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I think any console that departs from physical games is one step closer to irrelevance.

In my mind there are a handful of things that tether a successful brand like PlayStation in a strong and stable way. Three of those are hardware, intellectual property and software. They just made their hardware a bit less important.

Considering the hard push some in the industry have made for a streaming future, it's quite possible PlayStation and Xbox hardware will be reduced to a controller in the future. If that happens, all it'll take is something like the next Roblox with it's own streaming platform to reduce their market shares.

I'd rather PlayStation stuck around. I don't think that happens long term if we don't have our own hardware and software in our homes.

I'm not keen on the idea of a closed digital only console, especially with Sony revoking film purchases. I lack confidence in the idea of buying any more digital software from Sony.

@Coalescence Slop is the perfect term. It's such a short word that reflects perfectly the amount of effort put into the generation of said slop. Ending with a hard plosive is extra satisfying too!

@Daric The fact that you wilfully refuse to admit a common thread that brought it light is impressive.

Do try to enjoy the rest of your day!

@Daric Well clicks are what makes the internet go round.

I completely disagree with your classification of articles on this subject on Time Extension being rage bait or that it is irrelevant.

This piece is a continuation of the other recent Crazy Taxi pieces.

I see a similar opinion to yours expressed on PCGamer sometimes by a handful of commenters, it's generally in the spirit of "this is meant to be a gaming site", but the AI market directly effects the games industry and the hobby surrounding it.

I appreciate it's not your cup of tea but that doesn't mean the site should cater to you specifically, especially when pretty much everything to do with tech hardware and software is being effected by this unprecedented disruption.

Until the markets settle (and hopefully recede somewhat) and everyone gets comfortable with whatever the new norm is gonna be, this type of news is and will be relevant.

@Daric Rather than pointing fingers at those that oppose your own desired reading subjects, you may find value in reading the room.

There's obviously a lot of interest and concern regarding this topic expressed by it's readers

Why did you read it at all? Your click confirms that the article was worth displaying.

Geez, if I were SEGA I'd be on top of checking this stuff. It's obviously not a mortal sin, but it is indicative of their care and attention to detail.

If I were a betting man I'd say the odds are high that this stuff will make it into the game.

@metaphysician Not that I'm a Konami fan particularily, but this could threaten their profits to some degree as the game is still actively sold. If it were long abandoned I'd agree but it's not and they're currently revisiting older entries in the series.

Lovely stuff, another substantial feature. Bangin!

That sounds like a fun job! I'm in the UK and a gaming obsessive but I've got zero journalism experience.

It's good to hear more opinions from individuals working in or close to roles affected by this stuff. I don't really care what the Andrew Wilsons and Tim Sweeneys of the industry think.

As I was reading that I was expecting Heritage Auctions to come up, so I'm just gonna presume they "sold" it to a group of speculators and that it'll never leave the auctioneer's storage.

@Martin_H Reading your comment is quite illuminating.

You actually think by typing some prompts that YOU have created the output? Now that is delusion!

@Martin_H Does that clan still exist? Perhaps the copyright/trademark has lapsed, it's been a good few hundred years since they were big players.

@h3s FPS games just port well to VR, so long as the hands can move independently, then all the other features they can cram in improve it further.

HL Alyx as you mentioned it is still (I think) the pinnacle of the genre. The feeling of the last bullet in your gun being fired and then having to duck behind something for cover while you fumble to reload is pretty special.

I've had many wonderfully hilarious moments trying to load individual bullets into a revolver (while under fire) in various games and just dropping the bullets on the floor. I'd be useless in a real life gun fight.

Also I have to wear glasses generally, I found that crazy irritating in VR, so I ordered prescription lenses. Game changer!

That's vile.

Also, not very impressive for 5 days of a (senior) dev's time.

The character controller is incredibly rigid, it's just a simple character controller moving in a bog standard ground adhering way (with a constant velocity) until it reaches a surface where the mesh normals are not facing close to up or down, then it magically slides around.

