how exactly does using an 8 cm DVD protect you from piracy???

nearly every review and article i read about the game cube before and during it's introduction cited the lack of a DVD player (eg, inability to use full size DVDs) as a weak point. the PS2 uses full size DVDs, and they don't seem to be taking much of a hit from piracy - it still utterly dominates the market

the features i'm talking about in the PSP are the performance and medium. nintendo's cartridge medium is outdated. the PSP's UMD, while a proprietary medium, has a lot more potential. features like MP3 and video playback are extraneous, but they're still great selling points. if i want a portable gaming device and an MP3 player, why not buy something that has both already? beats having to carry around two things in my pockets all the time.

 

i'm an avid nintendo fan, but let's be realistic, nintendo has this image of being family oriented and they aren't attracting the older audience like xbox of sony. plus i feel the other systems just offer more for the money.

as for piracy, i think one of the reasons xobx is doing so well is because people are buying them because they can put linux on it, and download games directly on the hard drive off the web. granted they aren't selling as many games to that user, they are selling more systems.

i think to make money you gotta find ways to make money from the piraters :dunno:

as stated above, can't play dvd's makes the gc less of a buy.

 

and you answered why they are doing so well and when it started happening

 

I don't know...for me, it's all about the games, and Nintendo does that way better than anybody else. And I have DVD player, so that just seems dumb to me to worry about if a game system plays DVDs or not.
As for the PSP vs. DS...we don't yet know which one performs better, as the DS is still not quite complete. And what does it matter what medium they choose? Nintendo seems to utilize the cartridge medium really well, and it gets the job done.
Bumnah, companies don't make money off of system sales (they usually lose money), they make their money from game sales. Piracy is really hurting Xbox, hence the decision not to have a hard drive in Xbox 2.

 

You're right I guess, I don't follow game system stuff.
I'd buy an xbox just because I know I could get games for free.

Since everything is being pirated by the common joe, we'll see a change in how movies, music, and games are distributed.

 

yeah, I now own all three systems. h:


I just thought of something...there is a good reason for a game system to play DVDs...if it ends up that it sucks and there are no good games for it, you can still use it for something. Like my sister using my PS2 as a DVD player. :chuckles:

 

using a CD, DVD, or other optical-based medium is much more favorable to a solid state cartridge for a number of reasons. first, the production cost is dramatically lower. consider a 650 MB CD compared to 512 MB of RAM, or a single-sided 4 GB DVDR compared to that amount of RAM!!! there is no comparison. for that reason the space available on nintendos game cartridges (gameboy games, N64...) has been severly limited - allowing for more space on the cartridge means increasing the amount of memory on it, which means dramatically increasing the cost of each game. it's just not worth it, otherwise game developers would have to charge a lot more for games or would have to take a lot less profit. this, then translates to a severe limitation on game development. games of all forms, whether on consoles or computers, grow in size. a cutting edge game ten years ago could fit on a 3.5" floppy disk. now some require more than one DVD. if game developers are limited by the space of a solid state cartridge, they will be forced to sacrifice aspects of game play such as graphic quality/detail, sound quality, and the overall completeness of the game (do you think they could fit the entire story of a newer FF game onto a few megabytes of RAM?). this is one of the reasons why the N64 lost so many game developers to the PSone - cartridges are just too limited. sure, the cartridges will work fine for the type of games nintendo has been putting out for gameboy for the last 10, 15 years.. but to stay competetive they're going to need to give their new handheld some balls. the PSP will be able to play GT4, for christ's sake.

while we don't know FINAL specs of each unit, we already do know that the PSP will outperform the gameboy DS by a sizeable margin. the PSP is quoted as being a little more powerful than a PS2, and the gameboy DS is quoted as being a little more powerful than an N64. you do the math.

supposedly the gameboy DS isn't a replacement for the gameboy advance, but sort of a side step. they've said that their intention is to develop one or more separate handheld devices, so we can only hope that they'll release something else by the time the PSP comes out that can truely compete. until then, i think sony's going to whip nintendo's ass again.

as for the quality and quantity of games available for each console, the PS2 already has the most number of titles available, and most would argue that they have the better quality games too. nintendo always tends toward more family/kid oriented games, whereas sony aims for more adolescent/adult games. while the quality of these games is subjective, PS2 still has the market cornered. game cube does have superior hardware, so i think the games play a huge role in sony's success

 

i haven't played my GC since a few weeks after i bought it.

 

*rubs Eyes* *RUBS EYES*

Those screencaps are amazing

 

I know what you mean by spaceworld 2000. I'm glad they're going with more realism this time.

Zelda: TWW was good in its own way, and I do really like that game, but the travel time was horrendous. I got used to the cel shading, though. Bugged me at first, but it got better.