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Games Entertainment

The PS2 Experience 195

Posted by Hemos from the what-does-it-all-mean dept.
rubyred writes: "With all the fuss surrounding the launch, SEGames has some PS2 coverage by several of the editors who had vastly different experiences on the launch night ranging from actually getting a PS2 to standing outside of a Wal-Mart in the pouring rain with a blow-up Shark and not getting one. Other features include "the first 24 hours with it""
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The PS2 Experience More

The PS2 Experience

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  • I didn't get a PS2 *sigh*.

    However, if I had, I can imagine that my first emotions would been of absolute joy, knowing that I could then sell it for $5000 on e-bay!

    Seriously, though...is it really worth that much?

    -----
  • I have two friends that are going to gross over 5k each by hording playstations. So now only rich boys are getting them? Is their anyway to prevent this and let the gammers and hard core players get to them?
  • Hey, to each man his own, but still..... Are you that impatient/needy to get it that soon? I find it kinda funny too, that people in other nations are oppressed and not getting food, in ours, we have whiners about not getting a $300 gaming system the first night it comes out.... I don't know.. give it some thought.



  • PS/2 rocks!!! (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27, 2000 @01:37PM (#669565)
    I love my PS2 model 60 with 10mhz 286, 40 meg harddrive and microchannel architecture. Runs DOS 3.3 like a dream!!!!
  • I know it's offtopic, but it's not every day you run across a picture like this!

    http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/nm/200010 27/mdf126161.jpg

    Moderators, please forgive me. If there were a /. topic for funny pictures of Bill Gates (there ought to be!) this is the perfect candidate for the icon.
  • After 10 hours in the rain 50 of us got ours I can't say the same for the 150+ people in line who didn't. Was it worth all of the hype? Yes of the three lauch titles I purchased 2 are great (Kessen,and Tekken Tag)The third Ever Grace is only ok but the graphics are still incredible. Frys electronics was also giveing away a free DVD of Jurassic Park which looks better on the PS2 than on my Sony DVD player also looking in the parental controll menu it appears that you can set the region codes to whatever you want, has anyone seen if it really works?

  • Enough is enough! (Score:4)

    by arkham6 ( 24514 ) on Friday October 27, 2000 @01:40PM (#669568)
    I'm getting really tired of all this hype about the P2. ESPECIALY from slashdot. You know, the same slashdot that posts many stories about how Rambus is evil for suing eveyone and their mother who even though about DDR SDRam. Or Sony who is part of both the evil RIAA and MPAA. And what happens? We get articles upon articles about the SONY playstation 2 run on RAMBUS RDram. So what is it...we scream about how evil something is until they give us something we want, then we shut up? Our our morals bought that easily? If you are that concerned about your rights being stripped away, don't support the companies that are doing it!
  • OMG, are you serious?? This is one of the more disturbing messages I've ever read on slashdot.

  • Outside. Now. (Score:5)

    by Skyshadow ( 508 ) on Friday October 27, 2000 @01:42PM (#669571) Homepage
    Okay, everyone who is so excited by the Playstation 2 that they write/read "My First 24 Hour" columns: Outside. Now.

    No offense, man. I like video games as much as the next geek, but this is stupid. Ya'll sound like a bunch of 13 year old girls trying to get tickets to an N'Sync concert.

    ----

  • Gee 5 grand maybe I shouldn't have opened it oh well its cool but 5k would be cooler
  • This is the story where this [slashdot.org] comment really belongs.. Heh heh ;-)

    My PS2 experience... [slashdot.org]

  • I foresee a Slashdot ethics clash. (Score:4)

    by AFCArchvile ( 221494 ) on Friday October 27, 2000 @01:46PM (#669574)
    It is well known that the majority of Slashdot members (the "Slashdotters") prefer the Sony PlayStation console over the Sega Dreamcast, and they also prefer Quake III over Unreal Tournament. However, Q3 is being released for the Dreamcast while UT is being released for the PS2. What will happen from here? Will we suddenly hear references to "BotPack.u" and "CliffyB"? Will stories about UnrealScript add-ons and weapon mutators be posted?

    Also, since Loki is developing UT for Linux, the game could start having a presence here on Slashdot. Better get that story icon ready for the "unreal" topic, Rob.

  • Well, you think $15000 is bad? Get a load of this [ebay.com].

    That's just insane. (It actually looks like a joke)
  • "God knows we'll all be back in 'Game System II: The Search For More Money'"
    ~Yogurt: The Wise

    Capt. Ron

  • It is sad..... (Score:3)

    by mindshadow ( 240798 ) on Friday October 27, 2000 @01:49PM (#669577) Homepage Journal
    I think Sega is the one hording them... maybe they can actually make some money on a console!
  • its just an example of an extremely high demand product, which happened to have an extremely low supply. but, as long as someone deems a product worth an extremely high price, they will be sold.
    we've seen it a thousand times, but i cant remember such an extreme case. or a case focused at retired 25 year-olds who have retired after their ipo.

