[[CLAIMED] Digital movie code: "Minions" and "Sound of Freedom"]

Pm sent for Sound of Freedom.

[Advice please: Booting from a hard drive that's not a hard drive?]

Never done it myself, but my workplace used to have Compact Flash to SATA drives. The purpose of which was to quickly swap out/in different configurations for testing purposes. Don’t know the max size of these CF drives though, I haven’t seen much over 128Gb.

 

Bootable Compact Flash CF I II to 2.5 inch inch SATA Converter
 

I guess you also need to worry about transfer rates (and wear cycling, and configuring Win to not write to disk as much, ie no Swap file and enough RAM)

 

Quote

Modern UDMA-7 CompactFlash Cards provide data rates up to 145 MB/s and require USB 3.0 data transfer rates. A direct motherboard connection is often limited to 33 MB/s because IDE to CF adapters lack high speed ATA (66 MB/s plus) cable support.

 

[First impressions of Star Raiders/A8]

@Csolo, I mentioned it in another thread, if you want to make a simple Verb-Noun text adventure, Write Your Own

Adventure Programs (1983) is a good introduction.

 

In the thread is a link to a 1K tiny text adventure created by the gesturing hands themselves, 8-bit Show and Tell.

 

Another option is to write a game in infocom's Z Interpreter Programming language, since the ZIP has been ported to many platforms.

 

[[2600 repair ]Where can I start?]

You might want to follow the flowcharts in the Atari 2600 Field Manual to help diagnose what the issue could be.

 

[Attachment Rate?]

49 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

I'll be the one that questions the narrative, but how even with that citing are these figures right exactly?  These companies don't report all the games, all the hardware to the point, especially in past decades so it's a guess.  I really find it hard to believe when you see these stories online that the Gameboy was barely used outside of 4 games on average per person?  BS.  The Genesis had twice as many games sold to people vs the SNES ...yeah right.  A lot of it just seems wrong compared to some of the most recent systems where the attachment levels are properly tracked.

The sources above have links to how they arrived at their numbers. If you follow a couple of them the sources are financial disclosures of publicly traded companies. So these aren't sales to consumers directly, but sales to department/retail stores.

[Attachment Rate?]

For myself, it would have to the the Sega Genesis. We bought a used on from a mom-n-pop shop in around Summer 1991, probably around the $150 price cut for the base model.

 

While all the games we bought were used, they were mostly bought before 1995 when the new 32-bit consoles were coming out.

 

Games I can remember buying: LHX Attack Helicopter, Sonic 2, Joe Montana Sports Talk Football, Star Control, Centurion, Power Monger, Phantasy Star II, Shadow Dancer, Revenge of Shinobi , Warsong, Decap Attack, Jewel Master, Mutant League Football, Echo the Dolphin, MERCS, Shining in the Darkness, Streets of Rage, Strider

 

[Attachment Rate?]

According to this site, the attachment Rate for consoles is fairly low.

 

Not counting close-out prices when stores were liquidating video game stock, what game console did you buy the most games for? And what console was it?

[Attachment Rate?]

Spoiler

Spoiler

Delete

[Your favorite video game magazines, memories of them, and have they aged well?]

[Play, Graphics, Depth or Story?]

14 minutes ago, John Van Ryzin said:

Thanks for your input. The controls part seem super important to me also.  But players do not know that until they try the game.  Seems what makes a player try a game has nothing to do with them actually liking a game.  Strange.

Not strange, very pragmatic. There are hundreds of thousands of games and only 4000-5000 or so weekends before you die. 

You absolutely should choose a game based on its Title, recommendations, and it's Cover. Reasons for trying a game and liking a game are unlikely to be related, since you cannot know gameplay/depth/story/graphics until you play it first. (I suppose for story you could watch a Let'sPlay, similarly with graphics)

 

Take for example, Heroes Hour. 

 

The Title was well chosen, hinting at the game genre that the title is based on HoMM. The blurb gets right to the point. Recommendations note the similarity to the HoMM series, but instead with Real Time combat between the AI controlled units. Anyone who tries playing it is going to do so because the liked HoMM or like Medieval fantasy settings, or like Turn Based Strategy town building games. For Liking it trying it, is a necessary but insufficient condition.

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A fast turn-based strategy RPG with real-time combat. Develop your cities and armies, level up your heroes to gain new, powerful spells and skills, and explore the wonders and dangers of the procedurally generated maps as you aim to conquer your enemies before they do the same to you.

 

[Play, Graphics, Depth or Story?]

22 hours ago, John Van Ryzin said:

Story makes me try it.

Play makes me play it.

Depth makes me play it again and again.

Graphics as long as they are not horrible.

Thinking back to the games I played the most...

 

Story doesn't matter much. The game setting or concept may get me to try it initially, but I have played thousands of games, with "stories," that are are over the place. How well a game controls is generally important. Though I have played some of the crappiest games with horrible controls just to "beat," them. If a game plays poorly I am unlikely to replay it, especially if I have already seen all there is to see in the game.

Depth is one of those hard things to measure. Are there a whole lot of meaningful choices in a game like Tekken or SF2, or Mario Kart? Some of the games I have put the most time into are two player simultaneous games, even if the optimal play and meaningful choices are limited. Graphics are important, but not the most important. They need to look competent, and if they look great all the better. so...

 

Play controls, Graphics, Depth, Story

 

1980s (a800) Archon, MULE, Ultima, Kronos Rift, BallBlazer, Star Raiders, Alley Cat,  Brice Lee ...

(VCS) Warlords, Indy 500, Ms Pacman, Adventure of Tron, Robot Tank, Combat, Quick Step, ...

