Collecting sickness gone mad (or: Demo discs!)

Well, I've finally done it. I've officially started collecting demo discs.

I've always had a few demo discs around. For example, that's the only way I could play Intelligent Qube for years. (Cue people asking me for an Intelligent Qube ISO...) And my wife nearly killed me when I played the Parappa the Rapper demo for ages. I also picked up the Official PlayStation Magazine demo of Tomb Raider: Legend within the past couple of years.

But now they've gone beyond utility into that bizarre realm of "neat artifacts I'd like to buy just to own". Oh boy. This is like label variations of Atari 2600 games all over again.

Here's the best source of data I've found on them. I even made a spreadsheet of the PS2 demos so I could keep track of mine. I have 13 ... out of over 400 listed on this page. At least I'll have something to keep me busy. I also have 3 PS1 demo discs and a handful of PSP demo UMDs.

Incidentally, there is competition out there for these. On a lark, I bid $18 on a lot of 41 demo discs the other day on eBay. The final bid was $38 or so. Yow.

Anyway, if you've got some you'd like to ditch, give me a holler.

Labels: collecting, demo, ps2, psone, psp

--jvm at 08:55

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Deceived

I enjoyed the time I spent with Tecmo's Deception games on the PS1. I've spent about an hour with Trapt, a sequel of sorts on the PS2. I've seen exactly three features which distinguish it from the original trilogy:

1. Nice 3D graphics
2. Decent sounding Japanese voice work
3. Attractive women dressed in trashy leather clothing

Other than that, it's just like the previous three games, down to the horribly translated English subtitles and overwrought death confessions.

Seriously, I am fairly sure that even the first few missions are exactly the same enemies in the same rooms that I played in Deception III: Dark Delusion.

Sad, Tecmo. Really, really sad. Then again...I did buy it.

Labels: ps2, psone, sony, tecmo

--jvm at 21:54

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PS3 Compatibility of My PS2 Library

To follow up on my post about how well my PS1 library will play on a PS3, here are the results with the 90 games in my PS2 library, which you can check out at MobyGames. The 60Gb wins.

For the 60Gb:
84 games work just fine (93%)
2 have video corruption (2D movies)
1 has graphics corruption (2D or 3D game graphics)
1 has some sort of audio problem (corrupted audio)
1 has a fatal hang
1 doesn't work with some sort of extra hardware

That works out to 89 out of 90, or 98.9%, being playable with minor inconvenient issues on a 60Gb PS3.

The results for the software emulation of PS2 games...

For the 80Gb:
50 games work just fine (57%)
7 have video corruption (2D movies)
12 have graphics corruption (2D or 3D graphics)
12 have a fatal hang
1 doesn't work with some sort of extra hardware
5 have speed problems (running slowly)
1 doesn't work online
1 is not in Sony's database

That works out to 76 out of 90, or 84%, which are documented playable with minor inconvenient issues.

Here are the graphs:
I intend to keep my old PS2 around, so most or all of these games should be available to play on that system even when they don't work on a PS3. Still, for out of the box compatibility the 60Gb really seems like the system to get. We'll see how well MonkeyKing's feelings about the software emulation pan out...

Labels: data, emulation, graphs, ps2, ps3, psone, sony

--jvm at 00:31

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PS3 Compatibility of My PS1 Library

Either model of the PS3 will probably play your PS1 games as well as the other. That's my conclusion after I checked the compatibility of the 128 PS1 games in my library, as cataloged on MobyGames. Here's the breakdown

105 work just fine (that's 82%)
4 have video corruption (2D movies)
8 have graphics corruption (2D or 3D game graphics)
4 have some sort of audio problem (usually just a wrong or truncated sound)
4 have a bug that can cause a hang (only a couple are truly fatal)
1 has a controller issue
2 have speed problems (usually running slowly)

The number that probably really matters: 126 out of 128 will work with minor inconvenient issues. That's 98.4%.