    -agent oranje
  • If you hadn't gathered from all the pre-release hype and game releases, the Sony theme is blue. Blue is everywhere. [snip]

    I'm surprised the marketing folks at Sony didn't first swing their color design by psychologists [shibuya.com] first, since we've known for almost forty years now that colors have profound effects on people's moods, and people's moods have profound effects on their willingness to buy products. (Marketing may be a developed art, but it still has room to learn from the sciences.)

    "Cool" colors like blue don't sell products to Sony's intended audience well. They have calming effects, relieve tension in the viewer, and encourage the consumer to withdraw into himself or herself instead of reaching out and buying the product. A far better choice would've been red, since red is an "active" color, promoting aggression, excitement, increase bloodflow and stimulate the autonomic nervous system, and otherwise stimulate precisely the same effects in consumers that the PS2, as a videogame console, is intended to stimulate. Anyone who's been to the cereal section of a supermarket can attest to red's popularity among sugary products aimed at young people, whereas blue is reserved for hygiene products and products aimed at the geriatric population. Why is the Playstation 2 different?

    Sony's success with the PS2 relies almost as much if not more so on marketing as it does on a genuinely more enjoyable product. Little slip-ups like these make me wary and concerned for their prospects. On the other hand, these projected sales if realized would set aside all fears such as mine.
  • In addition PS2 is totally closed platform, so prepare to shell huge $ for SDK (>$10,000).
  • "I am the great Cornholio! Are you threatening meeee?!? I need TP for my bunghole!"


    --
  • Let me put it to you this way:
    The obsession with the Playstation 2, an expensive game console that most minorities won't even be able to afford, is disgusting. That fact that this site, Slashdot, would choose to focus so much attention on such a topic when there are people (especially African-Americans) starving in the streets and/or not getting an education, it's a shame. It shows that the people running Slashdot are either racist or ignorant or both.

    African-Americans in the United States, have to struggle just to get by. They don't have the luxury of buying luxury items like the PS2. Slashdot is once again showing a strong slant against the African-American by posting many stories about the PS2, and ignoring African-American and minority issues. This cannot stand.

    The fact that the PS2 game console is going to be mainly in the hands of Caucasian suburbanites, is once again evidence of the increasing discrepancy and disparity in wealth distribution in the US. This diseven spread of wealth is a direct result of slavery, and reparations are the only answer.

    Forty acres and a mule is a start, but only a start. I want mine with interest. My ancestors were kept down for centuries, and there has to be some kind of reckoning. That's what reparations are about. The blood and sacrifices of my anncestors and antecedents can't be allowed to go unpaid for. Maybe if these snotty Caucasian kids would give their 500 dollars to African-Americans instead of wasting it on a nintendo, that would be a start. Only a start, though, mind you.

    This is the second installment in my 'The Fine Perspective' essay series, an ongoing series of essays which will focus on African-American issues vis a vis Slashdot articles and the world of high technology. The theme of reparations for African-American slavery will be one of the strong threads running through my work.

    About the Author:
    In 1995, Tyrone Fine was awarded a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science and a Bachelor of Arts in African-American Studies from Amherst University. After spending time at several large name computer companies, Tyrone grew tired with the racism and caucasian old boy network in the technology world. Tyrone is presently involved in founding an organization to fight racism in the high-tech arena.

    I am,

  • $5000 on EBAY?

    I might have to stop selling crack to Slashdot moderators and start selling blackmarket Playstation 2's. The profit margin is a lot wider considering most /. moderators only buy the cheapest $3 crack.

  • Okay, I have to agree that the hype surronding the PS2 is ridiculous. I wish people would realize that its not all it's cracked up to be.

    First and foremost, the games suck right now. So, what's the rush, people? You're going to get barely to no enjoyment out of it because of your limited choices on the games. So, just relax, wait for some good games, and hopefully by then PS2's will be readily available.

    Second, there's other consoles to consider. True, the PS2 probably beats the pants off Dreamcast (once good games start being developed for it), but from the research I've done, the PS2 is way underpowered compared to the upcoming consoles... namely the X-Box. What can I say about X-Box... it's going to kick ass. It has the best video chip in the making (from nVidia), will be easy to develop for (it's got PC hardware for crying out loud), and is not aimed at being the center entertainment console (like the PS2 was suppossed to be). That's the short and sweet version of my X-Box promo. Trust me... it will kick ass.


    I think we should be worried about the PS2. It is supposedly the hardest platform to develop for EVER. Ever wonder why PS2 has lost most of its exclusive titles to the X-Box? Well, one of the main reasons is the PS2 is such a bitch to develop for, I'm not sure whether or not we're going to see enough quality games for it. Anyways, that's just some thoughts...
  • ... topic...

    Bjarne

    ... kewl... while trying to post the above:

    Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted.

    PLEASE DON'T USE SO MANY CAPS. USING CAPS IS LIKE YELLING!

