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Microsoft

Lik-Sang Back Online 169

Posted by timothy from the passing-muster-in-redmond dept.
Alexander Burke writes "Lik-Sang appears to be back online (until we slashdot them). However, their selection of PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and Xbox "backup and import" (pronounced modchip) items seem somewhat lacking. Coincidence? Surely not..." This previous posting should provide some good background reading if you've not been following this episode.
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Lik-Sang Back Online More

Lik-Sang Back Online

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  • dupe.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by kennyv ( 142043 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @06:54PM (#4543683)
    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/10/15/155821 5

  • gamegizmo.com (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 27, 2002 @06:54PM (#4543684)
    this site gamegizmo.com [gamegizmo.com] has a lot of stuff if you miss lik sang (or however it's spelled).

  • Unofficial GBA dev tools (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jouni ( 178730 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @06:54PM (#4543685)
    It's unfortunate that the unofficial Game Boy Advance tools are no longer sold through them either. There is a big community of budding game developers out there, but with the prices Nintendo asks for the official development kits, the unofficial tools are their only way of getting started.

    Of course, tools like that will always find their way. Unfortunately also the site of the company that makes them [visoly.com] is either hacked or taken down. Anyone know which?

    Jouni

    • Lik Sang still has MBV2; Game Gizmo has GBA flash (Score:5, Informative)

      by yerricde ( 125198 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @07:00PM (#4543707) Homepage Journal

      In the GBA Develop and Backup [lik-sang.com] category, Lik Sang still has the MBV2 cable.

      If you want flash memory cartridges and writers for GBA, CDworld [cdworld.co.uk] and Game Gizmo [gamegizmo.com] still have them.

    • It's piracy.. that's why.. Explanation....... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It's great that you might want to program for the GBA - BUT - Nintendo does not want what happened to the Dreamcast to happen to their GBA (It died.).

      When you make unlicensed software (Ie. your own homebrew games - Without paying Nintendo $$ to license/release it) you are bypassing any profit that NINTENDO is supposed to be making off the game. Now, if they let everyone make their games for free, or run emulators etc.. Who would actually BUY the games in the stores? Well, a lot of people would, but a LOT of people would also just buy a GBA and play nothing but homebrew games and emulators and linux stuff that people developed for it, and this is where Nintendo loses money, they DEPEND of people who buy a GBA to BUY licensed and legit software because that is where they make their money. Right now MicroSoft is losing hundreds of millions because of people jhust buying the console and modding it to just use Linux and copy games. They need people to buy nearly a dozen games off the shelf to break even on the cost they spent to give you the XBOx that cheap - but the people who are fanatical are killing the consoles by modding and skipping the storebought software. It happened to the Dreamcast, it's happening to the XBox, and Nintendo doesnt want it to happen to their GBA.

      If you're REALLY serious about devloping on a GBA, or any other console, you NEED to get licensed to do it, or join a company who already is. Otherwise you're literally hurting the company that you like so much.

      • If you're REALLY serious about devloping on a GBA, or any other console, you NEED to get licensed to do it, or join a company who already is.

        Under the no-homebrew-allowed-not-even-non-commercially scenario that some posters in this discussion have postulated, I have to be with a licensed publisher to get GBA experience, but even with a B.S. in computer science (due in May 2003), I apparently need experience to get a job with a licensed publisher. Where do I start?

      • If the manufacturers choose to dump the hardware at below their cost to boost their market share, or for whatever reason they have in mind, that is their business. (Unless it is illegal dumping. I'm not exactly clear on when selling below cost to enter a market is ok and when it is illegal.) In any case, after you legally own the product, you can do anything you want with it, burn it, hack it to pieces with an ax, or even write your own games to run on your own hardware. You are not obligated in any way to buy more games.

        If the manufacturers don't want to lose money, it is easy for them. Just remember to sell above cost!

