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Games Entertainment

Playstation II Launch Notes From the Field 145

Posted by Hemos from the getting-the-goods dept.
ksquire writes "Joystick101.org has a feature on the release of the Playstation II, detailing how the launch was experienced in one sleepy midwestern town and exploring what all of this craziness really means."
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Playstation II Launch Notes From the Field More

Playstation II Launch Notes From the Field

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  • hey Siggo! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Lookie, I found Signal 11's new ID!
  • The answer is simple...

    The attention span of slashdot readers is the time it takes to read an article, reply to it and then forget it.

    The editor just do what's getting them more hits.

  • Man, people are so stupid (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How old are these people, can't you wait to play your video games? Show some restraint. This is just like those idiots who waited in line to see Star Wars, when if you just waited 1 day you could see it without waiting in line. You people are sheep.
  • Teamwork!!! Yeah thats what it was Thursday morning. Wednesday night my best friend, my girlfriend and I were cruising around at 9 PM looing for the midnight release places..Only one thing to say to that "Start at 9 have 0% chance". Anyway.... We drive by CompUSA a few times.. no people.. best buy a ton, non-24 hour wal-marts a ton, target a ton.. so... we drive back by compusa... noone. We walk up to the doors and see if they are going to be selling.. Yes.. 12 units at 10 AM next morning. We decide to go home and get supplies.. Come back at 12 AM and sit for about 20 minutes and 4 guys show up. They said that they werent even goinbg to consider this place but then they saw us 3 actually there.. more and more people came. at around 2 AM we finally had 12 people.. So we all agreed to watch out for each other and prevent a hostile rush from people who try to sneak through 5 minutes before it opened. After many games of Chess, many books, many breaks for food and other at a local 24 hour resturant, too damn many White Castle burgers and a lot of TV it gets to be around 9 AM. So... many people were gathered behind us and we started our game plan. At 10 AM the guy came out to hand us our vouchers. Lo and behold there was a few people who thought they were were going to lie about being in line.. but its pretty hard when you got 12 people right there who were willing to vouch for every single other one. Needless to say the 12 people who spent all night there were the ones who got their Playstation2's. 12 people who didnt know each other and was able to form that kind of friendship in a situation where it could had been nothing but "me me me" impressed me. If nothing else... something definitely went right in this launch.
    And btw I think that console kicks butt massively after using it for a while.

  • Re:Aren't we Forgetting Some Important Issues? (Score:3)

    by synaptik ( 125 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @04:24PM (#671965) Homepage
    Woah-ho-ho... touche'! That was a really great flame! (Note I called it a flame, not a troll; I thought you made some very good points in that napalm storm.)

    But keep in mind that it is very easy to forget that VAIOs, AIBOs, PSX2s, etc., all come from the same company that happens to be giving us grief in other sectors. When I see a new gadget, I don't immediately think to run down a mental checklist, to make sure the company is "cool," before drooling and coveting. It's purely a pavlovian response.
  • You forgot the hundreds of millions of people who couldn't give a flying fuck. The percentage, after that, is much higher.

    But still not high enough to keep the morons on eBay who willfully pay $1500 for a $300 console away.

    - A.P.

    --
    * CmdrTaco is an idiot.

  • Games always suck at a console's launch. It's a historical fact

    Just remember, Soul Calibur [min.net] was a Dreamcast launch title.

  • I think you've got a couple of wrong words in that comment. Here it is corrected:
    Well, let's see...Daikatana had over a $40 million budget, but it had John Romero behind it...so it still sucked.


  • I had the same macrovision problem with the Panasonic deck that I bought.

    A $50 (cdn) Digital Video Stabalizer between the DVD & the VCR solved that (can't wait until those are illegal under the DMCA somehow).


    --
  • American corporations are conspiring to build the uber-geek by selectively breeding male geeks with female geeks at toystores and movie theatres across the nation in order to staff the great technological campaigns of the future. Think about it: those long hours together in darkened parking lots, with nothing but fastfood caffeine for sustenance, snuggling in sleeping bags to ward off the cold, basking in the glow of the occasional palm-pilot and humming the theme to Tron to keep up morale....
    Damn, and all this time I've shunned the cattle call for movies and toys and such in favour of waiting till the queue died down. Had I known I'd be having mad geek sex in theaters and toy stores (to paraphrase John Lennon: Why don't we do it in the Toy's R Us?) I'd have changed my tune. WHY DIDN't ANYBODY TELL ME??? You bastards!
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Anyone who has paid enough attention to actually respond to this story should have seen by now that the primary softare that runs the DC is sega's proprietary OS. Windows CE is a developer option and is included on the CE of any game that uses it (most don't).

    Vermifax
  • That's because it's the standard video game console marketing plan. Sega and nintendo do exactly the same thing. Sell hardware for a loss, make profits by requiring developers to give them set amount of money per game sold

    Vermifax
  • Just because you don't like it doesn't make them sheep.

    Vermifax
  • -upgradeability Translation: non-standard platform meaning developers spend more time and money on QA testing -tweaking (isn't overclocking fun?) Translation: waste of time -possibility of updating the game, or installing expansion paks Translation: Developers release game bugged cause they know they will patch it. -game mods (as in Q3A) Translation: 90% of game mods suck -a monitor is way better than a TV in terms of quality Translation: You graphics whore, gameplay is 90% of the fun. -functionality other than playing games and watching DVDs Translation: you must have missed being able to play psx games as well as the eventual online component -most importantly: you can't run Linux on a PS II!!! Translation: The PS2 runs a modified linux kernel.