    ... count... *3* capital-letters...
  • I once had an experience with a PS2 ... it sucked! Not only did it NOT have a hard drive, but every last piece of equipment in the damn thing was proprietary! Booted from a floppy, and kinda looked funny... almost resembled a mac. If my memory serves me right, I think it only ran at 33mhz on a good day.

    Oh wait... different PS2! Sorry.

    --cr@ckwhore
  • First, welcome to the real world. It is true with many things you can buy, especially on luxary items. This is called supply and demand. Here, as you can see, supply outstrips demand. Thus prices must rise, otherwise we'll have really distorted economics.

    Secondly, is it really more fair to award them based on who is the biggest geek? Or whom we presume benefits most? Who is going to determine this? It seems to me that letting simple economics dictate who gets these things is the most equitable way. If you really want toys like these before everyone else, you have one choice. Get a better paying job, make sacrifices, earn more money, and be willing to cough it up when the opportunity presents itself. Otherwise, shut your mouth.
  • I loved my IBM PS/2 30 286 (10 Mhz) with 30 MB HDD and 12" VGA monitor! I remembered installing my Sound Blaster 1.0! :)

  • the psychological effect of "blue" may have been overridden by the fact that "blue is high-tech".

    Or did you miss the fact that Apple's most popular iMac color was the Blue one (prior to graphite being available).

  • Re:Enough is enough! (Score:5)

    by jafac ( 1449 ) on Friday October 27, 2000 @02:08PM (#669590) Homepage
    you're right. PS2 is evil. but it's less evil than XBox. I think that's why most people are voting for Gore. . .
  • All I can think when I see this picture is: Ohh you make me very, very angry!

  • Re:Enough is enough! (Score:4)

    by HaveBlue34 ( 142274 ) on Friday October 27, 2000 @02:09PM (#669592)
    Well since sony is losing money on each PS2 sold and I plan to pirate all the games for it I think I'm doing a pretty good job of screwing a company I love to hate. HB
  • An amusing point - but perhaps a calming effect makes the setup and configuration easier on people. I don't think even hardcore gamers want to aggressively tackle the display asking what time zone you're in or whether you have Daylight Savings Time!

    Or perhaps this is supposed to calm down the people waiting in lines at the stores? Well, if so, I guess it didn't work :-(.

    D

    ----
  • Like people who can't spell for example.
  • welcome to the real world.

    The Matrix is the wool that's been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

    Sorry, couldn't resist ;-)
  • As a general comment about the economics on which you speak, there's a massively horrible downside. You see, in this case, demand honestly outstrips supply. In this case, prices must indeed rise.

    But what happens when supply doesn't outstrip demand, and yet prices still rise? You can see it happen with monopolies - Microsoft makes(in some ways) very bad software, and charges a *lot* of money for it. We're all getting nailed.

    Also, think about local cable-internet access companies. Most of them have monopolies in the area they operate. The result? Bandwidth caps, high-ish prices, poor service, and abysmal customer relations.

    Yes, the "Free Market" system is simple and easy to understand, but it is by no means fair in this day and age.

    Dave
    'Round the firewall,
    Out the modem,
    Through the router,
    Down the wire,
  • Thank you! Very true words. I was saying this same thing to some co-workers at lunch who were going off about how cool the PS2 was. These same guys were whining about RAMBUS last week, and have repeatedly whined about RIAA threatening their music habits. It seems as though all is forgiven, now that they release something neat.

    WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?

  • ...So when can we expect to start seeing Bleem 2?
  • Seriously, I fear that a conspiracy is in the mix somehow. This seems like a mixture of the retail customer hypnotism schemes portrayed in "Halloween", "Batman Forever", and the Chin'PokoMon episode of South Park combined. We might see the former PS2 owners in a zombie-like state, where all that they do is buy animé magazines and surf to hentai sites. Not since Street Fighter II have I been worried about such an alienation of our culture by a video game console industry.
  • So I can uncheck it from my preferences.
    --

  • Re:Sony's poor choice of color (Score:3)

    by FigWig ( 10981 ) on Friday October 27, 2000 @02:30PM (#669602) Homepage
    Color does indeed have quite an effect on the moods and disposition of its observer. Research by 3M in the 60s showed that the color beige was the most 'productive' color - workers in a beige environment were able to do more work than workers surrounded by other colors. Thus the bland shades of beige that adorn all office equipment up until recently.

    Another ground breaking study demonstrated that dark green & grey caused people to 'de-intellectualize'. Their IQs would lower by an average of 10 points, and their reactions would be purely emotional. A group of stanford student volunteers subjected to 5 days in a room colored only dark green & grey reverted to their pure animal instincts, flinging their warm cereal and snack meat lunch against the walls in an attempt from the maddening colors. They acted out against each other until the researchers broke the experiment up on moral grounds. This research lead to the YHBT color model that is gaining favor in psychology today.