There's a handful of extremely basic meshes, a simple grass/foliage shader and a very basic water shader.

I mean it's not nothing, but it's not good.

I don't understand why they'd show this off publicly.

@PopetheRev28 No, on procedural generation? It's not generative AI.

It sounds like you do not know either.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, equally, whether or not you think they know what they're talking about, though I would suggest you brush up on the subject before pointing fingers.

@PopetheRev28 What's your point though?

@ojisan It's nice having a dose of nostalgia once in a while, but doesn't it sour the taste a little when it's done like this?

It's sort of like being served your favourite dish your gran used to make you, but posthumously as she's long since passed and you're slotting credits into a vending machine for an AI approximation of it. Mmmm... nourishes the soul.

I do love a tortured metaphor!

This is exciting. In my opinion these deserve to be preserved more than a lot of games that already have been. Fingers crossed they do a good job!

YEAAAAH BRING ON THE GREY SLUDGE!!! THE MORE AMORPHOUS THE BETTER!!!

@h3s Texturing is rarely not fun in my opinion.

I want this so much now. I was raised on Reeves and Mortimer, The Fast Show and Red Dwarf. I'd play anything based on Red Dwarf but a point and click adventure seems like a fantastic fit.

@Hexapus I have great appreciation for the audio and visuals, even the level design actually. I may have to look around in hope for a ROM hack that zooms out a little.

That's witchcraft!

I actually prefer the Master System Sonics. I wasn't a fan of the speed of the Mega Drive ones for how zoomed in they appeared, not enough reaction time for me. I may be remembering them poorly though as I got the Super Nintendo and only played Mega Drive round other peoples houses.

@Cronodoug The percentage of carts sold through online marketplaces that are counterfeit is generally pretty low. It's easy to get a refund if you've been mis-sold and most collectors are probably wise to them.

As time goes by I'm sure they'll be more common but for now it's pretty easy to get genuine carts. I've bought about 30 recently without falling for a single reproduction, I've seen them but there's usually several tells.

But obviously... if you don't have them you can't dump them.

@AtomB Isn't the difference whether or not it's done for profit? You can still pirate something that isn't produced.

Also I'd imagine Nintendo could argue they are still "sold" or at least actively monetised by them as some of the ROMs in question are part of their subscription service.

Other than the late 90s, I don't recall a more exciting time for the N64. With this, an array of console mods + accessories, Analogue 3D, and Pyrite64 I've been in my element. It feels like the N64's best years are still to come, especially because of Pyrite64.

@WaveBoy You can choose not to apply any overclock, or use a lesser one that may not effect the intro. However once you feel the difference in gameplay it's hard to go back to stock. I usually skip the intro anyway, seen it thousands of times.

I didn't like the idea of the eject button on the M64, those old carts are already becoming progressively more brittle and pulling them out the normal way is so simple I do it entirely with one hand.

I just went for the black A3D, I'm more into the idea of something that harks back to the original design with subtle changes over the chunky toy look of the M64 but I get why some would be into it. I've only ever had the original style N64s (my OG PAL and an NTSC-J), never the Funtastic range so I don't have any attachment to colourful transparent models. I find the form and feel of the A3D to be very premium, the geometry and materials look exceptional in person and I actually find it more premium and appealling than my most modern console, the PS5.

If you're a fan of the N64 and you pick up a modern remake I've no doubt you'll enjoy it, it's nice to step back into a world of gaming before DLC and subscriptions.

It does look really nice but my big old man hands can't cope with buttons so close to the bottom, I'd have claw hands in minutes.

@-wc- I read comments from other users who had trouble saving their progress in Doom 64, I think it maybe requires a simultaneous button input, which if that's the case it may be that rather than c-left and c-right being independant true/false or 0/1 inputs, it may instead work as a single int value with -1 being c-left and 1 being c-right, in which case the two pressed together would output 0.

