You know, I've been watching what this generation's "console war" has brought to the table so far and I must say I find it very interesting looking at it from the outside in.

Not to sound like an cheap a$$hole, but I really have no drive to become involved by purchasing any of the systems. It's not even a money issue either... I rather spend my money elsewhere; old PS1 games still manage to be the generation of games I send the most on, same with soundtracks.

I really don't know what I'm saying here but I look at gaming today and I really feel a thick sense of disillusion anymore... which the PS3's stumbling and the XBox360's hardware problems just don't help. I go into an EB and I ask myself "what am I doing in here?" and feel like I'm out of my league.

Anyway, I'm just a gamer that doesn't feel much like a gamer anymore.

Apparently they don't nor does anyone else:

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/07/13/sony- … ver-in-us/

This is the understatement of a lifetime right here:

Ashley: All you need is a DS and a PC.

Anyone post this interview yet? - http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=79698

Here's the best bit -
When asked if he thought GBP 425 / GBP 599 was still a high price to ask consumers to pay Reeves replied, "It is, but surprisingly, people are paying that amount of money for it."

Heh.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6175011.ht … ws;title;0

^^ At least this carries less hype on the 60 giger than "all gone by the end of July!"

I just saw this. It's by Mad Catz but it looks all right.

http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.a … ames&BAB=D

The DS has been the victor of the next-gen consoles, without even being IN the race.

Seriously though, the handhelds (DS and PSP) seem more attractive than the consoles in my opinion, even with the PSP being the re-hash machine for PS1 titles. Still, despite how good such titles may be (FFT, SO2, BOFIII, BOFIV... I could go on but I think you get the point) I just have a hard time buying something I've already played and own minus the enhancements.

Of course, paying $40 for a new game on the handhelds like games from the the PS1/PS2 era is a nice plus. $60 for a new game on the consoles like in the late SNES games isn't really ideal since I'd be insanely picky over what I bought. Of course, some of those SNES games were definatetly worth $60 plus bucks back then... (Note to self: Mega Man X2 was not worth the $70 I blew on it on my birthday in 1994).

Regardless of anything else, the DS is an absolute must own.

I enjoy having a DS (and to some extent the PSP), but I think both hold nothing to the 360 or Wii.  Of course, Gamefly has really helped in allowing me to play a lot of 360 games without having to spend a lot buying them or even renting them from a local store, plus its option to buy a game at a really discounted price helps (such as getting The Darkness for $43.19 as opposed to $59.99, not that I want it).

What are you playing on your Wii, Ryu?

I'm bouncing between Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition and Super Mario Bros 2.

Since I've never played Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, I'll probably replay through MP1 and 2 sometime soon so I can give MP3 a shot when it comes out, since it is the next Wii release for me.

I still haven't yet picked up RE4. I must get around to that. I never played the GC version so it will be all new to me.

Probably your 1995 birthday unless you got the Japanese version and your birthday is in December.

I was going by the date that flashes on the copyright screen, which is...

1993 for X
1994 for X2
1995 for X3
1996 for X3 PSX
1997 for X4
2000 for X5
2001 for X6 (from paper to game in six months - rushed out for the holidays - and it showed)
2003 for X7
2004 for X8

...but yeah yeah it's possible I did buy it in on my birthday in April of 1995 since it launched in December in Japan... but remember we got Mega Man X8 a full three months before the Japanese did. Everything I'm finding says 1994 for the US but it doesn't inicate a month or day. Also, if you think about it there is like next to nothing to translate in the old X games, very little text so outside of production the turnaround for translation was probably next to nil.

Sweet victory for Nintendo whose suffered ever since they gave PlayStation its ammo. There must be some sort of historic record set for console unavailability at stores. Let's see if they can go an entire year without stable stock of Wiis (this must be why the VC pickins have been light and Smash Bros. and Mario delayed until kingdom (more stock) come.

