both have good points, and I have to agree that Sega of America made some really stupid decisions during the saturn days. A lot of the great saturn games were imports, but most weren't brought over here! There were also the little things like the crappy saturn boxes with the usually crappy art(compared to the jp originals). Sega did a lot better on these issues with their dreamcast..too bad Sony's hype machine took it out early.

 

[Huxley]

From my experience of being an import games retailer, and having quite a bit of experience of speaking to the press and the trade in general, Sony came out from nowhere and immediately spent millions upon millions on advertising their new product. This was fine, but what was not so fine was that this created a less than impartial view of the market as a whole from the press, whether it be a games mag or a newspaper. Before long, supposed reviews of the system from reporters read more like a sony press statement.

A raw deal was had by sega and to a lesser degree nintendo as they were not seen as one of the 'big 2' at the time. Fortunatley for Sony, money bought them great publicity, sega hobbled on and the rest was history.

​

Sorry, but Sony did not buy their way to success. This seems to be the argument that most anti-Sony gamers come up with to rationalise their hatred (as is my experience on the *shudder* Eurogamer comment threads), but it's really wide of the mark. Spending millions on advertising is NOT the important factor here - targeting their adverts at an older generation of gamers opened up the market to a MUCH wider audience which Sega and Nintendo had previously only touched on. It was a clever tactic, not bullish.

Now, you can spend all the money in the world on advertising (as Microsoft is trying to do), but you won't be sucessful if you don't have a product that people like. Suggesting that Sony bought over millions of gamers with advertising alone is just ridiculous. It would never work. And regardless of what you personally think of the Playstation, it appealed to a lot of gamers, casual and hardcore alike (...you can't tell me a casual gamer would ever enjoy Suikoden or Front Mission!).

And remember, when the Playstation was launched the Saturn wasn't such an attractive proposition. In Europe Sega were relying almost exclusively on their arcade conversions, which were varying in quality. But I think the one everyone remembers is the Ridge Racer vs Daytona comparison. Sega really shot themselves in the foot there, ably demonstrating the complexity of the Saturn's architecture with a shoddy port of a flagship title. I mean, if you were presented with that choice at the time, which would you have chosen? I think only the most die-hard Sega fan would go for the Saturn in this case, so God only knows how many jumped ship to the PS on the merits of such comparisons alone.

And then there's the price. The Saturn launched at $399 and was considered something of an over priced brick at the time (remember, I'm talking about the botched Saturn launch, not the console's catalogue as a whole). With the cheaper and seemingly more attractive Playstation just around the corner, it's easy to see why most gamers made the choice they did.