If you'd prefer a graph, here you go:
Out of these 128 games, the 80Gb and 60Gb models have exactly the same compatibility issues. Although I've never seen it said somewhere, this leads me to believe that the PS1 compatibility is purely software, and has nothing to do with the PS2 hardware in the 60Gb PS3 model. Sony has a software PS1 emulator after all, the one used on the PSP! Moreover, when issues have been fixed with PS1 game compatibility, they're fixed by a firmware update.

So, there is no compelling reason to get either PS3 model over the other if your concern is PS1 compatibility.

Incidentally, I believe you still can't play the downloadable PS1 games on the PlayStation Network with a PS3 at one time you couldn't play downlodable PS1 games on the PlayStation Network with a PS3. If indeed there is was a software PS1 emulator built right into the firmware, then I'm really puzzled about Sony's reluctance to make those PS1 games playable on both the PSP and the PS3. What's What was going on there?

I'm working on combing through my PS2 library. I'll have another post up when I get done.

Labels: data, emulation, graphs, ps3, psone, psp, sony

--jvm at 21:20

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Sometimes the 80 is better than the 60

I'm considering getting a 60Gb PS3 before the only way to get one is used, so I decided to hit up the new compatibility search engine Sony's put up just recently. In comparing the two models, I turned up one case where the 80Gb model (which uses software emulation for PS2 and PS1 games) does a better job: Atari Anthology for PlayStation 2. For the hardware emulation in the 60Gb, we get this:

Description: When the "Atari founder Nolan Bushnell" FMV plays, the audio plays approximately 1 second ahead of the video.

For the 80Gb (software emulation), the report is

Description: No major problems for this title.

Not a killer there, but it does leave me wondering what else will crop up in my collection. On balance, I'm seeing more issues with the 80Gb than with the 60Gb, so I haven't changed my plans. Still, it would be interesting to see a graphical comparison of some sort to visually evaluate how compatible each machine really is.

Labels: emulation, ps2, ps3, psone, sony

--jvm at 10:37

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The Race to Cut

Sony has announced a price drop. Other than "Do I buy in August or November?", my question is this:

Is Sony beginning the same kind or price war they started (and won) with Sega?

For context, see the text of this comment by MonkeyKing1969 on my post documenting price drops for the original PlayStation.

The blue laser diodes have reportedly dropped in cost. The Emotion Engine hardware has been dropped from the new 80Gb PlayStation 3. Sony has reported that they have nearly full capacity production of the PlayStation 3 systems. Ideally they should be able to drop prices as their costs change, and this $100 price drop seems to be part of that.

So what's different? Whereas I suspect that Sony controlled the production of almost everything in the original PlayStation and in the PlayStation 2 (except perhaps the RamBus stuff), they have a partnership with NVIDIA for the PlayStation 3's graphics chip, the RSX. That's an entanglement I bet they wish they didn't have. As I recall, NVIDIA and Microsoft didn't part on the best of terms from a similar relationship on the original Xbox.

Microsoft doesn't own everything in the Xbox 360, but it does own more than the original Xbox. Still, it does depend on IBM and ATI/AMD for parts. The Xbox 360 ain't no Saturn, so to speak, but I'd like to hear a professional's opinion on how quickly and deeply Sony and Microsoft will be able to reduce costs of their respective systems.

If Sony drops the price again in a year by another $100, I do wonder if Microsoft will be able to keep up. Perhaps at that point, Nintendo's Harrison will want to reconsider his bravado.

Labels: business, ps2, ps3, psone, xbox, xbox360

--jvm at 23:53

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When did the original PlayStation drop in price?

My friend Kyle was asking me when the original Sony PlayStation -- the PS1 or PSX as we called it back then -- dropped in price. I had looked when I did my recent piece on console price cuts, but hadn't looked in the right places. With a bit of Lexis-Nexis hunting, I came up with the following:

Sony PlayStation launches on 9 September 1995 at $300 (i.e. $299.99).

The first price drop is from $300 to $200 and it happens on Thursday 16 May 1996, according to an AP news item that day titled "With Rollout of New Systems, Upturn Begins in Video Game Industry" written by Evan Ramstad. Quote:

The Nintendo machine, along with Sony's Playstation and Sega's Saturn, stand out from their predecessors in graphics, speed and game-playing features. Sony lowered the price of its system from $ 300 to $ 200 on Thursday, beating the $ 250 price level of Sega and Nintendo.