  • Sony never bought my morals. Then again, I've never screamed about how evil Sony, the MPAA, the RIAA, etc. are. Perhaps my morals are different from yours? Oh NO! How could it be that two people could have completely different ideas about what right and wrong is? Doesn't everyone have the same thoughts and ideas?
  • don't ask me how it happened, i am usually capable of submitting a simple link.... here is how it *should* look:
    you are not alone. after i saw this [ebay.com] ebay auction closing for $15k (!) I not only thought about world issues, I made a quick calculation in my head: for $15,000 I can build a nice system that would probably outperform this gaming console by far, *plus* have enough money to hire a poor little programmer who works three days and three nights straight to get a decent emulator for those games...
  • >dark green & grey caused people to 'de-intellectualize'

    Why am I not surprised those are slashdot's default colours...
  • the matrix is the Reality that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

    sheesh, and you call yourself a geek :P
  • why blue of course!

  • Er, I'm still having problems deciding whether or not I think you're kidding.

    In the case that you're not:
    The way I figure, if we follow your reasoning to its logical extreme, anything too expensive for the poor minorities is non-newsworthy. Any article subject not within the economic grasp of the lower classes (especially African-Americans, apparently) should simply be ignored. Right?

    Slashdot:
    News for Minorities. Stuff that matters to African-Americans.

    In the case that you *are* kidding:
    Heheheh heh eh hmm

  • That's funny. When I was lined up for a PS2, we all told someone who was looking for it that we were lined up for Backstreet Boys tickets.
  • Friend of mine was in Hong Kong last week and brought back 5 of them. They were about US$130 over there with the exchange rate. Instead of eBaying them he sold them to his friends for reasonable prices... and still made $1000.
  • I don't know how many times I have been moderated down for saying something good about the dreamcast and bad about the ps2. It is true /. is pro-linux, pro-transmeta, and very pro-sony. I guess maybe /. is ant-DC because A FEW DC games use windows CE. Or maybe it is the same old bs about past mistakes. All companies make mistakes; do you avoid sony because of betamax? Nintendo because of the virtual boy? Ford because of the Edisol?

    Anyway, on paper the ps2 may be more powerful (well duh, it is newer) but the DC has TONS of great games. Not just remakes of older games with better graphics. Were are talking truely creative games here like Shenmue of seman. Sega is more of a software company than a hardware company after all. I may be moderated down for saying this (that is why I turned off the +1 bonus thingy) but right now the DC seems to be the better choice. Graphics that look prettty much the same (ok eventually ps2 will look better but that may take a while) the DC has more high quality games and is half the price (a tenth the price if you have to buy the ps2 on ebay.) I say get the DC now. Even if no more games come out, the games out now are more than worth the $150. Wait till the insanity and price drop, as well as more games to come out before getting the ps2.

    Oh, and the Saturn wasn't that bad either. Anyone who actually had one and modded it to play import games would realize that. It was very powerful (twice the raw cpu power as the ps1 with the same speed cd-rom and amount of ram) but very hard to program for (sound like another console we know?) Neither was the sega cd. Any ps1 buff who claims that the storage size of the cd makes the ps1 better than the n64 should realize that the sega cd at least looked good on paper. It is just that add-ons don't work in the console industry (and sega is to small of a company to support the genny, sega cd, 32x, saturn, game gear AND coin ops at the same time) -- but it took the 32x and sega cd to figure out the problems with add-ons. Ok, the 32x was a bad idea -- I'll give you that. But the virtual boy was even worse of an idea.
  • How is the X-Box more evil then the PS-2? The Ps2 is completly closed, you need to pay tons of money for a dev kit, then you need to pay tons more to ship games (witch can then be censored by sony)

    With the X-Box on the other hand, you only need VC++. You might even be able to develop with CygWin, I don't know, and you don't have to pay fees to ship your game either. I'm not really sure how M$ expects to make money, though.

    There are a lot of companies that are a lot worse then Microsoft, they just arn't in the position that Microsoft has. Sony is actualy pretty bad.
  • And this was modded down?

    --
  • The actual line is "The Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth"

    But world is being punned with wool (which is a more common expression), so it's understandable how the first guy got it wrong.
  • Oh, please.

    If we see people living below the poverty line spending their food money on a PS2, it'll be capitalism "at its worst."

    If we see desperate gamers going around robbing grocery money from people unable to defend themselves, that'll be capitalism "at its worst."

    As is, it's just capitalism at its most run-of-the-mill, typically pathetic.
  • Microsoft doesn't NEED to make money on XBox. They'll gain market dominance, slowly break the API's so that 3rd party developers can't write effectively anymore, and be the only company that can sell games for the dominant platform that perform well.

    Did Microsoft need to make money with IE? No, they gave it away. But who owns the internet? the standards? At least on the client side.
  • dark green and grey - you - YOU MADE THAT UP!!
  • What does this have to do with Microchannel architecture?