    Vermifax
  • Insightful???

    My god! what is happening to the slashdotters?

    The original poster made such a slick little tounge-in-cheek comment that was smoothly read over if you weren't really paying attention.

    goodness.

  • ---
    Oh, btw. while everyone is fighting for the PS2 i'll be watching DVD's in all glory on a full DTS compatible DVD player with digital outs as dvd's are meant to be.
    ---

    Oooh...

    ---
    I will also be playing PSX and Dreamcast and N64 games that everyone blindly forgets
    ---

    Ahhh...

    ---
    and oh, i'll have 400-500.00 left to buy christmas gifts for my friends.
    ---

    Wow. I sure wish someone would spend $500 bucks on a christmas gift for me.

    *ahem*

    Anyhow, there's a principle in consumer electronics that goes roughly like this (please store this in your long-term memory for the next time you feel like chastising people for what they like):

    In short, different people want different things.

    I personally don't need a super duper DVD player with all sorts of bells and whistles. The PS2 DVD player, which somewhat spartan in features, does exactly what I need it to do - play DVD movies. Assuming that there is an actual picture quality difference that isn't limited to the minds of self-possessed yuppies, it's quite unlikely to show up on my TV. Plus, this saves me from making yet another purchase and clogging up my entertainment center. Plus one for the Playstation 2.

    I also have a somewhat decent sized library of (original) Playstation games that I'd like to keep, but I really don't want to have more consoles than necessary. I could get a Dreamcast and end up with _3_ consoles hooked up to my TV, or stick with a Playstation 2 and my N64. The latter is less cluttered. Score another for the Playstation 2.

    Another reason is, quite simply, there are some games I like that will be coming out for the Playstation 2. Shortly. Some of the launch titles look pretty decent (and the few I bought recently I enjoy already), and before long Playstation development will be moving over to the new system. While the current crop may only be superficially better than the Dreamcast versions, that will change as developers get used to the system. Another bonus.

    Speaking of Dreamcast, I'd rather not buy into a console whose developer has a tendency to screw up. Sure, they're not doing too bad right now (not great either), but Sega seems to be able to screw up a good thing with their consoles. Be it marketing or technology, they don't pick up a lot of games or are dropped. And to be honest, there are only a few games that I'm into on their console.

    Last but not least, those of you who insist that people are "paying too much" need to understand that some of us don't consider $300-500 an ungodly sum for something that will provide loads of entertainment for a few years. I can understand some peoples' issues with the cost, but don't project it on everybody, okay?



    - Jeff A. Campbell
    - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
  • ---
    Especially, if getting better graphics would entail giving $500 to Sony, which Sony would then use to take away my freedom of speech.
    ---

    Out of curiosity, how exactly is the PSX or Sony infringing on your freedom of speech?

    Please please please don't let this turn out to be some sort of "it's evil because it's proprietary" speech. If there's something substantive, I'm sure we'd love to know.

    - Jeff A. Campbell
    - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])

  • Re:Aren't we Forgetting Some Important Issues? (Score:3)

    by Darchmare ( 5387 ) on Friday October 27, 2000 @01:15AM (#671979)
    Last I checked, Slashdot wasn't some great single consciousness with One Opinion and One Voice.

    Some of us are quite likely money grubbing, materialistic, capitalists. A share of those quite likely don't give a damn, as they don't see anyone doing anything wrong.

    But I will tell you this - if anyone, it's you who is out of touch with the Slashdot populace. You attribute shame on Rob & Co. for being interested in something, but fail to recognize the scores of geeks who are just as excited as he is.

    Either way, don't try to lay down some sort of defacto Slashdot policy - not everyone is interested in conforming to your personal opinions.

    - Jeff A. Campbell
    - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
  • So, now that the playstation II is the hottest shit on the planet (I got one, I know), it's time slashdot updates it's icon from the N64 controller to the PS2.
  • The auction ended at... $5,100 - some people definitely have more money than brains.
  • Well, let's see...Daikatana had over a $40 million budget, and had John Romero behind it...and it still sucked.

  • Ah, true. I must've missed that when I hit the preview button ;)

  • .. is the comment I just posted in the other PS2 story. Was kinda offtopic there maybe, but fits better here:

    "How bout some first-hand stuff instead..." [slashdot.org]

    paulb

  • "I won't even get into how ridiculous I think the X-Box looks at this point"

    My thoughts exactly. Its been 2 long. And I belive
    that it won't even look as good as some of the games available now. Just like MS to make some damned claim they can't back up.


    Ignore the Anonymous Pissant trolls !!!
  • I think Sony is going after more than the game business. They are up to something that has greatly disturbed MS to the point of trying to actually create something. That PS2 will make a fine internet device. I keep waiting for Sony to do something really amazing,they have the potential.
  • Games always suck at a console's launch. It's a historical fact

    Just remember, Soul Calibur was a Dreamcast launch title.

    Good example.

    --
    Evan

  • So what? Lawyers will try to protect intellectual property, and reverse-engineering laws will stop them. Sony tried to sue Connectix over their Playstation software emulator, and they lost.

    So what you're saying is that /. shouldn't post stories on companies that will try to protect their intellectual property, even when we think they should lose? That's censorship based on third-party ideals, and not news for nerds.

    Kevin Fox
  • Once again people snag up a consumer device like there is no tommorow. Not realising that the games suck, the graphics don't mean squat when played on the average tv and the dvd functionality is ok at best.

    So how does it feel to spend 500.00 on a console, 2 controllers and one game? How does it feel to play the same Madden that has been out on the PSX for years now?

