I will never cease being amused by Kinect. I immediately thought it was a terrible idea and hated it. Everyone I interacted with online thought the same.
Wikipedia says 35 million units were sold. Why? How?! Who was buying this trash?
@slider1983
I feel the conditioning goes back much further (centuries), and is a deeply rooted part of the culture and national psyche.
Two interesting Japanese phrases are (meanings copied from online):
1) "Mono no aware"
Japanese term for the awareness of impermanence or transience of things, and both a transient gentle sadness or wistfulness at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life.
2) "Wabi-sabi"
Centers on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. It is often described as the appreciation of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete". It is prevalent in many forms of Japanese art.
One example of the above is a famous haiku, about how Mt Fuji is permenant, but everything else is like the temporary clouds at its summit, coming and going.
The other English speaker at the GPS, Damien Rogers, gave a great example:
Nintendo set up a temporary online thing for the Mario anniversary. They made it clear it would shut down. At the end Japanese players were tweeting, saying they had fun and thank you for that. English speakers were horrified saying they can't shut it down, they need to preserve it. (He discusses this in one of the embedded videos above.)
So there's an acceptance of things not lasting. You saw it also with the SFC Satellaview. Games which were "broadcast" and only available for a short window.
I feel anxiety just thinking about it. In Japan players generally accept this and even see merit in it. Even their Kit Kats have one-off annual flavours that never come back.
Joseph also mentioned once needing to convince a collector that it was worth preserving his collection. He succeeded, and it was preserved, so it's worth trying to change the mindset.
I'm generalising here, and painting with broad strokes, but when you dig into the history you find that the "conditioning" isn't even a recent thing.
There's historical examples of ukiyo-e paintings being thrown out and foreigners saving them because they saw value in them.
I feel like it's less a deliberate attempt at conditioning, and simply how society's norms and values evolved over centuries, due to countless different historical events. At this point though you'd need an anthropologist to examine things. I'm just going on a few shallow readings from different essays.
But anyway. The GPS are getting there, and slowly things are changing.
LOL - it sounds almost conspiracy theory-ish. The reality is, I think, more mundane. It's not like some maniac politician sat down and deliberately tried to create an Orwellian dystopia. It's more that these rules were maybe fit for purpose a long time ago, in a different age, and they're now extremely outdated, and without having been updated.
There's also a lot of complex interlinking factors.
So, firstly, here's something that may surprise you. Every screenshot of a game in a magazine needs permission from the copyright holder. I've googled a random issue of Famitsu on the Internet Archive:
Notice how every page has a little copyright disclaimer for the publisher of each game. You don't see that on UK or US magazines. Also the Internet Archive has special dispensation to host old materials, which are uploaded primarily by people in the US. If the GPS was caught doing this, they would be in big trouble in Japan.
So here's a fun game. Every time you come across a Japanese games magazine, take a look and see if the pages are giving the same copyright notice at the bottom.
There's genuinely no freedom of press in Japan.
Look up also Japanese conviction rates. It's rated at 99%. Just think about how crazy that statistic is.
So, Japanese copyright... It's very strictly enforced, and the end result is the law - by extension - allows companies to control what's published. So here's two examples:
1) Professor Kishimoto, the creator of Pac-Land and Famista baseball, was approached by journalists in Japan to be interviewed about Famista, which sold millions in Japan. Namco forbid the interview and any coverage of it. They control the narrative in Japan because they control the copyright regarding those games. He specifically asked me to interview him since I would be publishing outside Japan, thereby circumventing Namco's reach.
2) I had a Japanese agent talking with publishers to get my books translated and sold in Japan. Lots of interest! Every publisher though said the same thing: every time a game is mentioned, we would need written permission from the rights holder of that game, otherwise they could kick up a fuss and get the book pulled from shelves.
So it's not quite so much the government prohibits discussion, it's more like there's some really old copyright laws in place, and because those laws are strictly enforced, it allows companies to control any coverage of their material. And the government is slow to update the laws as technology and society progresses.