  • PS2? (Score:2)

    by mwalker ( 66677 )
    Q: Does it play pong?
    A: No.
    Q: Does it contain within in a CSS compliant player, helping to fund the revocation of consumer rights?
    A: Yes.
    Q: THEN WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU BUYING IT?
    A: It's a little faster than the dreamcast, even though the games aren't as good.

    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHH.
    Burn the playstation 2!!!!

  • Why does it keep seeming like every time I visit Slashdot recently I think I accidentally went and started reading Sony press releases? You know, the ones put out by the same Sony that's part of the MPAA and RIAA and which slashdot constantly criticizes? I can see maybe one announcements, but come on, two or three per day? This is getting ridiculous.

  • Re:The Fine Perspective (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27, 2000 @03:13PM (#669622)
    Man, you sound like the racist here. You automatically assume that everyone buying a PS2 is white. Well, I'm getting one and I'm Asian. I friend of mine already got his and he's Hispanic.

    That had better have been a joke (albeit a tasteless one) because I'm sick and tired of hearing this BS about how everybody owes African Americans all this stuff. It happened a long time ago, I personally did not have anything to do with what happened back then (neither did anyone else here) and everyone is equal nowadays (unless you're ignorant, apathetic or just lazy).
  • Its one press release after another. Why don't we see topics about how many people are boycotting the PS2 hysteria because of Sony's constant wrongdoings? Sure send it via ask slashdot and watch it get rejected.

  • ... how's the DVD playback? I heard that the Japanese model had rather bad DVD playback, reminiscent of software decoding on a low-end PC. I also heard that Sony was improving the DVD side of things for the N. American market (hence the alleged component shortage). I wanna know... can you save yourself the expense of buying a DVD player if you get one of these?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • By purchasing the PlayStation 2, you're probably indirectly supporting SDMI, DVD-CCA, MPAA, and RIAA (not to mention SDMI).

    Sony is the biggest juggernaut of the Big 5 record companies, and is one of the key members/creditors/benefactors of the MPAA.

    Stop the inanity. Don't support Sony's pride, greed, envy, anger, lust, gluttony, and sloth. I can also prove how Sony has committed all seven deadly sins.

  • Our our morals bought that easily?

    Yes.
    Yes they are that easily bought.
    Sadly.

    --
    American eyes, American eyes, view the world through American eyes.
    Bury the past, rob us blind .... And leave nothing behind.
    -- Rage Against The Machine [No Shelter]

  • Can I ask a dumb question? (Score:3)

    by Rombuu ( 22914 ) on Friday October 27, 2000 @04:09PM (#669648)
    How do they get screenshots for these consoles? Do they sit there with a camera and take pictures of the TV set like we did when we were 8 and got a high score on an activision game and were trying to get our "Pitfall Harry's Adventure Troop" patch or whatever it is? Or do they run the console output into a video card? My experience has always been that you can get decidedly mixed results when trying to take screenshots of things that use overlay buffers for output (like most PC-TV thingys...). Anyone know?

  • The problem with some blacks is that they have never really become Americans. Here's what I think they should do:

    Take a short cruise out from New Jersey into the Atlantic and spend a day and a night meditating with no land in site. In the morning, return by way of New York harbor, the Statue of Liberty, and Ellis island.

    Upon returning to New Jersey, take a train or a bus back to your hometown and imagine that you are relocating because somebody just offered you a job. If you are not employed, get a job in New Jersey. Living in New Jersey will motivate you to get a better job so you can move away. Trust me on this. It worked for a lot of other immigrants, it can work for you too.

    ...either that, or you could found some sort of organization and milk guilty white liberals for cash donations. Sometimes that works too.

  • back in 1998, when Windows 98 was released. That was probably the only time that people swarmed to get 98; right now, the smart ones are going with Win2000 if they need their Win32 fill.
  • I would like to point out that _both_ Unreal Tournament and Quake III are coming out for the Dreamcast.
  • 3 Arrested In PlayStation 2 Robbery [netscape.com]
    Police from Montgomery County and the City of Rockville have arrested three young people suspected of wrestling away a new Sony PlayStation 2 from a 15-year-old. The computer game was released for sale just yesterday. Police say two 18-year-old men from Silver Spring and a 20-year-old Derwood woman were charged with robbery in the incident at the Best Buy store on Shady Grove Road in Rockville. One suspect is accused of pushing the youth to the ground, while a second grabbed the victim's backpack. Police later found two suspects near Shady Grove Road and I-270. They located the third suspect with the backpack and the game near the store.

  • Then I would guess you went to the wrong school for Computer Science.

  • haiku (Score:2)

    by hugg ( 22953 )

    Powerful machine
    A billion polygons
    More fun than "Dig Dug"?

  • Re:A couple observations (Score:3)

    by Psiolent ( 160884 ) on Friday October 27, 2000 @04:38PM (#669661)
    After taking a semester of beginning microeconomics, I feel that I can comment intelligently on some of this stuff.

    But what happens when supply doesn't outstrip demand, and yet prices still rise? You can see it happen with monopolies.