    How many of those 1000.00 bids on ebay do you think are going to be paid? Most likely its lil johny going to wacky with the bidding.

    Oh, btw. while everyone is fighting for the PS2 i'll be watching DVD's in all glory on a full DTS compatible DVD player with digital outs as dvd's are meant to be. I will also be playing PSX and Dreamcast and N64 games that everyone blindly forgets and oh, i'll have 400-500.00 left to buy christmas gifts for my friends.

    I'll wait till next year or the year after when the real consoles come out. There is a reason sony is selling the ps2 at a loss, they expect americans to be stupid :)

  • Dolphin and X-Box are far from jokes.
  • I actually like to read Slashdot for the nice little stories about robot dogs and video games. I don't expect every story to include a disclaimer that says: "WARNING: Purchase of this product may potentially benefit money-grubbing capitalist bullyboys, leading you to eternal damnation, and also may affect your parents' credit rating. Vote Nader."

    If you want to rage, go to boycott-riaa.com and buy a T-shirt or a mug. Or get a bunch of rowdy friends and go throw rocks at a building somewhere. I guarantee you better media coverage than anything you could do online. But let's not depend on Slashdot to be the moral spokesperson for the geek generation.
  • Just because you don't understand, don't criticize. Some of us relish the experience of seeing something as soon as it's available. Some of us relish the experience of meeting fellow geeks or fanatics and being a part of something big like that.

    I have _absolutely no desire_ to buy a PS2. Yet I've got this little itch at the base of my skull knowing a new gaming system is out and I haven't tried it out.

    One of my fondest memories of high school was a trip to the movies to see (wait for it...) Star Trek V. Oh wow, did that movie suck. But I went opening night, and the theatre was filled with hardcore trek fans. And what a blast.

    That's why I waited in line for Star Wars I. That's why I'll wait in line for Lord of The Rings. And maybe even Star Wars 2, though damn I'm hard pressed to after TPM :).

    So sit back and enjoy what makes you tick, and don't call other people pathetic for what makes them tick.
  • I've got three little letters for you: SSX. The game is incredible. It's the Tony Hawk of snowboarding and, IMNSHO the best game on the system at this juncture.

    Yeah, Sons of Liberty is a year off, but there are some good games available for the system now. The PS2 version of DOA2 (MHO) does indeed look better than the DC version and it's a decently fun fighting game. TimeSplitters looks like it could become the next Goldeneye (ahhh, the hours I and 3 friends wasted on that precious bit of gaming goodness...).

    I guess what I'm saying is that you all should actually give the games out there a try before saying they suck. Go ahead and play SSX and tell me it's not a good game... I'll say that you haven't played it at all. Even my fiancee and my 16 year old sister (neither of whom are even close to be avid gamers) loved it.

    -------------
  • Right, a zero comment bidder with $10,000 to spend on a PS2. If I were anyone selling these things I would say I auto-cancel all bids with less than five good comments or any negative comments.
  • First of all, the TTT version you have is a sorry lot indeed compared to the new version of TTT (or DOA). True of almost all the games apart from RRV (Which I didn't buy for that reason - it looked pretty boring to me).

    But try out SSX snowboarding, or Armored Core II, or any of the other much newer launch titles. They're a lot better than the Japanese launch had.

    I think you answered your own question about why people were not buying imports in droves - the Japanese launch just didn't have very good games, and also you miss out on the enhanced US versions (though of course them you also miss the stuff that will never come out).

    That said, I think it's silly to pay $800 for a console (US or Japanese). But for $300 it's a pretty nice system, with some good games out now and more on the way. There are certainly a lot more than a few "sad hours" of play to be had!
  • If you don't get any comments from sellers, withhold yours and remind them that you'd like some feedback - then if you don't get any mention that you'd really have liked feedback and might post a neutral or negative feedback about lack of comments. Considering comments are about the most valuable thing you can have on E-bay, I'd say it's totally resonable to warn future buyers they will not be getting comments.

    Believe me, a seller will give you a nice comment quick if they think thier own rating might be jepordized!
  • Well, I'd actually have to agree that at heart TT3 is just TT3 - I also prefer DOA.

    However, TT3 is one that they really revamped - they added a few more things but the main addition was full screen anti-aliasing which should have made it look worlds better.

    As for the comparison, I think it's pretty impressive that 1st gen PS2 games look as good as 3rd gen Dreamcast games. That's about what I was expecting, and I personally didn't feel like the hype went much beyond that level - the Dreamcast had a fair amount of hype as well. The ceiling should be higher for the PS2 though so eventually the games should look a lot better - and it has a number of other features that appeal to me. I actually may get a Dreamcast as well, but for now the PS2 has a number of games that really interest me.

  • My report from New York (Score:4)

    by Adar ( 33202 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @02:31PM (#671998)
    I live in New York City, AKA The Free Market Capital Of The World. Certain stores here have 50 copies of games in stock three days before the official release, never mind after.

    Today, I spent two or three hours going through 9 or 10 of them (Hey, I could use an extra 700 bucks...) starting at 10 AM.

    Every store that had a preorder list has it filled up through January.

    The one place that has no list hasn't gotten delivery (and probably never will, because if it doesn't get there today, somebody hijacked the truck.) That didn't stop the five people ahead of me (and the 800 that were there a half hour before that when the store opened) from grabbing business cards ready to call back.