I read somewhere that the Famicom was hard to find for 3 consecutive years in Japan back in the 1980s. But on an international level this is definitely unprecedent, the more simultaneous console releases in "all" regions are also a rather recent development after all.

Copyright dates have little to nothing to do with actual release dates.  I know for a fact that Mega Man X2 was not released in the U.S. in 1994.  What you're seeing is massive laziness on the part of places like GameFAQs and Planet Mega Man that are doing the same thing you're doing above with the copyright dates.  For example, MMX was released in the U.S. in 1994, not 1993.  I believe the game came out here in January 1995, and I found a few sites that agree with me, but none of them are major sites, so they don't hold much credibility, but I know I'm right since I was a huge Mega Man fan back then and believe me, if MMX2 was out in the U.S. in 1994, I would have had it in 1994.  Anyway, here are the actual U.S. release years for the X series:

X1: 1994
X2: 1995
X3: 1996
X4: 1997
X5: 2001
X6: 2001
X7: 2003
X8: 2004

Oh, but wait...  I found the proof! 

http://www.nintendo.com/doc/snes_games.pdf

In case you're wondering why Majesco is listed as the publisher for the first MMX, I can only assume this is some goof related to the lot of SNES games that Majesco picked up for reprint at the very tail end of the SNES' shelf life -- I remember them re-releasing a bunch of SNES classics for $10 each.

Cool info... I really wish I kept records of when or where I bought stuff when I was younger but that was really the last thing on my mind.

As for X2, it's not a bad game in the least but looking back on the game it wasn't nearly as great as I thought it was when I was a kid... it just seems like a standard sequel in most respects when I reflect back on it. I do remember getting it new, factory sealed for $60- $70 (due to Capcom's C4 chip) which is a lot of money when you're in the 6th grade.

Still should take the time and money to get an X3 cart someday so I have all the X games on their originating system (I know, I know there's the collection but I haven't even played it since I bought it.)

I liked X2 quite a bit.  I remember being the first of my group of friends to discover the Shoryuken without any help, and that was a good feeling back then (granted, the Shoryuken in X2 is much easier to find than the Hadouken in X1 where you pretty much have to know exactly what to do in order to get it).  Back then, the X series was still fresh, and even though it was a standard sequel, X2 still felt pretty new.  X3, however, I liked a lot less.  I remember being annoyed with the armors and the things you had to collect.  I was rather relieved that there was a bit of break between X3 and X4.

"granted, the Shoryuken in X2 is much easier to find than the Hadouken in X1 where you pretty much have to know exactly what to do in order to get it"

Ironic! *I* found the hadukon with no help... but I had NO luck with the shoryuken...

It always amazes me to hear that there are people who actually FOUND that Hadouken by themselves.
How the heck do you accidentally find something like that!?
The Shouryuuken was easy as pie, but why would you go to the same stage and do the same thing over and over again unless you knew what was going to happen?

How is that even possible?  What could possibly have motivated you to jump on that same ledge that many times in a row only to play through the whole level again and do the same thing?

im tempted to get a ps3 just so i could get an HDMI hookup to play my ps2 games.. would that be a waste though?

I look at it like this: Right now for $499 you can get a machine that plays DVDs and upscales/upconverts them AND Blu-Ray High Def AND 100 percent perfect compatibility with PS2 and PS1 games thanks to the superior hardware setup vs. the inferior software emulation that's forthcoming.

The latest firmware even allows for the machine to upscale/upconvert your PS2 and PS1 games and has a "smoothness" option you can toggle to help out with jaggies and such on the older games. You can turn any of these features on and off as you see fit.

I doubt most people will ever use up anywhere near the 60 gigs of space on this hard drive. If that day ever comes, you can upgrade the hardrive yourself with relative ease and relatively minimal expense.

And you get access to the forthcoming and finally starting to grow PS3 library (see E3 coverage.) <- Every new console has about that first year or so where it's almost all doldrum. Come Christmas time or so, the game scene is going to finally start looking a lot better on this front.