      • for someone that wants to make a few of their own games for their gba do you know how much a licence costs? if it's just a project you want to have a go at it's not generally possible to pay that much, that licencing is set for companys for some coder writing a few of their own games and thus it is far to expencive for your ordinary geek.
        anyway i don't know of anyone selling games they wrote for the gba, weell i don't know of any homebrew games for sale so if they're not being profited on then why pay for the licence. sure it does hurt nintendo if that's all you do but i find it unlikly that many people are only playing homebrew games.
        as for joining a company, you can't just get a job with a company justy becease you want to try making a game for gba, you'll be bound by a contract (what about your old job) and you're not even guaranteed they'll hire you.
        and at the price a flash cartrage is i don't think there will be that much of a black market with them.
      • Nice work, trollboy.

        Yeah, the Dreamcast died because of the homebrew community. [rollseyes]

        And the GBA could potentially fail due to, at most, a few thousand people out of millions not buying games for it.
    • It's great that you might want to program for the GBA - BUT - Nintendo does not want what happened to the Dreamcast to happen to their GBA (It died.). When you make unlicensed software (Ie. your own homebrew games - Without paying Nintendo $$ to license/release it) you are bypassing any profit that NINTENDO is supposed to be making off the game. Now, if they let everyone make their games for free, or run emulators etc.. Who would actually BUY the games in the stores? Well, a lot of people would, but a LOT of people would also just buy a GBA and play nothing but homebrew games and emulators and linux stuff that people developed for it, and this is where Nintendo loses money, they DEPEND of people who buy a GBA to BUY licensed and legit software because that is where they make their money. Right now MicroSoft is losing hundreds of millions because of people jhust buying the console and modding it to just use Linux and copy games. They need people to buy nearly a dozen games off the shelf to break even on the cost they spent to give you the XBOx that cheap - but the people who are fanatical are killing the consoles by modding and skipping the storebought software. It happened to the Dreamcast, it's happening to the XBox, and Nintendo doesnt want it to happen to their GBA. If you're REALLY serious about devloping on a GBA, or any other console, you NEED to get licensed to do it, or join a company who already is. Otherwise you're literally hurting the company that you like so much.
    • You could always get yourself a GP32. This little-known Korean-made handheld is also available from Lik-Sang, and very amateur-developer-friendly

      - 320x240 screen (dumb framebuffer, no gfx hardware)
      - 66-133Mhz ARM9 (with cache)
      - 8mb RAM (16 bit wide, though, quite slow)
      - Takes Smartmedia cards
      - Fairly open platform for development, despite some (flawed) DRM for official game releases

      The console is more expensive than a GBA, but a GP32+128MByte SMC card will cost less than a GBA+Flash cart kit

      There's a pretty good port of Doom to it, but it's quite lacking in other software. But could handle some nice 3D stuff, or emulators, with a bit of careful ARM coding :) See www.gp32news.com or www.gp32emu.com for more info
    • by evil pokeemon from the planet odnetnin

  • What the? (Score:3, Informative)

    by HaggiZ ( 68526 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @06:55PM (#4543687) Homepage
    Back online? isn't this the same story as posted on the 16th here [slashdot.org]? Seems they've been back for a few weeks, despite the attempts at slashdotting them previously
    • I think you're on to something. Those turncoats running slashdot are being paid by Microsoft to post lik-sang news here so that we will go slashdot them.

      Slashdot, the world's best-disguised DDOS mechanism.

    • And the funniest part of it is that today's headline is almost exactly the same as the one from the first time it was posted.

      Then: "Lik-Sang Back Online, Minus Modchips"

      Today: "Lik-Sang Back Online"

  • Eh (Score:5, Informative)

    by NetJunkie ( 56134 ) <jason.nashNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday October 27, 2002 @07:00PM (#4543705)
    For the XBox go buy a Matrix chip from EasyBuy2000. They are shipping them faster now and they don't require any soldering. Easy to install.

    There are some good homebrew apps coming out too. The XBox Media Player is very nice. You can stream VCD/SVCD/DIVX/MPEG to your TV. It works VERY well.
  • I still don't know how M$ was able to leverage a foriegn company that well, I thought that the only multi-national evil corporations out there were Sony, Nike, and IBM... :p
    • Well, from what I've read, government officials are more easily bribe-able than the ones over here (if such a thing can be believed).
    • This wasn't just MS. Sony and Nintendo where in on this as well. You will note they are rid of all mod chips and all backup utilities for the GBA (good thing I got my flash cart before this happened). So when you include two other companies that are next door you get some more weight being thrown around.