    Monopolies maximize profit by limiting the supply (thus causing a shortage) to an optimal point. I know it seems counter-intuitive, but this is actually the way a true monopoly would maximize profit. The math is a little complicated, and I'd have to pull out my notes, so I won't explain it here--you'll just have to trust me.

    This tendency for true monopolies to actually cause a shortage is good for no one except the monopoly. That is why they are illegal.

    Of course, not all monopolies are illegal.

    Also, think about local cable-internet access companies. Most of them have monopolies in the area they operate.

    Certain types of services are legal monopolies because of their unique nature. Electric and cable companies (among others) are usually granted a monopoly for a specific area. The reason is that it would be extremely inefficient on the whole to have more than one company running cables to every house and more than one company running electric lines to every house so that these companies could compete with each other and each household could choose among them. Considering this, it is easy to see why certain types of services are best as monopolies. Usually, however, the government regulates these companies so that they can't take advantage of their monopoly.

    The PS2 situation is not an example of a monopoly; it is simply an example of a shortage (not enough supply to meet the demand) which invariably will drive the price up.

    -----

  • Hey dude, I'm black to but you need to let that shit go. I have black friends but most of them don't put stuff off or cut down white people. White people are still people. If you have sex with a white girl don't you get a mix kid? We are all human and I go to work and program speak ebonics off and on, but I still do my work and I can speak like a normaly every day person when I feel like it. Maybe your last employer don't like black people, they don't mind the rest of them don't too.
  • I first wrote this in response to a comment I saw earlier of this nature, but I really can't resist the urge to do so again:

    Slashdot implements 'everything' category

    HOLLAND - Slashdot founder Rob Malda announced today his newest addition to the topics list, "everything". Malda stated that the new category was an answer to "the endless bunch of people whining about how they hate an extremely specific type of story that doesn't come up all that often normally, but has recently. Now they can just filter everything out." "It's wonderful," proclaimed one slashdot reader. "Now I don't have to put up with boring PSX2, CueCat, or CPHack stories! I don't have to listen to Jon Katz and I don't have to see duplicate stories; it's as though I'm not reading slashdot at all!" The reader was unavailable for comment after being informed he didn't have to read slashdot in the first place
  • is this a joke?
    i'm black.
    i'm american.
    i can afford a PS2.

    WHY?
    cause i dont waste money on air macs, coogi sweaters and weed.

    this may sound a bit insulting, but it's true.

    i don't see why this was posted on /.
    oh wait.. people love to do this kind of stuff..
    someone remind me why i replied again?

  • Why am I bothering... (Moderators, feel free to troll/flamebait me, I deserve it for feeding this guy).

    ...when there are people (especially African-Americans) starving in the streets and/or not getting an education, it's a shame.

    I just looked at my window... no oppressed African-Americans starving in the street. But if there was one, I would be sure to go out there and kick him! I'm white, that's what we do!

    African-Americans in the United States, have to struggle just to get by.

    Sorry to hear that, but welcome to the rest of American society. Ain't equality a bitch?

    The fact that the PS2 game console is going to be mainly in the hands of Caucasian suburbanites

    Can't afford one, eh?

    My ancestors were kept down for centuries, and there has to be some kind of reckoning.

    Wake them up, I'll wake up my great, great, great grandfather (nevermind that he lived in Europe) and I'll get him to apologize.

    In 1995, Tyrone Fine was awarded a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science...

    BA... Computer Science... Get it?

  • FYI - THIS WASN'T A JOKE (Score:4)

    by fluxrad ( 125130 ) on Friday October 27, 2000 @04:56PM (#669669)
    ok. just in case any of you are wondering if this guy actually was joking, the answer is no. take a look at his user info and his previous posts.

    No offense bro, but if you're looking for racism, you'll find it in the mirror when you're brushing your teeth in the morning.

    The fact of the matter is this. Slashdot is news for nerds, stuff that matters. Being that the PS2 is/was the most anticipated console release in the past 3 years, it's no wonder that there have been a plethora of posts about it. If minorities can't afford it...so what. Most uppity white people i know can't afford a PS2. It's mostly not a question of cash, it's a question of priorities.

    Whatever, you're probably the old guy that yells at people in a Wendy's every time they throw away the really crunchy french fry cause "there are children starving in africa." Let me tell you this, Bub....i offered an Etheopian kid that crunchy fry, he told me to go fuck myself.


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
  • The calming blue colour was chosen in the hopes of mellowing out all the Soccer Mom's that were expected to otherwise beat the crap out of each other while jockeying for position to buy "little Johny's" Christmas present from Santa.
  • Actually, liberal arts schools like Amherst DO give BAs in CS. I don't think this guy is just trolling, or if he is, he's taking his trolling very seriously (see his user profile).

  • Re:The Fine Perspective (Score:3)

    by garver ( 30881 ) on Friday October 27, 2000 @05:19PM (#669679)

    Yeah, I know BAs in CS exist. I have never seen them get any respect though, at least not in the tech world that alienated this guy.