    On my way out of the store the second time I checked it, a guy half a block away stopped me to ask if I came out of there. I didn't even ask; I just said 'they don't have it' and he nodded and kept talking on his cell phone, no doubt with a buddy doing the same thing in the other borough.

    The Circuit City I went to immediately afterwards had a neat, pre-printed sign saying 'PS:2: We're sold out (Yes, we're as disappointed about it as you are.)'

    My final stop, the Electronics Boutique twenty blocks away, had not only sold out of PS:2's months before, they were actually down to 8 copies of Legend of Zelda.

    Not that I've given up or anything. There's two months left in the Ebay season, and if I can't get it here, online awaits :)

  • PS2 has digital audio outs... (Score:5)

    by bbk ( 33798 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @02:43PM (#671999) Homepage
    As one of the few people who preordered and got a PS2 today (Fantavision kicks butt!), I can assure you that the PS2 has an optical digital out (TOSLINK) for AC3 and DTS, and that it works fine - I have mine hooked up that way right now, games and DVD's playing just fine.

    The DVD playback is improved over the Japanese release, compairing it with my friend's import PS2, which got a bit blocky at times. The DVD playing software has been moved off the memory card into firmware, due to the weird memory card corruption problems in the japanese release.

    Supposedly the Macrovision in DVD playback is catching people offguard - a lot of people are having problems using their VCR's as RF converters to go to their TV's, which doesn't work well for some reason. The guys at EB exhorted people to read the manual for this reason.

    BBK

  • While the sample size was a bit small, of the Comp Sci students here (St. Andrews, Scotland) I've asked, responses on whether they were interested in getting a PS2 ranged from apathy to "maybe, sometime".

    Anyone else in the UK know how people are generally responding to the upcoming UK launch?

  • Not every story has to be about how some big company is taking some right away.

    Well, obviously this one was. Your rights.

  • Want to find out? Reverse engineer your PS2 and write a Napster client for it. Wait for the lawyers.

    Or reverse engineer your PS2 and figure out a way to make copies of your game disks. Wait for the lawyers.

    Or just reverse engineer your PS2 and publish the information online. Wait for the lawyers.
  • I remember when the Tickle Me Elmo scam went down hearing stories of parents literally fighting with other parents to get a little blue fur-ball.

    [nitpick] Elmo is red... Grover is blue [/nitpick]
    Sorry, I'm a muppet fan [pre-elmo muppets anyway] :^)

    Ender

  • I spent about 20 or 30 minutes playing on a PS2 last night at Fry's. The polygon counts were rather nice, but the games themselves seemed pretty unremarkable to me. Honestly, the games don't seem to be any more interesting or sophisticated than games for earlier consoles. The graphics are better, and the game pad feels nicer. But the games don't seem any different.

    I also played the PS2 at Fry's. I think they made a poor choice of games to Demo. They had Tekken Tag on the PSX2, and right next to it was a DC running Soul Caliber... The DC looked 10 times better than the PSX2! I KNOW there are better games they could have demo'd for the Playstation.

    In particular, I'm looking forward to DOA2:Hardcore, Bouncers and Zone of Enders..

    Then again they had yet another DC running some stupid@ss mexican maraca[sp?] game...really frightening.

    Ender

  • Damn, how often does this need to be repeated on Slashdot. The DC does not run on Windows CE!!!!!!!!!!!!! The default OS for the DC is some Sega OS. WinCE is only offered as an option for developers to program in, and it is included on the game disc itself. So if you hate Microsoft, just don't buy any WinCE games. The console itself is fine.
  • I waited at a Target in New Jersey with some buds.

    Cool! Save some for your pal Grypype!

  • The Apple //e came with Little Brickout, which was a great game. So you suck.
  • Yeah, but I bet you're all sold out of corn holders!
  • When is the last time a game console got this much attention on it's launch. This is strange.

    How about "every console for the last ten years"?

  • News for Nerds. (Score:3)

    by NetJunkie ( 56134 ) <jason.nash@CHICAGOgmail.com minus city> on Thursday October 26, 2000 @03:59PM (#672010)
    This is news for nerds. I'm a /. reader and got my PS2 today. In fact, my /. reading wife waiting out in front of target. It's news to us. Not every story has to be about how some big company is taking some right away.
  • The only thing I'm regretting about my PS2 (yes, I got one!!!) is that I don't have a memory card. Armored Core 2 is the BEST game I've played in a long time (but then again, I'm a huge mech combat fan). Sorry, but this game is the reason I bought a PS2. And the Matrix shows up perfectly, especially with the S-Video cable I've got. : )

    -Chris
  • I said this in another post, so it might be redundant... but please, look at ALL of the games before you make blanket statements. Not only is Armored Core 2 quite possibly the best mech game ever, but SSX is a great snowboarding game. Come on, guys- what's going on, sour grapes?
  • Maybe the X-Box will be an impressive machine (I seriously doubt it; not until version 3.0, anyway) but I'm not at all impressed with the machine from the big N. They're going to release a slower, less powerful machine (Gamecube: 6-12Million Polys/Sec; PS2: 20+Million Polys/Sec) with 5 launch games (opposed to Sony's 15+ - anybody got the number? I forget...) and a weird-ass controller, as well as a proprietary disc format... what's not a joke about this? They might as well roll over, hand out Pokémon stickers for the GameBoy Advance systems, and confine themselves to simply playing a minor role in the future of video games.

    I won't even get into how ridiculous I think the X-Box looks at this point (at least Nintendo's shown a real system). It looks to me as if Sony wins, unless Sega pulls something *really* smooth.
  • Once again people snag up a consumer device like there is no tommorow. Not realising that the games suck, the graphics don't mean squat when played on the average tv and the dvd functionality is ok at best.