    • Re:All Hail the Great M$ (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I guess this was modded up for its use of $ in M$. Wow if I knew karma was that easy to come by...

  • The borg at work (Score:2, Interesting)

    by peterdaly ( 123554 )
    On a somewhat related note, I was in Best Try (or Buy if you like the place) today and saw a 24" RCA television with the label "XBox Ready" slapped on the plastic. We are not talking about a sticker, but the text is actually printed on the face next to the control buttons so it is a perminent fixture on the front of the unit.

    The borg's marketing machine is in motion. (Like that should be news to anyone.)

    What TV can you purchase now adays which is not "XBox Ready"? I wonder how much cash MS pushed their way to get that label. I would not even consider buying the unit just due to that.

    The TV was on and endcap no less.

    -Pete
    • RCA integrated a special plug that allowed the XBOX to function as an integrated AV device (as far as it was explained to me) hence they are the only ones to carry this logo. It's keyed, and makes hooking the console up to the television nearly idiot-proofed.

    • Xbox incompatibility (Score:5, Informative)

      by yerricde ( 125198 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @07:08PM (#4543751) Homepage Journal

      What TV can you purchase now adays which is not "XBox Ready"?

      How about a TV that pukes when it sees the 524-line (as opposed to 525-line) image that many consoles output?

      How about a TV that reacts poorly to Macrovision encoded signal?

      How about a TV with only RF input as opposed to composite video input (yeah, I still see those)?

      How about a TV that cuts too much off the sides and corners of the image?

      Any of those four might introduce a compatibility problem between a game console and a television set.

      • How about a TV that pukes when it sees the 524-line (as opposed to 525-line) image that many consoles output?

        Huh ? There's no such thing. Your TV doesn't care what the resolution of the input is, as long as the Horizontal and Vertical frequencies are correct. (60Hz Vertical, and I forget the Horizontal)

        How about a TV that reacts poorly to Macrovision encoded signal?

        Um, games consoles don't output Macrovision when they're playing games ! In any case - such a TV also wouldn't work with a VCR/DVD/etc.

        How about a TV with only RF input as opposed to composite video input (yeah, I still see those)?
        How about a TV that cuts too much off the sides and corners of the image?

        Ridiculous. If you can't afford a decent TV, then you sure as hell can't afford a $200 Games Console, with $40 each games !!

        • Your TV doesn't care what the resolution of the input is, as long as the Horizontal and Vertical frequencies are correct.

          And for some consoles, especially those produced before the Dreamcast that run in low resolution, the video frequencies are off by a bit.

          Um, games consoles don't output Macrovision when they're playing games !

          I'll admit that was a bit of a red herring, but the Xbox with the DVD kit installed does output Macrovision when playing a DVD movie with the Macrovision bit set.

          If you can't afford a decent TV, then you sure as hell can't afford a $200 Games Console, with $40 each games !!

          Tell that to my folks, who initially let me use my NES only on an old throwaway black-and-white TV. Back then, I was 9 years old, and I couldn't even afford the NES (it was a Christmas present).

    • A friend of mine actually purchased one.
      It's just a normal TV with a special x-box input on it. Since my friend has all the major game systems, he thought it would be nice to have the extra port.

      But, it turns out, it wasn't a good choice. The TV had a strange hum... he had the service guys out twice to fix it, but no luck so he wound up returning it.

      --ST
    • I took a tour of Thomson (or "RCA," if you prefer) a few months ago. They showed us this -- basically it's a port on the front of the TV which a special cable can connect the XBox directly to the TV with one connector.

      Since Thomson/RCA (NOT Microsoft - they just provide the $$ and advertising) is actually the one that designed and manufactures the XBox, this is perfectly fine IMHO. A good selling point for their TVs for less-than-educated people that want to hook up an XBox.
        • Since Thomson/RCA (NOT Microsoft - they just provide the $$ and advertising) is actually the one that designed and manufactures the XBox, this is perfectly fine IMHO.
        Acutally, no. Microsoft did concept and specs for the box and a nice little firm called Flextronics acutally designed and builds [wired.com] the hardware. Sorry.

