DaMadFiddler

Actually, I think the worst thing to face alone and unarmed would be the cold, lifeless vacuum of space above you. If you are truly unequipped, you will die a fairly quick but horribly painful death, as your blood boils and various parts of your body freeze, melt, and rupture.

And if you ARE equipped with a suit or such for basic survival, you would just float on endlessly. Nobody to talk to, nothing to do, nothing to eat, no objects, no light, no solid ground. Just you...and nothing.

Nice to know your feet are firmly planted on the halo, eh?

This would be wonderful to have. I have a tiny studio apartment, so a flat-panel TV would be a most welcome replacement for the big, old clunker currently taking up space there.

Joystiq and its daughter sites always have such marvelously extravagant giveaways...quite frequently, too. I wonder how they pull it off. Are they all corporate-sponsored, or free materials they received for review purposes and are now done with, or do they actually pay for it?

David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust" seems like a good candidate. It's highly recognizable but not played out, and there's a lot of movement and variation in each of the parts. The guitars, bass, vocals, and drums all have interesting parts that would be fun and challenging, but not too difficult for a rhythm game.

...Sonic X-Treme was a Saturn project, not 32x.

After a rough year financially, this would really help make for a happy holiday :)

There's the Metroid overworld theme, then the Castlevania 2 overworld theme ("Bloody Tears"), then the Castlevania level 1 theme ("Vampire Killer"), then the level 3 music from Castlevania, then the Super Mario Bros. overworld theme, then the Super Mario Bros. invincibility (starman) music.

I don't know where you got Megaman from. There was a Castlevania 2 song, then two Castlevania 1 songs, but no Megaman.

It seems like there's something more going on than meets the eye, if Lik-Sang closed up shop rather than just stopped carrying PSP stuff...but I have a lot more respect for Lik-Sang than I do for Sony at this point. I've dealt with them more, and I've had a more positive experience with them as a company.

There's definitely something odd going on with both sides. From what I understand, the UK court doesn't have any legal jurisdiction over Lik-Sang, which only has offices in Hong Kong. So, from what I gather, Lik-Sang ignored the case as irrelevant. Didn't hire representation, and didn't pay the awarded damages.

This leads me to question why they had to close, as opposed to simply halting PSP sales, or stop selling to the UK...or, perhaps, even ignoring the ruling until a relevant court passed judgement. Something seems off...though I am more likely to side with Lik-Sang on the issue, since I've dealt with them more, and I've had a more positive experience with them as a company.

And I believe that Sony is *absolutely* in the wrong over this...they're exploiting the fact that many judges are not familiar with the high-tech industry. Not only was Lik-Sang's activity not harmful to Sony's business, it was not illegal (at least, in my admittedly limited understanding of international trade), and attacking import business just seems foolhardy...especially for a company facing as many financial challenges as Sony is right now.

On a further note, Sony's argument is basically that a retailer cannot sell Sony products internationally, on the grounds of some hazy "intellectual rights" claim. The whole argument is based on Sony claiming that a company has complete rights to govern what exactly is done with its products, even after they have sold it.

In simplified terms, this is all part of a global attitude shift in the corporate realm towards consumer licensing replacing consumer ownership, and that is a VERY dangerous and undesirable route to be headed down. You will not own the things you "buy." You will not be buying them, directly; you will be buying a license to USE them, in the specific and limited terms laid out by the company that created them.

The people who import are the hardcore gamers, who follow the news and know what's coming out in other places. And if they want something, they're going to want it regardless. Cut off the avenue for legitimate sales, and you're only encouraging piracy. Sure the importers are a very small segment of the market, but "some sales" are better than "no sales," which is what they'll be getting if people start pirating all those import games because they no longer have a place to buy them.

Hardware importing is a little bit tricky in terms of benefits vs. detriments for the product maker, and I can see why many businesses would not be thrilled with it...but again, it is still sales their legitimate products, which they still received income from. As stated before, people who import are the hardcore gamers, and they understand full well what they're getting into. Sony's statement in that regard is beyond ludicrous, especially since Lik-Sang goes out of their way to include region-appropriate adapters.