The second price drop is from $200 to $150 (i.e. $149.99) on Monday 3 March 1997, according to an AP news item that same day titled "Sony slashes prices of PlayStation, Nintendo says it will not follow" written by Rachel Beck. Quote:

Sony Computer Entertainment America launched a price war in the video-game industry Monday when it slashed the cost of its PlayStation system and accompanying software by over 25 percent.

Sony's popular PlayStation will now have a suggested retail price of $ 149, down $ 50, and its games will sell for $ 49.99 and under from the previous price of about $ 70.

Rival video-game maker Nintendo said it would not immediately match the cuts, although analysts said the Japanese company may have to pare prices soon to compete.

If someone has the dates for later drops, let me know and I'll add them.

To my knowledge, the precise dates of these drops were not available out on the generally available internets, but there they are now.

Labels: business, history, psone, sony

--jvm at 21:43

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More about PlayStation Museum

I wrote the PlayStation Museum curator about their liquidation. Here is the response:

jvm: What precipitated the liquidation of the PlayStation Museum's collection?

PS Museum: A partner in the museum has decided to split and force a liquidation (unless I can come up with the money which I can't).

jvm: How will the online museum change after this liquidation?

PSM: The online museum may stay. The future of the museum is still slightly uncertain.

jvm: Are you in touch with preservation institutions about selling the collection?

PSM: No, I haven't been.

jvm: And has the eBay auction been removed by you or by eBay? In either case, why?

PSM: Apparently ebay removed it for trademark violation, unauthorized item? Your email was the first I heard of it and now I just read the standard email from ebay. Everything will now have to be listed separately.

So now you know.

Labels: collecting, psone

--jvm at 18:04

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Death of the PlayStation Museum?

Via Simon at GameSetWatch, I see that the PlayStation Museum (site down as of this writing) is probably closing down. The collection is for sale here currently, with an asking price of $30,000. As someone who is quasi-obsessive about PlayStation game collecting, I'm sad to see it go. If there is a university out there looking to jump into preservation with both feet, I'd think thirty grand would be pretty cheap for this extensive a collection.

On the plus side, owning about 8.5% of the number of PSOne games they have doesn't make me feel too bad about my collection. And it's not jointly owned (one PS Museum partner is apparently the reason for the liquidation), so I don't have anyone urging me to sell it off. (No, I'm not counting my wife. I think she's found her peace with my collection.)

Labels: collecting, psone

--jvm at 20:10

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A bridge (of adapters) too far

When I mentioned that I could play light gun games with my one good hand I forgot an essential fact: I can't play traditional light gun games on the LCD HDTV I bought a couple of months ago. Oops.

There are newer guns that work with LCDs and plasma sets -- the RGT G1 and the LCD TopGun are two -- but they don't appear to work with older systems since they both use USB. (Aside: I'm told the RGT G1 is not very good. Their pages say there is a new model due soon, during Q2 2007.) Working with USB means that older systems like the Dreamcast and PSOne aren't really in the mix. Unless, of course, there is a way to hack together an adapter.

So here's my idea of how I might be able to play something like House of the Dead 2 on the Dreamcast using this newer gun:

LCD TopGun -> USB to PS/2 adapter -> Total Control 2 -> Dreamcast

That's PS/2 -- the keyboard and mouse interface -- not PS2 as in PlayStation 2. Anyone have ideas about whether this would work or not? Even better, anyone in a position to try it out?

Then again, I should be able to pick up a cheap CRT TV in a year or so as they're pushed out of the market, so maybe I should just wait.

Labels: dreamcast, hdtv, lightgun, ps2, psone

--jvm at 22:19

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Euro PS3 compatibility list

Via The Register, I see that Sony has published a database of how various games work on the new version of the PlayStation 3. Here's an interesting snapshot showing the situation with Metal Gear Solid 3:
One square means noticeable issues when played on a PS3 and three squares means no issues. I wonder how many people will have the one-square versions of MGS3? And I wonder if newer games have been made with libraries from Sony that are designed to increase compatibility. For example, God of War 2, a game which may tax the system about as hard as anything we've ever seen, just came out and has three squares. That could be the emulator, or it could be Sony making sure newer games pass a certain spec before they're released.