    First: Every console has games that suck. PS2 has a lot of games to launch with. That means that logically, several of these games will suck. That does not in any way mean that all of the games do.

    Second: The graphics DO mean something, especially to technophiliac nerds like a lot of the slashdot population happens to be. This sucker is THE MOST POWERFUL game machine on the planet right now. It matters to us.

    Third: The DVD functionality is just as good, if not better, than any other DVD player that I've seen yet. It supports all of your standard features (multiple audio tracks, subtitles, etc.) as well as nice little extras (component output, optical digital audio output). It's fully DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 compatible as well, as long as you have a digital sound processor. It also happens to be one of the cheapest DVD players with all of these features.

    So how does it feel to spend 500.00 on a console, 2 controllers and one game? How does it feel to play the same Madden that has been out on the PSX for years now?

    Somehow, your numbers are a little inflated here. The system comes with a controller, and the extra (official Sony-branded) controller is only $35. Games are $50. I have spent about $400 (after TAX) and I have a console, 2 controllers, and a game. You're off by about a 100 bucks. Need a calculater? Start->Programs->Accessories->Calculator.

    And I didn't get Madden, either. That game doesn't look so great IMHO. That's why I got Armored Core 2 (plug plug plug plug PLUG!!!).

    Somebody sounds a little sore that they didn't get one...
  • The next Gran Turismo will have a LOT to do with the success or failure of the PS2. The first GT was just awesome - I would rather play GT on a PS1 than Daytona in an arcade. GT2 was OK, but didn't live up to the expectations.

    GT3 (or GT2000 as it is variously being called) will either disappoint literally millions, or sell millions. I don't think I'd much enjoy the pressure of having worked on that title... and to still have to wait months before it gets released.
  • I would have to agree. A lot of the tech/geek crowd (20-40) grew up on nintendo/atari. I consider the PS2 launch news.
  • My company has had the Japanese version for a while, too (unless you are one of the Mike's I work with, in which case, hi!) and our experience is about the same. Ridge Racer was popular with a few people for a while, but the Dreamcast always gets a lot more use. I turned the Playstation 2 on yesterday to try Tekken again. I think that's the first time anyone had touched the thing in months.

    The graphics on Ridge Racer are nice, but comparing to Dreamcast games, I don't see any real compelling difference. Tekken looks weak compared to Soul Calibur. Both the graphics and gameplay are significantly worse.

    Maybe the Playstation 2 has better theoretical capability, but I sure as hell haven't seen it in practice... Soul Calibur is still the best looking game I've ever seen.
  • Japan uses NTSC.
  • Zork isn't written in C, it's written in Z-Code. Before the invention of the "Z-machine" and consequently Z-Code, Zork's father, dungeon, was written in Fortran.

    Activision was never history. They've been that big conglomorate pumping out games forever. Are you confusing them with the now-defunct Infocom, that Activision bought? Activision may still use the name Infocom for some things, but believe me, the real Infocom is long gone, and may it rest in peace. :(

  • You'll say you'll wait until next year, when the "real" consoles come out? What, Nintendo's Dolphin? MS's global joke, the X-Box?

    Please elaborate because if you're putting your faith in those consoles, you're even stupider than you're making the people buying PS2's out to be.

    -- Primis.

  • Well, we've got our Playstation 2 here at the office, but unfortunately I can't play Final Fantasy X on it (as the guy in the linked story suggested). Much as I'd love to.
    *sigh*
    Still, only three weeks until FF9 comes out...
  • y'know... 500,000 Playstations... 260,000,000+ Americans... if ya do the math, and see just how LOW a percentage of the US is actually going to get to even use this thing... It makes you wonder if the Playstation is a topic worthy of 3 articles on the /. home page...

    You forget that the 500K are for the WHOLE of North America, this means Canada as well, add another 30Million people to your numbers and it gets even lower.

    I went to a couple of stores today here in Toronto and hoped to see a display of the PSX2 but couldn't see anything, but they where completly sold out. No wonder I saw them camping yesterday in front of Toys'r'us.....
  • I arrived at my local Kmart, er, Big K at about 5:00AM. Duty called, friends were counting on me. There were three cars frosted over. One with an occupant. There were 6 PS2s reported to be available. At 5:30 our overzealous local K manager came out to the cars to hand out pre-written numbered business cards. By 6:00 AM, three of us gathered in my car. For two hours, eventhough we could go and return, we swapped gaming stories.

    By 8:00 AM, at store opening the six of us lucky golden ticket winners were somehow connected. While at the counter 4 calls came in, each for a playstation.

    The machine does not excite me too much. In a few months it will be discounted, but the experience of being one of the first will still be as rich as the morning fog.
  • The fine Joystick 1.01 writer says:
    Gaming always has, and probably always will be somewhat about being the first person to get the "next cool thing."
    That's pretty limiting.
    • I'm having a blast right now playing Driver for the Playstation. 2 years off the cutting edge.
    • My friend's 7- and 10-year old daughters were completely unimpressed with their new Nintendo 64 and latest "Star Wars" games. I managed to find a shop with a dusty old "Super Mario 64" cartridge in the back for sale, and the depth and quality of Shigeru Miyamoto's world gobsmacked them ("blew them away"). 4 years off the cutting edge.
    • We have a BurgerTime [klov.com] arcade machine at work, it's extremely tense and challenging to complete more than three levels, the play design is brilliant. 18 years off the cutting edge.
    If you don't play videogames obsessively, gaming should much more be about the classic games of all time than the latest hype. But hey, to each his or her own.
  • C'mon mate, that preview button is there for a reason, can you please check your spelling....
    "We've had one at work since the Japanese launch, and it's come out of the cupboard a grand total of *five* time. Four times for Tekken, once for Ridge Racer. Only three people have bothered to borrow it. That's in an office full of Lamers"
  • I waited at a Target in New Jersey with some buds. All we did was chat with people on the line waiting for the Target to open. We got there around 3AM and the Target security guy gave out tickets at 4AM. He said there were 33 PS2s and luckily all the people in our group got tickets.