(Astrocade) Checkmate, Red Baron, Gunfight, 

(NES) SMB, Double Dragon 2, LoZ II, Lifeforce, Jackel, Punch Out, Castlevania, Super Dodgeball, Baseball Stars, Mega Man 2

 

...

(PS1) Dark Stalkers, FF7, Crash Team Racing, Tenchu, Hot Shots Golf, Destrega, Tekken 2 & 3, Soul Blade, Armored Core, Carnage Heaet, Driver, Tomb Raider, Castlevania SoTN, Metal Gear Solid, REsident Evil 2, ...

[Porch Pirates]

Not official, but links to PayPal official TOS, says that you need to provide proof of delivery. Once delivered, it isn’t your issue, it is the security on the buyer’s property.

 

[The Sega Saturn appreciation topic]

2 hours ago, Boschloo said:

A couple of side effects of the fabrication process were shorter shelf-life than a regular compact disc of the same era, as well as increased vulnerability to UV and cosmic rays

Are you under the impression that cosmic rays can flip bits burned into a CD? We’re not talking about rewritable CDs here.

 

If you believe that, I find your “wobble track” makes the shelf-life of a disc shorter than regular CD-roms highly suspect.

 

[The Sega Saturn appreciation topic]

14 minutes ago, Boschloo said:

If the predictions are true, your discs will be coasters by then. ... optical disc media that only lasts 40-50 years.

Not sure where you heard that, but it isn't true. It is possible that if stored incorrectly, optical Media would warp or delaminate from the disc (ie all the data is on the reflective part of the underside of the disk, so scratches to the label side are deadly where as the bottom can be buffed out).

 

But optical discs can last for hundreds of years.

https://www.canada.ca/en/conservation-institute/services/conservation-preservation-publications/canadian-conservation-institute-notes/longevity-recordable-cds-dvds.html

[The Sega Saturn appreciation topic]

I need to sell my Saturn collection before the pricea drop in 10-20 years.

[OK, let's imagine a new SNES "sound novel" as they are sometimes called, but using the 8bpp mode for some gorgeous imagery]

3 hours ago, jeffythedragonslayer said:

I'd rather develop for the Saturn than Uranus.

The trifecta....

[Where to buy Sega Saturn at prices lower than eBay?]

@Austin, yeah if that is the listing, it is over priced. Sports games with box/inst only go for about $20-$25 (on the high end if in good condition). The other games are likely worth $50+.

 

For a bulk purchase, I can’t see it being worth more than $2500. For a reseller, they probably can’t pay more than $1250, and individual buyers would have to be looking to complete a set, or really like playing old sports games. (Ie almost no buyers in that set of people)

[Where to buy Sega Saturn at prices lower than eBay?]

3 minutes ago, Boschloo said:

There's a bundle on eBay right now where the guy is selling some 72 games for $3100. That's insane.

That price is 50% off the MSRP of Sega Saturn games sold in inflation adjusted 2000 US$. If it isn’t full of sports games, and the games come with Box/Inst that seems reasonable.

[Anybody else here find it really curious that...]

I can’t say I have seen that much negativity, either from new posters or from old regulars.

 

While I personally will unlikely be buying a 2600+, since I already have 4 or more original systems (only 2 are currently working) and an modded AFBX. I hope that the 2600+ exceeds sales goals. Anything that increases the likelihood that AtariAge and Atari have a much larger user base should make for a bigger market for the production of new games. That would be good for everyone.

[The Official Sega Saturn Thread!]

So you would value learning Japanese at worth less than $100,000. Interesting.

[The Official Sega Saturn Thread!]

But why would you?

[Are we in the middle of a collecting bubble?]

36 minutes ago, Boschloo said:

Why is SILENT HILL $200 when it sold millions of copies?

It’s right where I would expect it to be.

Silent Hill NA: February 23, 1999

Anyone who was age 10-20 in 1999 would be between the ages of 34-44. If you look at any BLS or other statistics, there is a big jump in median earnings from age 16 - 35, but at 35+ the change isn’t as pronounced.

 

So this is the age when workers have a large percentage of disposable income, and enough time has passed that they may feel nostalgia for their teen years and past times.

 

Silent Hill was a good game, and sold about 2 million NA copies. The price it commands is due to many people wanting it for their own collection. (Ie it doesn’t matter if 2 million copies exist if only 1,000 are available for sale.) The CIB price of $180 - $200 is reasonable for a highly sought after game, during its peak price years.

 

If you had a PS3, I suppose you could have downloaded it off PSN for $6. Some people want the physical media though.

[SI Double Shots]

There is a 2-player simultaneous mode, where P1 and P2 can each shoot.

So code exists for having two player shots on the screen at once.

[I never had an original GAMEBOY back in the day.]

I believe Ben Heck sources his LCD screens from where they are widely available. Usually this happens to be car backup camera monitors and the like. I believe that 4:3 screens are rarely manufactured these days after the proliferation of wide-screen DVD/movies.

[??? Defective Atari 2600+ Console ??? or something else ???]

9 hours ago, AgentOrange96 said:

Here's my concern, mine is ~50K serial number, and I received mine quite late. I am not the only one with this issue, and these users reported their issues much earlier than me: (Meaning, an even lower count of units had sold by this point)

That's a strange concern. Other users have reported issues, but what percentage of 2600+ systems would you expect to be dead on arrival?

 

The first batch of PS2 systems had a failure rate of about 2%. With 500,000 shipping to the USA, that means approximately 10,000 broken PS2 systems shipped that first Christmas. Have you seen 200+ videos/posts of people complaining that their 2600+ was DOA?