premd gamer

You need to check your history Doug. Harmonix never made controllers prior to RB. 3 games, no guitars. Red Octane made the original guitars and were subsequently bought up with Activision along with the GH name. When RO tried to sue TAC for making controllers, it seemed a little hypocritical for a company that got it's start with 3rd party DDR pads. When GHII came out and 3rd party guitars no longer worked, it was downright dirty. I recall rumblings (that I'm too lazy to look up and site) that RO made Harmonix go back and alter the code to "lock out" 3rd party controllers- which is why you can play GHI just fine on your 60gig ps3 with an adaptor, but GHII and 80's are basically broken. Activision now owns RO and the GH name. Presumably it's their call to keep these policies going, but RO probably has no small say in the matter since peripherals are obviously their lifeblood)

Remember how GH3 had to be built from the ground up because they couldn't reuse Harmonix's code? That "controller lock code" was RO's doing. Rather than use their proprietary standard to dictate guitar interfaces, they took the high road to make an "open standard" that's probably a heck of a lot easier to program for and saves them from RO/Activision's lawyers for "stealing" their code or using the information that may completely or partially belong to RO/Activision in the development of their game or the development of their peripherials (or maybe the peripheral is more EA's department, I'm not totally sure). And Harmonix obviously won't come out and say that Activision owns the patent on guitar blocking code because everyone's thinking it anyways. Even if they did directly blame RO/Activision, they'd probably just get sued for using their insider information to slander their competitor.

Whatever's ACTUALLY going on between the two- the status quo seems to be working fantastically for both, from a sales perspective. Whether or not the maket's big enough for two band games remains to be seem, but I seriously doubt either franchise will be hurting for business this holiday.

Thanks for the giveaway for this one-of-a-kind item for a one-of-a-kind game (except it's "spiritual successor"). Congrats to the lucky winners.

The very last scene where the whole of the Greek army is assembled to take out the Persians- the battle of the 300 was an unmatched call to arms.

I saw the original post and it got me to experiment with some things. I noticed that with the ps2 through COMPONENT to a Sharp 26" LCD HDTV, the picture in FFXII and MGS3 had the exact same busted jagginess these guys are complaining about with their PS3s. In addition, DMC, R&C, and DQ8 had the same type of jagginess. Figuring it might be a ps2slim problem, I tried my roommate's big ps2 and got the exact same results. Through S-Video, the jags are gone- and it's not a matter of lower res covering up the jagginess because the edges of the FOX-HOUND logo was still sharp, but without jags. If a game supported Progressive Scan, there was no problem to be seen. Multiple cables yeilded the same results, and I don't know if I care enough to try multiple TVs.
If you troll PC message boards- you see that everyone states what hardware they're running, but these fools don't- they only say that "it's CAN'T be my NEW Sony HDTV" or some such nonsense. There's some talk about CRT, but no Plasma/LCD/DLP comparission, no brand comparission, no A/V reciever comparission- nothing.
Now I'm not an Electrical Engineer or anything, but it clearly looks like a de-interlacing problem. Perhaps my TV does the process that's not in sympatico with the PS2, and the ps3 uses a similarly flawed process, but this doesn't explain why some people get the error and some people don't. In that case it shouldn't be TOO hard for Sony to fix. Can anyone else confirm a similar problem with their ps2 and post what TV they were using. I would like to get a firm grasp on if it's a TV issue or if something is intrinsically broken with the ps3.
If it's fixable so be it. Sony was more concerned with meeting the holiday than catering to b/c concerned fans who probably already owned ps2s (If you stood in line and bought a $600 ps3 just to play FFXII you're an idiot). So they overlooked a flaw that was present in 6 year old hardware and had been overlooked for 6 years- I didn't notice it until this brought it to my attention, but just assumed jagginess was because ps2 wasn't an HD system, not because my TV wasn't deinterlacing properly. If months go by and they still claim no fault- yes, they are assholes. Now, however, they've got a huge PR problem (Blu-ray trojans, failed viral campaigns, massive shortages, and a $600 system), and frankly don't need any bad press that they can put off until after Christmas.

Here's what Wii needs: Cable adaptors so you can plug in your old pads. I can't imagine it's be difficult- hell, I put together a thing to use my PS1 pad on my computer through the parallel port when I was 15 with instructions from the internet. Nintendo fanboys, of course, need to shut up. Remember the Virtual Boy and the Power Glove? Nothing you could say could convince any kid that these were anything less than the greatest things invented. As we soon found out, however, they sucked. Big time. Innovative does not equal improved. It sounds like they may have a good product this time, but sloppy implementation from third parties can kill you in a heartbeat (I'm looking at you Atari 2600). So approach this thing with a grain of salt and allow Nintendo to prove to you that it's good instead of claiming any negative press is due to bias.

PayTheMan:

What you call loyalty I call cashing in on my childhood. I've been lovin' the Zelda since I was 8, and now to play one of the few reasons I bought a GC in the first place, I've got to choose between a technically inferior version and a new system. I may just be getting overemotional though since I was finally able to snag component cables for the GC after Nintendo decided that nobody uses them and stopped selling them. And what's with the redesigning systems every year or so? I'll get Z:TP and a smaller, sleeker "Pee-Wii" when it comes out in 2008. Their games are good enough it makes up for them jerking us around- but not by much.

Unless a console generation is "established," we've always had companies releasing the same game for successive systems. However (and correct me if I'm wrong), this is the first time that I've ever seen a first party developer pull this sort of scheme. The earlier mentioned enhanced functionality for GB/GBC/GBA games was a nice little treat for buying the new systems. My secret conspiracy theory explanation is that Nintendo knows that about 95% of the people with a GC will buy Z:TPgc, unless they get a Wii at launch, since 95% of Wii adopters will buy Z:TPw instead. The switchover fraction of the population is not large enough to justify exclusivity. Plus- you can't back out on a promise to consumers like that. The last time Nintendo backed out on the promise this big, the Sony Playstation was birthed and destroyed their market share globally (read Game Over by David Sheff).
I know I'm in the minority of the hardcore here, but the new control scheme holds no appeal to me. I've been playing with controllers for 18 years and I've perfected my handling to a damn-near art form on all systems. The new system may be great, but in the decision to adopt I at least want the option of old style control without having to sacrifice 16:9 widescreen, improved surround sound, and whatever other little home theater enhancements are built in to the Wii version.

Since the Wii is SUPPOSED to be compatible with the GC controllers, just you'd be well advised to track one of these down:

http://www.hori.jp/us/products/ngc/gbp_con/index.html

When the virtual console was announced, I was intenstly relieved that I'd picked one up. The only gripe I have is that the GC-style 4-button layout isn't condusive to dash jumping in the MMX Collection.
Considering it's Nintendo, the Hori will probably also be cheaper.