    Yeah, so eventually, the doors opened and we systematically filed into Target and bought our PlayStation 2 Entertainment Systems. Yeah I'm going to Ebay mine. Easy profit for just chillin' outside with some friends. Nothing big, and yeah the PS2 is a big deal. Target security turned away dozens of people after the tickets were all gone.

    Just wait till Christmas time and the prices will really skyrocket.
  • Plus they don't have World Freefall Conventions. :)

    (sorry, it's the only thing I know about Quincy.)

  • My first impressions (Score:3)

    by Simon Garlick ( 104721 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @03:54PM (#672028)
    OK, after about two weeks of playing various games on the Playstation 2 (DOA2, Fantavision, Summoner, Tekken Tag, Wild Wild Racing) I'm completely underwhelmed. The games suck. There's no denying that the PSX2 will be the undisputed heavyweight champ in terms of raw power, but if the games I've played are any indication it'll be a while before there's any point in buying one. Bah. What a let-down.
  • I've bought several anime DVDs on ebay, never got any comments, good or bad...pisses me off when I get hassled over that fact.
  • There's only one other person who could do such a thing...Signal 11. You're not fooling anyone.


    --------
  • So, professor, couldn't the submission have read "Joystick101.org has my feature on the release of the Playstation II..." ?
    Sorry, just my journalism acting up again.
  • accually activision is more than alive it is one of the top 3rd party video game compannies out there, especially with the tony hawk games
  • What is with you guys? Half of the stories today is about playstation 2. Come on, change the topic...
  • I guess everyone's missing the obvious, which is to wait until a few months after the launch, and then buy one when stock levels are reasonable, the price has gone down, and there are some decent games on the market. I guess they're not all as smart as I am. :P
  • If you want to rage, go to boycott-riaa.com and buy a T-shirt or a mug. Or get a bunch of rowdy friends and go throw rocks at a building somewhere. I guarantee you better media coverage than anything you could do online.

    I have to agree with this. Boycotting doesn't work because it's too passive. If you aren't going to take an active role in protesting something, you aren't going to make a difference. I'm tired of these lazy opinionated people who fool thememselves into thinking that they are being part of the change, while watching active people do all the work.

    The only way to make a significant difference is to be active in your protest: Support organizations and write government officials. Put up signs. Make and sell T-shirts. Be persuasively creative.

    I know that boycotting has been effective in the past, but it works only if at least a double-digit percentage of the population will faithfully follow through. If you can't expect to get these kinds of numbers (think 30-50 million people in the USA), you are much better off getting your message out by other (active) means.

    So if you really to see something done, get up off your ass and do something. Don't wait around for someone else to do it, because they won't!

    --
    EFF Member #11254

  • There's no denying that the PSX2 will be the undisputed heavyweight champ in terms of raw power

    Wouldn't that be the X-Box? Of course it's not released yet but since you speak in future tense...

  • Never played that one, but Tony Hawk 2 is pretty goddamn fun too! I kinda wish they would have waited and released it for PSX2 though... Here, in Rochester, MN, the lines were plenty long at 9PM last night (and the only 24-hour store is Wal-Mart, the rest opened at 7AM). Very cool people there though. We didn't manage to snag one, but luckily for us, I think considering our videogame retailer/population ratio, our house should have one in 2 weeks! (It also helps to have friends at Best Buy ;-)
  • I'm wishing that this [ebay.com] was me selling it. I mean... just think what you could do with $10,100. I mean, a new computer, a good chunk of a new car, Might even be enough for a down payment on a house.
  • Hmm..
    Good idea, that. How about dinner this weekend? :)
  • ok. here's the deal. anyone who says the games suck ass at console launch are crazy.

    1st off, the PS2 is oooh so very badass. i've been cleaning my undies every 20 minutes since i got this thing....VERY SWEET!!!

    Madden 2001 is absolutely, without argument, the best Madden ever. The physics are unbelievable, the only problem is i can't figure out how the dolphins keep scoring with a pass to the right? i mean, WTF?!?!?!

    Yes, the games will get better. prolly the best game that will be out within' the next year will be GT3 (check out IGN.com for the scoop). But they're already one level higher than the dreamcast. (funny anecdote: when we were being hurded in to pick up our PS2's, they had a dreamcast display. $150 for a dreamcast. the display looked like they were sellin' bulk cassette tapes.)

    Yes, the PS2 will go nowhere but up, and i already am severely impressed....oops, gotta go get my ass kicked by the Dolphins again. WTF?!??


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
  • PlayStation II is simply a misspelling of PlayStation 2 that avoids "PS2 == PS/2" jokes. Whenever the PlayStation 2 is called the PS2, somebody inevitably compares it to the IBM PS/2 computer.
  • Here in Quincy, IL, there is a stack of about twenty playstation twos at the local KBs. I pity those of you who live in bigger towns. :P
    -------
  • I'll admit, Super Mario 64 was incredible, one of the best launch games ever, possibly the best launch game ever. But with a $40 million budget and Shigeru Miyamoto behind it, how could it suck?