  • Re:Not all it's cracked up to be... (Score:3)

    by Chris Johnson ( 580 ) on Friday October 27, 2000 @05:46PM (#669684) Homepage Journal
    Less talented developers aren't necessarily going to be putting out more impressive stuff (as you said, provided it ever gets made). The argument that it's gonna be easier to develop for is suggestive- it's basically saying 'more BAD developers can thrive here!'. For a console this would hardly be thrilling- but here's the catch- when X-Box is quietly abandoned, all those people can rather easily turn their efforts towards shipping on PCs- PCs that run _Windows_, which is of course strategically important for MS. The whole bizarre ploy and fizzle will result in taking the gaming industry exactly nowhere- but it will have stopped the gaming industry from turning, en masse, to the far higher selling console market, and might be able to stop consoles from developing comparable sophistication (in terms of controls, networkability) that PCs have.

    Mind you, I run a Mac- but that means I get a really clear view of just how Windows PC-oriented most gaming really is. Microsoft are not going to give that up, you know. They are not going to lose lots of money out of the goodness of their hearts in order to replace Windows PCs with some console. All the X-Box is, is a mirage- when it fades out, the developers will shrug, realise they've been developing for a Windows platform all along, and it'll be more of the same.

  • A lot of my friends got PS2s and they are black and hispanic, so i guess they stole it too, huh? I'm black and it makes me sick to see people complain all the time and turn everything into a racist issue. It wasn't just rich white kids who waited and camped out for this system, it was many kinds of people be it black, hispanic, white, indian, etc... the Japaneese are more crazy about it than we are! Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that this is freaking Video game system, not a racist issue waiting to happen! Yeah, it doesn't make sense to wait and camp out in front of stores for 12 hours and get mad that you can't get a $350 video game system on the first day, but that's just what happens.

  • Re:Can I ask a dumb question? (Score:3)

    by Speare ( 84249 ) on Friday October 27, 2000 @05:51PM (#669686) Homepage Journal

    If you're a developer for that platform, use the development station that is built for that platform. Have it save BMPs, JPGs, or whatever other standard image format you want, straight from the video memory, at whatever point in the game you want.

    Once you have a whole slew of screenshots, load them to your computer, and post-process them to bring back that good ol' crappy NTSC feel to them.

    NTSC is the color encoding that actually reaches your television. (Or PAL for many countries.) The colors' saturation need to be bumped up a lot, put the whole image out of focus slightly and the brightnesses pushed more contrasty, and the black areas need to be boosted to a dull dark gray. Now, you've got a realistic screenshot for your computer.

    Game artists have to consider this in reverse. They have to remember that the typical television can't handle really super-saturated reds and cyans and yellows the way that monitors can. [Many image editors can help you find colored areas that would speckle or scream on an NTSC display.] They have to remember that everything comes out more contrasty, yet still doesn't achieve real black. They have to remember that pixels on TV are round and blurry, not crisp like a monitor emulating the same resolution.

    Colors are hard to reproduce exactly on NTSC. The initials NTSC don't really stand for Never The Same Color, but it's so common a joke that I've forgotten the actual words.

    Seeing a console development station's screen side-by-side with a regular NTSC screen... same image but night and day.

  • No, the guy is not serious. At least, he's not serious in the way you think. In a previous post [slashdot.org], he said he thought it was important to look through the Gnome source code to look for racism in the code itself (and not just in the comments, either... he wants to look for racist while loops). The guy clearly thinks he's joking.

    Unfortunately, on some levels I suspect he's not joking. I wonder if he's not some guy with some subtle racial prejudices of his own. I think he's proping up straw men in front of some important issues. What he's done, I'm afraid, is to convince a small minority of people that he's actually defending the position he espouses, and those people can be led to mistakenly believe that those flimsly straw men are the real defenses for those positions.

    Unfortunately, once you start to believe that there are only strawmen still carping about racism in the world, one quickly begins to shut out the real voices and real men who are talking about racism. In a subtle way, by arguing about racism, this tyrone fine character is really arguing against it.

    In the end, the only defense against folks like Tyrone is to laugh at them, and failing that, to ignore them. But we can never, ever, believe that they really believe what they are saying. Arguing with them actual makes you weaker.
  • The DVD playback in the US version is great, I would definitely say you wouldn't have to buy a DVD player if you get a PS2. This does not apply if you are an audiophile, though; however, it does have several advanced methods of ouput, including component video.

    That the Japanese model had rather bad playback was all due to that it was software and came preloaded on the 8 MB memory card that shipped with the unit in Japan. This memory card was ridiculously easy to region hack, and Sony came up with hardware MPEG-2 decoding for the US model. Also, on the decoding note, it does decode DTS, for you real home theater system people out there.

    It comes as unchangeable (can you say modchip?) region 1, and includes some lame parental control, but you can turn that off with some menu maneuvering.