That's just a guess but I recall debugging an XBox 360 controller in Unity ages ago and the left and right triggers worked like that but as a single float.

The Memories update is amazing. You can use it to make a save state of an SRAM save file like Ocarina Of Time so that you can change the battery out and restore the save file after by loading the save state and saving through the game menu. I'm backing up my childhood saves currently.

@WaveBoy Yeah, the only way I play now is on the unleashed setting. It appears on the NTSC-U cart to be completely smooth, I presume it to be a solid 30fps.

You do get a sped up animation speed during the boot up sequence, but that's the only negative I've noticed and it doesn't effect gameplay.

My old PAL cart I've popped on to ogle my old save file with all the cheats unlocked, repeating it on the USA-CAN cart is both daunting and exciting. But I haven't tested the performance, I'm presuming it'll be a solid 25fps.

I've only sampled 2 player briefly, but it was certainly smooth.

@Tibob There was an xbox one that I think went unreleased, but it works with Xenia (think that's the emulator).

Been playing this a lot more since getting the Analogue 3D. Still stands up as a really special and distinct FPS and probably my favourite licensed game. The hit reactions allowing you to juggle several enemies at once (even with a PP7) is amazing.

@BLAZINOAH Maybe he could aspire to one of those FIFA peace medals that other peace dude got.

Yeah this has been a good update.

Currently trying to free my schedule to play through RE2 with the transitional flickering fix.

Great article, sounds like he was full of character. There won't ever be a career quite like his again.

It took a second viewing for me to notice the half mustache on one side and half beard on the other. Surely he's just having a laugh... I hope.

Looks like a lot of fun, well done to those who revived it! Does 4 player qualify as an MMO though?

Good on them, it's not their duty to comb through the mulch.

I really enjoyed this when it came out. Been a fan of the series since Starwing. I didn't even know there was any dislike for it till years afterwards.

@kirby2000 If it was purpose built and could at the very least flawlessly convert to a PC application in a generic way, supporting modern resolutions and possibly higher framerates that'd be pretty cool.

However whenever I hear N64 devs in interviews they often make their development experiences sound quite experimental, so I have a feeling a cookie cutter approach wouldn't cut it most of the time.

Hypothetically though, it'd be cool.

@willstancilfan Is this a joke?

You don't need a traditional programming education to pursue progamming knowledge, but why put the effort in when you can scrape the knowledge from other people who could actually be bothered to put the time and effort in?

@chucksneed Picking through someone else's vibe coded mess is often far slower than starting from scratch. It would likely be a case of polishing a turd.

I wouldn't presume vibe coded projects are "doing something good", it's quite likely some of these projects will put genuine developers off working on a proper port. It'll be the same with fan translations. Someone who has no idea what they're doing wants to farm clout by entering a few prompts and they have no idea when something doesn't function correctly or how to fix it.

When I see someone claim coding isn't creative I get the impression they don't code.

I wonder what the power situation is for that. Would be nice if the screen matched the dimensions of the part of a cartridge sticker that is visiible when plugged in to a console too. Nice looking product.

Yeah this update is really good. Per game settings for flash carts and along with that it also creates a seperate virtual mempak for each of those entries that uses a mempak too.

Although most console compatible romhacks work on my Summercart, I think they don't yet benefit from this particular update due to their ROM headers not appearing in Analogue's library, which is fair enough. Hopefully we get to add our own entries at some point.

@N64-ROX Your assumptions are pretty accurate. I completed the story last night and I'd say rather than being a tech demo it's (I promise I'm not being pedantic) a short game on a huge map, built around demonstrating some impressive tech , it was really satisfyingly concluded, it's worth playing for sure.

I was very surprised by how appealing the characters were and the sound track was very good too, the cozy tune around the start area especially.

Playing this on Analogue 3D now, it looks, sounds and plays really nicely. Really impressive!

Would love to see some updates to the bike in the future, a little tilt left/right when turning and smoother slope transitions would elevate it even more.