    J
  • Since everyone's pointing out that, yes, there have been good launch games, I guess I'll concede and say, yes, there have been a few. Very few. Maybe one, maybe two in a single console launch.

    I was speaking a bit too generally, I guess.

    But speaking relatively, as the system matures, so do the games. As the programmers and designers learn how to get the most out of the console, the games increase in quality dramatically over their first gen predecessors.

    The NES had a wicked game at launch -- Super Mario Bros. The rest were all pretty much crap, at least compared to the system's twilight years. Gyromite, Duck Hunt, 10 Yard Fight... how much did they lick compared to Super Mario Bros. 3, >= Mega Man 4 and Bionic Commando?

    The same can pretty much be said for any console.

    J

  • Personally... (Score:4)

    by dark_panda ( 177006 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @02:46PM (#672061)
    ... I'm waiting for some real games to come out on the system.

    Games always suck at a console's launch. It's a historical fact. The good games start coming out when the designers figure the system out. Did we have games like Zelda: The Ocarina of Time for the N64 at launch? Would we ever have thought such a game was possible? Or what about Metal Gear Solid? Hell, we didn't even get Quake until, well, it must have been at least 2 years after the PC was introduced.

    There's only really one game at this point I even want to play on the PS2, and that's Metal Gear 2: Sons of Liberty. That game looks incredibly kick-ass. The original MGS rocked hard on the PSX, I'm sure the next one will be amazing.

    Of course, if I get MGS2, it'll only be so long until I have to get Metal Gear Solid X, which is apparently coming out on the X-Box. Fuck. Next I suppose Konami will be releasing Metal Gear Solid GAMECUBE.

    Anyways, back to my point, the PS2 is pretty much worthless right now. Honestly, how much better are the games than the Dreamcast? I'd rather get the new Zelda game (which also came out today) than any game on the PS2, which says something about the longevity of the N64.

    If you're buying it for the DVD instead of the games, what's the point? Buy a real DVD player and get the most out of those DVDs.

    I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore. Just ranting on I guess. Did I have a point in there somewhere?

    J
  • y'know... 500,000 Playstations... 260,000,000+ Americans... if ya do the math, and see just how LOW a percentage of the US is actually going to get to even use this thing... It makes you wonder if the Playstation is a topic worthy of 3 articles on the /. home page...
  • I think you mean "Ouvri barrié pou nou passé..."

  • Re:Corporate conspiracy to build the uber-geek? (Score:3)

    by g_mcbay ( 201099 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @05:02PM (#672070)
    If you an Signal 11 mated, you'd create the uber-karma-whore.
  • Oh give me a break ... if 500,000 people bought any version of Linux in one day there'd be twenty five articles on the subject.
  • Zork isn't written in C, it's written in Z-Code. Before the invention of the "Z-machine" and consequently Z-Code, Zork's father, dungeon, was written in Fortran.
    Just downloaded it from www.funet.fi, c sources that is.

    Activision was nearly dead a few years back, considering changing their name and doing business packages. That's what stunned me, was seeing them still doing computer games. I'd been through their offices in Mountain View, back in 1985, when David Crane [eidolons-inn.de] was still developing Little Computer People [classicgaming.com]. (now we call these things virii)


    --

  • Activision still alive (Score:4)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @05:43PM (#672077) Homepage Journal
    I was doing a search on Zork (hoping to find the C source, which I have on another computer anyway) and saw Activision [activision.com] pop up. I haven't kept up on video games, but I thought they were history. They list 14 titles for the PS2:

    X-Men

    Tenchu

    Spiderman

    Orphen: Scion of Sorcery

    Sky Odessy

    Call to Power II

    Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2

    and some other stuff. Anyway, there's some stuff to consider, assuming anyone has any money left after actually buying a PS2.


    --

  • Personally, I'm going with "PlayStation 2", since that's what's printed on the damned thing! I'll refer to it as the "supercharged Animé machine" when I want to criticize it.

  • I pity the fool! (Score:4)

    by mike260 ( 224212 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @03:01PM (#672082)
    I'm a little confused. What sort of gamer WOULD queue up for hours in the cold in the middle of the night, but WOULDN'T pay a little extra to get an import which they could have been playing for the last few months?

    We've had one at work since the Japanese launch, and it's come out of the cupboard a grand total of *five* time. Four times for Tekken, once for Ridge Racer. Only three people have bothered to borrow it. That's in an office full of gamers.

    I rather pity the people who'll be getting their brand new PSX2s home and spending a few sad hours desperately trying to enjoy Tekken TT and Ridge Racer 5. Great games are certainly in the pipeline for the PS2, but they ain't here yet and without them, the box is a bit of a dud.

  • Aren't we Forgetting Some Important Issues? (Score:4)

    by karma_policeman ( 232005 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @03:02PM (#672086)
    Like the RIAA and MPAA?

    To a slashdot editor making US90000+ in a plush job that consists entirely of tacking some pithy remarks onto the end user submissions, the release of a $500 soon-to-be-obsolete game console may be the most exciting happening since slashdot sold out to andover. But personally, I couldn't care less.

    That the release of the PSX2 is considered of great importance by the Slashdot crew is yet further evidence that the Rob & Friends are out-of-touch with their readership and the (non-adolescent) world.

    Go ahead and play with your aibos, vaios, and PSX2s. Feed money to the corporate juggernaut that wants to strip you of your rights. Indoctrinate your readers to do the same. Do this if you will, but don't expect me to play along.