    The Dual Shock controller is used as a remote, something not that handy, as it is wired and awkward to use. There are, however, third party remotes with an IR unit to plug into a controller port. The one I got in my Best Buy bundle - camped for six hours, thank you - was the InterAct one. It works, but that's about it, they seem to have mixed up the printing of the "Enter" and "Cancel" buttons so that they do the opposite action.

    I just tried out some of my DVDs on it - exclusively anime plus Matrix, the latter also came bundled in Best Buy's extra package. Crisp, smooth - all in all, great. There wasn't even any noticing the layer skip in Matrix, which is dual layer.

    --
  • A troll is not something that is necessarily stupid or outspoken. It is simply an extreme post, created for the purpose of getting as much response as possible. If I were Rob, I would have a Troll(+1) and a Troll(-1) moderation option...

    --

  • The repression of blacks has largely passed, but there are still many activists fighting the problems that were solved long ago on inertia drive. Sure, there are still closed-minded people out there who believe that blacks are inferior by default. But demanding that a geek culture site dedicate itself to protecting minorities is simply absurd. If you feel this strongly about the issue, you should start your own website, minoritydot.org, and rant away.

    This reminds me of my first two years of high school. I lived pretty far away and had to take two buses to school every day. However, the school only distributed free bus tokens to "minority" students. Black students living less than a mile away from the school received them for free, but I was forced to pay. Minority was determined strictly on a skin color basis, so students who were of different nationality but still white weren't considered minorities. (No, I'm not making this up.) Would you would consider that fair? White people used to treat black people unfairly, so now we must make up for all that unfairness by favoring black people over white people? If that isn't racism, I don't know what is.

    --

  • What are you talking about about my name, cracker?

    I'm guessing you don't consider this racism? Or is it OK to use derogatory terms on white people just because they're a majority?

    --

  • To get around PS2's Parental Control, when asked for the 4-digit password, press the SELECT button then enter 7444 as the password. Hey presto, the old password is blown away.

    (That's right from the manual.)

    --
  • So wait now, it's no longer "40 acres and a mule", it's now "40 acres and a Playstation 2"?
  • perhaps he can take the slashcode, and have a "bringing the man down" site, where instead of stories that bash microsoft, he could bash "the man". Plenty of sources!
  • WTF are you talking about? Q3 and UT are both excellent games, on the PC. Console wise they are an totally different story. Q3 on the Dreamcast has multiplayer via internet. UT on PS2
    doesn't. Even if it did it would not be albe to download and intstall any bot packs or patches. Evan if it had the "upcoming" hard drive/broadband expansion thingie. Why? Beacause its a launch title designed for a console.

    To totally change gears; So what if Loki is porting UT to Linux? UT is an awsome game (I'll admit bias here, I think UT is superior to Q3). Would you leave the board if UT became a topic. Probably not.

    Sorry if I have strong opinions, but hey...

    Pete

  • he said he thought it was important to look through the Gnome source code to look for racism in the code itself (and not just in the comments, either... he wants to look for racist while loops

    Change the l to a t and they are white loops. I think he's on to something.

  • What are you talking about about my name, cracker?

    Is he a hacker-cracker or a whitey-cracker, or do you actually think he is a lightly toasted food product? Inquiring minds want to know.

  • As a general comment about the economics on which you speak, there's a massively horrible downside. You see, in this case, demand honestly outstrips supply. In this case, prices must indeed rise.
    True.

    But what happens when supply doesn't outstrip demand, and yet prices still rise? You can see it happen with monopolies - Microsoft makes(in some ways) very bad software, and charges a *lot* of money for it. We're all getting nailed.
    Yes, monopolies can and have been made. Yes, they've hurt the consumer. However, they tend to be the exception, rather than the rule; much like the government allowing individual freedom, individuals can and have hurt each other, but that doesn't mean it must happen, or that we'd be better off without it. What's more, most of these monopolies were GRANTED by the government with the intention of helping people (that's another debate entirely).

    Yes, the "Free Market" system is simple and easy to understand, but it is by no means fair in this day and age.
    What do you mean by that? Do you honestly believe that any other system would produce goods that cost less on the aggregate? It's pretty hard to deny that we've benefited tremendously on the aggregate, and that we still do.
  • The Dev Tools (including the one I use) are linked through a LAN to our computer (each one is registered to the MAC address of the network card of the computer it is licensed for) and thus you can open a file on 'host0' which is a directory mapped on your hard drive and write out the image from video memory that way.
  • Funny. I have a BA in Physics and CS. And I seem to get plenty of respect from the people around me at my company and from the rest of the people I interact with in the industry. Not because of the letters of my degree, which are nice and document some time and effort put into academics, but because of the knowledge and skills that I have.
  • I didn't say slashdot shouldn't cover it, but rather that they should just cover it as with any other news story. Instead, they're acting as Sony cheerleaders and posting multiple stories per day about it as if the release of the PS2 is the single greatest event in our lifetime.

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