davivman

In the year 1997, I was as young as you are now.

LudwigK, you have officially made my day. What an absolutely fantastic description of Jurassic Park. So many memories came rushing back when I read that. And you're right Fighting Dr. Grant in the museum was a bear. I didn't actually end up beating him until years later.

I loved my Genesis (and still bust it out on occasion). Some particularly memorable moments included: snowboarding in Sonic 3; trying to headbutt the whale in Ecco the Dolphin; Defeating the dark water monster in Pirates of Dark Water (and wondering if that is how the series would have ended if it were not canceled prematurly); Scoring with the goalie in NHL 94; getting a chain in Road Rash; Secretly using the blood code in Mortal Kombat (when I promised my dad that I wouldn't); schooling my brother in SF2 championship edition by covertly using an auto fire controller;

I guess the answer depends on how much time to play games you have. I personally feel very overwhelmed and I didn't used to feel that way. Back when I was in in high school or college I would spend my evenings and entire weekends playing games. I churned through a lot of great games and never felt overwhelmed. I could replay Final Fantasy 7 or Vagrant Story multiple times and still have time for new games. Now that I am married and have a full time job, I'm lucky if I can squeeze 3-4 hours a week of game time (and most of that is in 15-30 min intervals). Churning through a game like Persona 3 has taken me over a year and I'm still not done with it. There is a stack of games like MGS4 and Prince of Persia sitting on my shelf that I haven't even touched yet. I find that I don't actually buy retail games for myself anymore. I will get a few games each year as gifts for Christmas or my birthday. Those gifts along with my current backlog is plenty to keep me busy all year long.

The patent application is claiming priority to a provisional patent application that was filed Dec. 19, 2007. Since US patent laws allow applicants 1 year from making an invention publicly available (e.g., selling products) to file an application before losing your rights, Sony could have begun selling products related to this invention as early as Dec. 19, 2006. Since the 80 GB version of the PS3 that included software emulation was released in March 2007, it is most likely that this patent application refers to the software emulation present on that older 80 GB version and not some new software that is going to be released.

I'm a patent attorney, and I can tell you that there is no way this guy could ever get a patent granted on this idea. Anybody can file a provisional application. I could doodle cirlces in crayon on a napkin and the patent office would take my application fee and give me a filing date. I can think of a dozen video games that incorporate rock, paper, scissors. Any of those games are prior art and would surely anticipate this "invention". Hopefully there isn't anyone dumb enough to give this guy a penny.

I was going to ask you to provide some evidence to back up your claim that "they all do this", since Sony has in the past explicitly denied this kind of behavior. However, after having done a brief google search, I did come up with some reports that sony does implement a Pub Fund to encourage independent developers to make their downloadable titles exclusive to the PlayStation Network by matching the development budget with guaranteed royalties, as well as assisting with game design and marketing. I still think this is different since they are actually assisting in the development of a game as opposed to just writing a check after a multiplatform game has already been made and is about to be released, but I can see how some might argue that regardless of the means, the end result is the same.

This is a bunch of crap. It is stuff like this that makes me really hate microsoft. I was really looking forward to playing this game. But hold the presses ladies and gentlemen, microsoft has pulled out its pocket book. Now I'll have to wait another few months for no legitimate reason. Why has microsoft always hated competition so much? Just let the game release as originally planned on both systems at the same time. If microsoft thinks this kind of behavior is going to make me want to buy a 360 to play certain games sooner, it has had the opposite effect. I am now angry because of their unethical business tactics and will go out of my way to not purchase their products.

I liked collecting fossils

Nice try, but patents and trademarks are handled in the same office, the US Patent and Trademark Office (uspto.gov).

I bought a PSP 1000 about 3 years ago and bought a 60 gig PS3 about a year and a half ago.