It results in some really weird loopholes. So you can't copy the files on a floppy disk to back it up, that's illegal, but you can make a high resolution magnetic scan of the surface, thus preserving all its data.
So the GPS has to deal with lots of antiquated rules, and antiquated wording of those rules, and part of their goal is lobbying to have the law updated.
I'm just scratching the surface here, but once you dig into the minutiae of it all, some of it's crazy.
Still my favourite console of the 32-bit era. If only because it had games that to this day you cannot find anywhere else, not even a similar experience to those games.
I often wonder. With a time machine and suitcase with £10 million, could one do anything to change the Saturn's fate? A fun thought experiment.
I do not represent the GPS, I am just the author of this piece, but to add a small reply:
Firstly, thank you to everyone who signed up as a member or made a donation. The response from the community has been heart-warming.
A statement / update will be made in time, regarding all the points made here, on social media (Twitter, Bluesky), and forums such as ResetEra and Reddit, plus plenty of emails.
Every comment has been read and all the feedback is appreciated, and each of the points is being discussed by the GPS board. Your feedback has been heard and taken to heart, especially ways to reward supporters with something tangible.
Many of the questions require a detailed response, hence the brevity here. As an example, the point by @BBOOKK about Ritsumeikan - they are already part of a collaborative consortium, with a detailed back story.
The GPS looks forward to sharing more details with the community going forward.
So what? Keep developing for it. Just keep on trucking.
This sanctimonious virtue signalling is ridiculous.
Reminds me of the Dreamcast homebrew community. They would BAN anyone who even so much as mentioned the hacked katana SDK or anything using it, like the Mega Drive emu from the Smash Pack.
I was banned three times for mentioning it. Bunch of weak willed soft jawed weaklings. WEAKSAUCE!
Compare that to the Xbox hombrew community. Stolen SDK used for everything. Zero ***** given. Virile heroes all of them.
How about the Wii community grows up, stops caring about something completely irrelevant and unimportant, and carries on business as normal?
Be more Xbox and less Dreamcast.
Seriously though. Why do they care? If you're rocking the homebrew channel you're using it to play illegal ROMs anyway. Lol
There were countless reasons to import during the 16, 32, and 64 / 128 bit eras. Censorship, region exclusives, release dates, more content, 60hz speeds, etc.
It was pricey, and frustrating knowing the poor quality of PAL. But it was one heckuva time to be alive.
@jamess "I’ve played the games on Saturn and it’s all pretty mild… The thought the we’ve regressed from then due to platform censorship standards is just depressing."
I agree completely - my thoughts exactly. Censorship is unacceptable, needs to be stamped out like the first burning embers of a forest fire, and the fact we have regressed to a more puritanical stance is extremely depressing.
I lived through the senate hearings, and the Jack Thompson years, and every media scandal trying to scapegoat games, and I'll be damned before I accept the madness of those who have infiltrated games companies.
@jamesamong007 What real game? A game for a modern system I don't own, haven't followed, wasn't even aware existed until now, and was too lazy to look up and compare?
@Amsteffydam
I agree completely. I was joking, btw. Though I appreciate this wasn't obvious. I'd watched The Big Short recently, and so the "assets" was sort of a riff on people who view art in that way. Not sarcasm, but a dry irony? As in, I was sardonically mimicking them.
I only own games I want to play and only buy to play or, for some rare stuff, to upload to Internet Archive. Dropped £200 on Dive Alert Matt's Vers to upload manual scans, for example.
I have a private GC collection, but it's so easy to run the ISOs from SD card, I might as well sell them if collectors are crazy enough to drop triple figures, and there might be a price crash. On the other hand I might hoover up some deals if people are "dumping stock".
I have less than zero interest in another SNK fighter. But even as someone with no (negative?) interest, this is incomprehensibly bad. Just random unrelated pet celebs the Saudis own? I don't even know who they are. (I don't watch football nor do I... Listen to DJs?)