Interesting that none of the clips really show the character moving...at all. (The one exception is the time when he appears to be using an on-rails cart thinger). Leads me to worry about how the game controls, if they won't actually show the character in motion.

It's amazing to me that, for its many triumphs and excellent titles, the DS has been out for two years now and yet has left its FPS and RTS potential almost entirely untapped. These are the genres the system seems to be custom-made for...and yet there is nothing of decent quality.

The point about this being common for Nintendo is deceptive. It's common on the software front, but Nintendo generally doesn't reuse hardware architecture to the extent of the Wii.

The DS may be similar in power to the N64, but the architecture is wildly different. Even more so for the GBA. The GBA (which is considerably *more* powerful than the SNES in everything except for sound, by the way) is absolutely nothing like the SNES in terms of hardware. It is basically a 32-bit RISC processor, supported by a secondary logic unit based on the GBC hardware, which pushes audio and video through software. The SNES had a much slower (and very different) 16-bit CPU, and had robust audio and video hardware subsystems, which the GBA lacks. Plus, due to the weakness of the SNES' main CPU, a large number of SNES games also relied on *additional* logic chips in the games themselves.

So calling the GBA "basically a SNES" is faulty logic, especially when you're making a case about Nintendo reusing designs. They achieve similar results, but one does it through a complex array of specialized hardware, and the other does it with a simpler, more efficient hardware design that can then push more through software.

A much better example would be Sega, and how they basically recycled the MasterSystem into the Game Gear. The Game Gear is MasterSystem architecture, miniaturized and with an extended color palette. If you get or build a pin adapter, you can even run MasterSystem cartridges natively on the Game Gear.

Well, the removal of things like DVD and web browsing are no big deal (how often would you honestly use this anyway?), but it does significantly cut into the whole "value" image Nintendo has been selling to consumers.

Our graphics aren't as good, but the tradeoff is new controls and cheap hardware and software!

We don't have mass storage, but the tradeoff is new controls and cheap hardware and software!

Our system is less powerful, but the tradeoff is new conrols and cheap hardware and software!

...Well, $250 is not exactly the easily-affordable, economical value that we've been promised. Especially with the controller issue--only one in the box, and an extra remote-nunchuk combo is SIXTY BUCKS. So you're spending over $300 just to get the package with two controllers, which everybody is going to want/need anyway.

And yes, I know "$250 isn't that much more than $200." But by that logic, "$300 isn't that much more than $250," and then you're in Xbox 360 territory. That's what's known as a leading line in marketing: offer something really affordable, and bait you along to something slightly higher when it comes time to actually buy. Because if you opened with the slightly higher price, more people would just refuse flat-out...but by hinting at something lower, and working your way up logically to the higher price, it seems more acceptable.

What you need to do is step back for a moment, and put things in perspective with the larger picture. $250 is a lot to ask, considering what else is on the market and, more importantly, what the package does (or doesn't) come with.

Here's what *I* would have done:
Either a single-controller, system only package at $200 (or possibly even $179), or a two-controller, Wii Sports, $20 Virtual Console credit package at $250. That second controller and the Virtual Console credit would make it worth the higher price point, no question. Hell, if they wanted to follow the other companies' trends, they could even put out a $200 AND a $250 package (as described above), like they did with the NES!

In fact, I'm surprised they're *not* using Virtual Console credit as a promotion; it costs them practically nothing, and it would snare a lot of people in--both to the console itself, and to using the Virtual Console store.

Don't get me wrong. I still want a Wii. I like Nintendo's games, and I think the system is smartly designed. But they really dropped the ball on the pricing. I, like just about everyone who will be BUYING a Wii, will want it as much for multiplayer gaming as single player. $310 (plus tax) is an awful lot to pay, given the whole picture of the package and they system's power. What happened to the whole "easily affordable," "for the masses" thing?

I'll be waiting for the first price drop. Hopefully there will be something other than white at that point, as well.