        • Damn (Score:2)

          by cscx ( 541332 )
          Wow, foot in my mouth. But... I could have sworn!

          I knew RCA and MS were "like this" [makes appropriate finger motion] but looks like I was wrong. Hmmph.
    • Wow... people really don't understand how to hook up 3 jacks.... (color coded none the less).... Go figure...

      -br0ken

    • TOO easy (Score:3, Funny)

      by Felinoid ( 16872 )
      X BOX READY...
      If that's common enough any enterprising consol maker can FUD "Our games run on ALLTVs. Even the ones that are X Box ready"
      Leave an image of "If you want to use X Box you gotta buy a brand new tv or use ours on your exsisting perficly good 50 inch wide screen"
    • You miserable fuckhead. No, this is not a "somewhat related note". No, it wasn't Microsoft that brought down the darling of Slashdot, Lik-Sang (whatever the fuck).

      Just for a moment, for a single solitary fucking second, remove your head from your rectum and think. How the fuck is The Evil Empire supposed to force RCA to plaster 'XBox' on a TV?

      C'mon fucktard, enlighten us. Please.

  • Lik Sang is still viable (Score:5, Informative)

    by chickenmonger ( 614989 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @07:06PM (#4543738) Journal
    Just because they stopped distributing mod chips doesn't make them a dead company. I look on their website and I see many things that I might like to buy...if only I had any money left from college tuition...

  • Sigh... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 27, 2002 @07:09PM (#4543754)
    You people do realize that it was primary Sony and Nintendo, NOT MICROSOFT, that causes the shut down of the site, right?

    Microsoft send a letter of support, and was one of the official plantiffs, but did not originally bring the case.

    Yet Slashdot still picks the MS-Borg icon for the story. How transparently bias.

  • Why under Microsoft (Score:4, Informative)

    by i_luv_linux ( 569860 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @07:33PM (#4543859)
    I remember this story very well, because first it is reported as if the company closed its site due to Microsoft's efforts. Then when they opened it again, the news changed the story and said that actually Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo forced the company to close its door.

    I can understand Microsoft bashing, but this is pure lie. Next time, maybe it will turn out to be only Sony. The story changes every time.

  • Something I should have added (Score:3, Informative)

    by alexburke ( 119254 ) <alex+slashdot@@@alexburke...ca> on Sunday October 27, 2002 @07:49PM (#4543923)
    I feel like a dipshit for not including this little gem [lik-sang.com] in my submission.

    Oh well, here it is...
  • 2 weeks from now we are going to reading another story how we slashdotted them, and they are back online after that slashdotting.
  • Lik-Sang is still the only place where I can find those stupid nintendo proprietary screwdrivers.
    • I'll bet those screwdrivers are made by taking molds of either a nintendo-made screwdriver or of the system itself. Does that mean they violate Nintendo's IP rights? Could Nintendo prevent their sale too? Or do restrictions like that only apply to software?

  • Ummm... yeah... (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Frac ( 27516 )
    This previous posting [slashdot.org] should provide some good background reading if you've not been following this episode.

    And THIS previous posting [slashdot.org] should tell you that slashdot likes to post duplicate stories if you're new here.

  • Dupe - Not (Score:3, Interesting)

    by malfunct ( 120790 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @10:15PM (#4544570) Homepage
    I have read prolly 30 posts stateing this story is a dupe. Granted Lik-Sang has been back for a while but it was only very recently that they had mod-chips posted on thier site. The post on /. did a poor job of explaining this so maybe it should be pointed out.
  • This PHP website seems to be handling the load pretty well. Good to see, since PHP's scalability is often questioned.
  • im happy to have got my flash linker before they wnet down :-)
  • Giving up on assembly language was the apple in our Garden of Eden: Languages
    whose use squanders machine cycles are sinful. The LISP machine now permits
    LISP programmers to abandon bra and fig-leaf.
    -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982

    - this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...

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