Glad I sold Chibi Robo recently. Should I dump my current GC assets? Or hold fast in case access to these titles drives a surge in people wanting to own the real thing?
@Lowdefal - of all the things that influenced this list, Baldur's Gate 3 is certainly one of them.
This entire list is nullified also by the inclusion of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, which is what... 2 months old? They even admit this in its entry.
Vox Pop fails again. I don't think the plebs, proles, gopniks, or rest of the peanut gallery actually understands what the word "influential" means, and so just voted for what they really, really, really, really happened to be enjoying when the poll went up.
I feel the curators should have put some effort into filtering stuff like that out. How can a game which is not even 100 days old have any influence on anything at all?
"If you're on pretty much any social media platform right now" - thankfully I am not, and now more so than before am I glad not to be. (My old FB account is still up for fam & friends to access, but I don't visit it unless someone sends an attachment needing downloading to desktop.)
The internet was fun, I dipped into it in the 1990s. And it was good for a while. But today the internet is dead: AI has flooded it with dog**** content, which is then crawled by countless AI bots to generate clicks, thus telling the AI algorithm that AI content is what's wanted.
It's dead. It's now made by robots for robots.
This website is about the only place still clean enough to step into. Everywhere else is turning into the worst toilet in Scotland.
I love the fact that bounties are starting to appear for the preservation of this rare stuff. Money talks, and it'll encourage people to dig and keep their eyes open.
I'm hoping this news encourages someone to fan-translate it. Segagaga is higher priority, but this is the sort of bizarre experimental title I loved on DC. (Alongside games like Seaman and Tokyo Bus Guide.)
“I just feel like ‘the’ videogame archive belongs in the USA,” said Kelly. “Videogames were born here and their ultimate historical archive should also be here."
I am absolutely lost for words.
Thank you for sharing that.
EDIT:
I can't stop reading that sentence - I will be hyperlinking this in my essay. Thank you again for bringing t to my attention. Absolutely mind blowing. MIND BLOWING!
I'm working on a follow up essay to this topic regarding the US understanding of Japan - plot twist: high profile JP devs who directly influenced US devs, state in interviews they themselves were influenced specifically by Euro computer games.
This "Euro scene" nonsense is laughable once you start reading Japanese interviews.
There was a lot of interplay between the different regions. It's childish and reductive to attempt to dismiss or prioritise one over the other. Not even overt influence you'd notice - notable JP companies actually modelled their business on British software houses. They explicitly state this.
@Grackler - remember that Grubb wants to help bridge this divide. And you can help him by just accepting what he says is true.
LOL. I'm kidding. Grubb is borderline gaslighting with his nonsense. You've made good points.
I was debating wether to wade in on this debate, since Europe is not my speciality.
But in my view America - journos, writers, Youtubers, collectors, historians, academics, authors, etc. - absolutely 100% have a problem with bias.
I know based purely on documenting the history of Japanese games.
They view Japan entirely through the lense of what was localised and popular in America.
They ignore Japanese computers. There was a research paper which showed NEC had an over 80% monopoly on JP computers, and all three of the leading JP brands (NEC, Fujitsu, Sharp) created a galapagos scenario of isolation.
And JP computers were dominant for a time, with Nintendo only slowly getting bigger.
Even then, the console markets were different. Americans overlook landmark releases like Hydlide because they received them years later than JP.
It is infuriating. Because a lot of the US cobsole market was defined by JP, yet they have zero clue as to what was going on in JP to lead to that.
So this spat over the crash Vs Europe is amusing to me.
Everyone defending the Euro POV here: don't take it personally, America also utterly fails to understand Japan too.
But we can all help to educate this great nation. Let's do it together in solidarity.
@jygsaw Ted Woolsey, localiser on Secret of Mana, also said that SoM was planned for the SNES CD. If I recall correctly from his interview, he said "40% of SoM had to be nuked" due to moving to cartridge. Don't quote me - I'm paraphrasing from memory. But the Woolsey interviews are all over the net.