Anyway, I hope to pore over the list more later, especially the PSOne listing, since I expect that by the time I buy a North American PS3 I'll be dealing with the same software emulation.

Labels: ps2, ps3, psone, sony

--jvm at 10:25

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Well, that explains the Game Boy market, doesn't it?

MobyGames just posted this from a Game Developer Conference talk by Trip Hawkins:

Trip also talked about the overcrowded license market and how more original titles will encourage the growth of the industry. Trip also talked about the royalty fees that a major licensor imposed awhile back. For GameBoy games it was 4%, for Playstation it was about 7%, online stuff it was about 11%, and for mobile games it was about 50%. This type of abuse causes the quality of games to be lower and as a result, the consumer, the publisher and the developer all end up getting burned.

Seeing that fee structure, is it any surprise that more than 50% of the GBA library was
licensed games when I crunched the numbers over 3.5 years ago? I'm betting it's far, far higher now. Of course the PlayStation was also a dumping ground for junk, as was its successor.

How depressing.

Update: Next-Gen.biz is also covering the Hawkins talk, and adds this bit:

He added that some larger publishers are too interested in playing safe, saving some direct criticism for the Electronic Arts, the company he originally founded. "They spent a lot of money tying up Tetris and gaining placement on the decks, but if that's the best we can think of [them?] then there is something very wrong." He said too many customers are simply being offered old games but in a second rate form.

I think Hawkins licensed this fiery old Costikyan rant regarding GDC 2003 changed a few words, and made it mobile-centric:

Year by year, budgets increase. Year by year, sales increase less. And year by year, the publishers become more conservative; at $3m a pop and a 3 year dev cycle, it's too risky to invest in any game that's--risky. Thus only sequels and licensed drivel get funded. -- Greg Costikyan, March 2003

Sequels, remakes, and licenses flood the game market. Now the same is happening game conference speeches. Where will the madness stop?

Labels: developers, gba, nextgen, psone

--jvm at 15:36

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Sony's PSOne on PSP: punishing the faithful...again

Sony needs to fix the PSOne emulation situation on the PSP right now.

There is now a firmware downgrader for every PSP ever sold, including my own which has been upgraded to firmware version 3.03. Anyone who owns a PSP and an older copy of Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (I do) can then install a copy of the PSOne emulator that Sony has been selling through its PlayStation Store. Then you can rip your very own PSOne games and play them with the emulator.

The catch is that redistribution of the emulator is probably illegal. I'd guess that it has also been hacked in a way that allows it to use any game image, which probably violated the DMCA at some level and certainly the license agreement that came with the software. So, for reasons other than not wanting to brick my PSP, I'm going to stay away from hacked firmware and the emulator.

Sony needs to remedy the situation right now, or else risk deeply angering some of the fans of its hardware and software. (I count myself among those.) As it is, the folks willing to partake in copyright infringement (distribution of the emulator) are getting the most from their Sony hardware.

To fix this, Sony needs to:

• Make the PlayStation Store available to PSP owners.
• Sell the emulator to me at some reasonable price. Let me suggest no more than $60, although lower is better. And upgrades/improvements should be free.
• Include a game ripper with the emulator or sell it separately. I don't care.
  
• Sell pre-ripped images of games (guaranteed to work) for a modest fee (say $4).

My PSP is currently my most played system. I have spent a tremendous amount building a library of PSOne games. My PSP would likely become my only system, for all practical purposes, if Sony does the above.

Perhaps there is some other means by which Sony can stop slapping the fans in the face, but it needs to fix the situation and fast.

Labels: business, emulation, psone, psp, sony

--jvm at 11:09

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Rhino Redeemed

I've given zealous Rhino Games employees a hard time in the past, so it's only fair that when I have a particularly good experience that I should write about it. Regrettably, Rhino will soon be no more, as it's getting absorbed into the EB Games/GameStop collective.