So you get three systems in one, a quality upscaling DVD player, and a Blu-Ray high def player for $500. I think that's pretty good.

I'd trade that old PS2 in and whatever junk you can round up and make the upgrade. You really can't go wrong IMO. If you can afford it, I say go for it.

Stupidly, the PS3 does not include an HDMI or component video cable as pack in. For those I recommend either shopping at www.ramelectronics.net or www.monoprice.com

You can get really good cables for a lot less than you think.

I heard movie downloads are coming, so HD space will be a concern then....Definitely buy your HDMI cables online, I picked up a 12 foot for less than $20.   (Best Buy sheepishly flaunts 6 ft cables for over $60, next to PS3 gear)

Legal HD movie downloads will piss of the ISPs of the world.

Just an FYI, the Guitar Hero games won't work completely because of the lack of PS2 controller inputs on the PS3. You could play with the regular controller but it's no SixAxis Hero.

Does that mean the savegame corruption issues have been fixed? 'Cause I still haven't seen any mention of them being addressed in any patches.

Of course, my interest has waned over the past couple of months, so I may have missed some footnote somewhere.

Hey, that was more or less what I had been waiting for all this time.
Does anyone know how Japanese PS3s handle this at the moment?

Also, do PS1 and PS2 games look notably better when upscaled? I remember the smoothing function on the PS2 made PSX 3D definitely more watchable, but does upscaling provide any real improvements?

Also, to ask a noob question probably, but I have an HDTV (720p), and I'm using component cables, but my TV does have an HDMI socket. Would an HDMI cable improve anything over component if I can't go up to 1080p anyway?

Upscaling seems to make it look fuzzed, but if you want to upscale (especially DVDs) I believe HDMI may be required.

Well, for all my havering, the backwards compatibility did me in, and I bit the bullet.  It just arrived yesterday.  I thought I had an HDMI cord laying around, but the one that I had is a DVI -> HDMI that connects to my DVD player, and not an HDMI -> HDMI.

As for upscaling, you have separate options for upscaling and smoothing PS2 games.  The pictures I saw at IGN looked a little fuzzy, but they had both options active.  I'm not sure how it looks with just upscaling and no smoothing (haven't tried a PS2 game yet), but I'll try to find out tonight.

As far as component vs. HDMI video, I don't know what the difference in video quality is.  I ordered a few HDMI cables from Monoprice, so I should be able to give you an idea sometime next week.  I have it hooked up with component cables right now, and it can output at 1080p to my TV over that connection.  I tried out Ninja Gaiden Sigma in 1080p last night, and it looked pretty spiffy.

HDMI and component should be more or less equal. It depends on the TV itself and some other variables. Same goes for whether the scaling of the PS3 looks good to you or not. Some TV's will have scaling that's better than what the PS3 can do so you're better leaving it turned off.  At least you can have fun experimenting and see what looks best to you.

Thanks to certain studio restrictions and copy protection fears and nonsense:  Yes, you need HDMI to upscale DVD movies but not games. It's called HDCP compliance.

Tried upscaling on a PS2 game (Disgaea 2), and promptly turned it back off.  Like Ryu said, it did make things look kind of fuzzy; too fuzzy for my tastes.  I'll take the sharp, precise lines of 480i over the Glamour Shots approach for text-heavy games.  For others...we'll see.

I checked the IGN article on upscaling (here for those who haven't seen it: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/793/793775p1.html), and it doesn't look that awesome to me. Lots of blurry images and text, like Crash and Ryu said. I would rather have a game look sharper and clearer than smoother and fuzzier. Bah.

FWIW, I just glanced through the latest Game Informer magazine and there was some blurb in there about SCEA folks saying that future firmwares will probably increase picture quality and such on that stuff by a good 30-40 percent.

I suspect that's somewhat believable when you see what firmwares have done already for the PS3 since November to now. Obviously, we'll all believe it when we actually see it but I've been pretty impressed with what firmwares have done for this machine thus far.