    For a site that is supposedly concerned with protecting the 'rights' of its readers, this disregard for important issues is troubling. That you will screech about the outrages done us by the RIAA and MPAA, both Sony-sponsored instruments of corporate oppression, and then turn around and support those organizations monetarily and commercially, is troubling.

    I urge all Slashdot readers concerned with preserving their rights against the corporate machine to boycott the PSX2 and all future Sony products until Sony disavows the RIAA and MPAA and any other anti-consumer rights lobbying efforts.

    Besides, you won't be missing much. Just consumer electronics you don't really need anyway. And, in five years, you'll be able to pick up a PSX2 at a thrift shop for 20 bucks.

  • Standing in line with gamers (Score:4)

    by redial+1 ( 233747 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @08:37PM (#672089)
    I stood in line at a Minneapolis Best Buy store for 13 hours (worth it). I noticed something kinda cool, the hardcore gamers are alot nicer than some of the parents who tried to get this for their kid.

    In the morning, people were starting to get really worn down from the pouring rain and cold throughout the night, but still no one got out of hand. No one that is but the parents of kids that were to lazy to come showed up in the morning about an hour before the store opened. I remember when the Tickle Me Elmo scam went down hearing stories of parents literally fighting with other parents to get a little blue fur-ball. First fights, scratching, whatever, these are grown adults. We saw the same type of behavior when similar parents showed up in the morning for the ps2, they bitched, they moaned, they even tried to just get in line somewhere near the front. But we knew better, we are better than them. After nicely telling them that they need to go to the back of the line, they got very defensive. One lady literally yelled at me for 5 minutes trying to kill time hoping to sneak in when the store opened. We even overheard a different parent arguing that because the people behind us weren't in line at that exact moment, that she should be able to take their spot. When confronted and said that probably wasn't going to happen, her reply was 'well, that's how lines are formed, are you stupid?'. Talk about nice eh? I'm 25 and took off today and tomorrow to play some games. The 12 hours previous to these parnets showing up, 150 people like myseld froze our ass off to get one, not a single incident, everyone was super cool and friendly. When it was getting close to opening, people who might have dozed off in their car or something were woken up by people they never met before saying 'hey man, get up it's getting close'. It's nice to know that us gamers have a better ethic than some of our previous generations when it comes to courtesy and just plain being cool. I don't know if it's just where I live, but overall, I think that these parents need to calm down. If you are a parent who didn't think ahead and didn't get one, relax, it's a video game, your kid will live without it for a couple weeks.

    -redial+1
  • Quite a bit of coverage on this device...if it wasn't Slashdot I would assume a lack of editorial integrity (perhaps these are advertorials).
    My concerns voiced, on with the focus of this post. I live in Canada, Toronto specifically, and the PS2 launch is huge here too. With Christmas consumerist madness well on its way, I too have been swept up in the hype. London, Ontaio, roughly 2 hours west from Toronto, has long been considered the ultimate test market in North America. It supposedly makes for a wonderful sample market and every kind of company from fast food companies testing new products (ie. McDonald's delivery) to banks testing new services (ie. drive-thru banking) were first launched there. The PS2 is no different. Consoles have been popping up there. I'm not sure if any media coverage has been done but two associates of mine who live there have been involved in the test sample, so it's for real.

    1. My Second Vote Was For Gore [mikegallay.com]

  • Corporate conspiracy to build the uber-geek? (Score:5)

    by Anne Marie ( 239347 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @03:04PM (#672094)
    ...I look around and notice that every female in the area is connected to a male somehow....
    ...They all look like college students, and are about half men, half women....

    Isn't it odd that geeks seem so ready to line up at all hours of the night, sometimes weeks in advance *cough*Starwars: The Phantom Menace*cough* to partake of these feeding frenzies of American consumerism? I did too, until I figured out the real reason:

    American corporations are conspiring to build the uber-geek by selectively breeding male geeks with female geeks at toystores and movie theatres across the nation in order to staff the great technological campaigns of the future. Think about it: those long hours together in darkened parking lots, with nothing but fastfood caffeine for sustenance, snuggling in sleeping bags to ward off the cold, basking in the glow of the occasional palm-pilot and humming the theme to Tron to keep up morale....

    And how to get these geeks together? American pilot-programs during the cold war indicated that sociability and people-skills were insufficient. You have to have toys, and they have to be slick:

    "Hey, what a neat joystick you have there. Wanna come over to my place and play Mario together? I'll be the Princess and you'll be Luigi *rrowwrrr*."

    It's time we put an end to their sinister conspiracy. We don't need them to fall in love. Set free the romantic inside all of you! Love will set you free!
  • It makes you wonder if the Playstation is a topic worthy of 3 articles on the /. home page Just imagine what it will be like here the day when the M$ XBox is lauched, a troll fest like no other I imagine. Me, got to get meself one of them console things, never had one meself. But damn it, I've finally worn out my C64 joystick :)
  • Isn't it worth to put some money into a computer instead? Let's look at some of the advantages:
    -upgradeability
    -tweaking (isn't overclocking fun?)
    -possibility of updating the game, or installing expansion paks
    -game mods (as in Q3A)
    -a monitor is way better than a TV in terms of quality
    -functionality other than playing games and watching DVDs
    -most importantly: you can't run Linux on a PS II!!! (yet)

    I guess this topic will just start another flame war on the console vs. PC discussion. *sigh* Anyway, just felt like voicing my opinion.

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