Which is, in part, why I was at Rhino Games in the first place. They've got all their older stuff on clearance: NES, Genesis, SNES, N64, Dreamcast, and PSOne. Note that the prices aren't as nice as that link would have you believe. And some games that aren't in the GameStop system are considered to be priced at the last Rhino sticker price. Which means that I still don't own Bubble Bobble for the PSOne. Stupid $40 price tag.

Anyway, as I'm walking around the store just seeing what's on the shelves the employees announce to everyone in the store that the clearance sale is in effect. Moreover, they encourage us to just bring stuff to the counter to find the real prices. Now that's the kind of attention I can appreciate.

So I took about a dozen games up to the counter and they dutifully went through the computer to find the prices for me. (If the price was in the computer system. Grumble Bobble.) They apologized for the length of time it took them to find the prices, but I was in no hurry, so we just chatted about the move. Apparently they're still getting used to the GameStop computer system that's been foisted on them, so checking everyone out today was a chore. They'll use that system all this week and next Monday they'll officially get a training session. Nice.

I ended up only selecting four of the games after I saw the prices, most of which were reduced but not cheapskate-level. Of those four games one wasn't actually in stock once they looked for it in the back. Then I declined to buy one of the remaining three which appeared to have been mistaken for a sanding disc. (Where do people put their games to make them look like that? Seriously.) So I ended up with a $3 game and a $4 game (both with manuals and pristine discs), but they rang up as a $4 total, due to some unexpected buy-one-get-one-free deal. Them employees were a bit surprised to see that -- apparently it had been ringing up buy-two-get-one free earlier.

While I'm standing there checking out the guy next to me is buying a Dreamcast. It rings up as $15, so I ask if they have any more and the guy brings me two complete systems which I also buy. I'm hoping one of them plays homebrew code so Ruffin can finally try it out. Regardless, I thought it was a pretty good haul for the day.

Thanks, Rhino guys. Hope the the new bosses work out for you.

Labels: dreamcast, game stores, psone

--jvm at 22:08

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Wii expands the GameCube market? Feh.

Mike pointed me to an article I missed in Thursday's updates to Next-Gen.biz: O3 Still Loving GameCube. It brings up an angle on backward compatibility that I don't recall being raised back when we last discussed its importance: it expands the base of the older platform, and therefore opens possibilities for smaller publishers to make some money.

O3 is bringing a Japanese shooter on the GameCube called Radio Allergy and depending on the Wii to expand the potential audience. That's a neat theory, but I don't think I really believe Wii players will be browsing the GameCube section of their stores enough to pick up cheap games. Sure, I know that I will do precisely that, but one thing the commenters on this blog have made painfully clear is that my habits are often widely divergent from the typical consumer habits. I suspect this is one of those cases.

We have a precedent, of course: the PlayStation 2 transition period. There we had nearly perfect backward compatibility and a successful system leading into yet another successful system. However, the kind of games that smaller publishers brought out were often quite poor. In O3's defense, I have no idea whether their game will be brilliant or ridiculously bad.

I hate to pick on Mud Duck Productions, since they at least have a nifty name, but their post-PS2 output for the PSOne is typical of what I expect will happen to publishers who look to the GameCube and Wii as one platform: cheap, one-off games like Qix Neo and Puzznic that sell for $10 and languish on shelves for years. (I think their pre-PS2 game Gubble falls into the same category, but I digress.) I just don't see Wii players jumping at the chance to own similar quality GameCube games.

There might actually be a profit in such ventures, especially if the production values are low enough and the number of gullible buyers is high enough*, but this isn't some sort of GameCube renaissance waiting to happen. The next time you see a really great game on a GameCube, it will probably be a homebrew title created by a fan somewhere around 2012.

* Yes, I own Qix Neo. I'm making my own library of games, for crying out loud, and that means getting everything, good and bad. I try not to pay too much for the dreck, naturally.

Labels: gamecube, nintendo, psone, wii

--jvm at 00:57

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