@jamess I have a jailbroken PS3 too. I look forward to your update.
What you typed makes no sense to me.
The PS3 is easier to use than my jailbroken PS4 (a right PITA). But it's usually install from USB, drop the license file in another folder, and away you go.
I have never had to patch anything...
Tbh I'm surprised they didn't make it available in a ready to use format. What does providing it like this serve? Anyone who intends to use it will be like us, wuth jailbroken systems.
@Aiodensghost I use a flash cart and run the system on a CRT. I used to use emulators, but abandoned them because there's no scroll blurring on a CRT (with an LCD and emulation, horizontal movement causes blurring or ghosting, and none of the CRT filters help). Also the aspect ratio of the SNES is super weird, and again it was a PITA getting it just perfect with emulation.
In the end I just like using an authentic controller, via RGB SCART on my Sony Trinitron CRT.
It'll be a sad day when emulation becomes the sole means of playing SNES games.
I wish AI could have waited a few decades until I was dead and buried. Or I wish I could have been born just 20 or so years earlier so it arrived when I was too old to care.
I resent that I have to spend the last couple of good decades where I don't have dementia having to witness AI poison. I've even started seeing AI art on food packaging now.
@BionicDodo It happens sometimes. One of the Ys games by Xseed licensed Jeff Nussbaum's fan translation officially. However... The hacker who partnered with Jeff to make a fan patch previously went nuclear at his "betrayal". The results were unpleasant.
There has been endless drama in the fan translation community for the last 25+ years.
My guess? Who wants the hassle? A professional company wants to spend some budget, get results, and move on, not deal with high strung prima donnas.
Most in the community are super cool. But there's always one or two whose ego causes atomic levels of trouble.
I voted for Tower of Druaga, since so many developers have stated taking direct influence either from it, or games influenced by it.
@Steel76
Haha! Indeed. Did you know Miyamoto loved Druaga so much he had the arcade machine installed in his office to play, while making Zelda? There's an interview with him on YouTube citing Wizardry and The Black Onyx too. And in a French magazine in 1994 he said in interview he loved European computer games from a decade ago (ie: circa 1984), which is an obvious reference to the 8-bit micros of the time.
I am 100% certain none of the games voted for and presented by BAFTA will be influential.
They'll simply be highly nostalgic for the people voting, but won't take into account the games which came before them, which did the actual influencing.
@slider1983
Installing cores on my AP was daunting. But I followed the guide on TE which linked to a utility that sorts it for you.
I don't install manually, I use the utility to go online and download the latest cores for me. I forget the name. But it made installing the Wonderswan on the AP super easy.
You could also invest in a GB/GBC flashcart. The X7 is great. Though if you're not moving between systems like I am, then a GBC core should suffice.
I can't recall the name. It's a Windows program. You stick a micro SD card in your computer, load the prog, tick the boxes for the FPGA cores you want, and it downloads the latest official builds. You just need to stick your games in the assets folder.
@slider1983 They shut down the entire bluray division. Also their music CD and DVD print on demand services. I thought it was weird since there isn't any alternative which offers direct sales on the Amazon marketplace. So a lot of people's work got the chop sadly.
I continue to wonder: Are these being scanned in a sufficiently high enough resolution?
I recall many years ago, when magazine scanning for internet preservation was in its infancy, gigabytes (terrabytes?) of data had to be thrown out, because the DPI was not high enough on initial scans, because no one had agreed on what constituted best practice. All of Mort's scans were discarded.
And then... Every page which had been scanned once before, had to be scanned again.
A major waste of everyone's time and resources because it wasn't don't correctly the first time.
Is there an official consensus on the correct resolution for scanning 3D objects? Is there even a "resolution" for them? Am I just not understanding the concept?
@slider1983
Huzzah! Many thanks! Ah yes, the Episode IV DVD. Copies of that are all sold out, but I had it re-edited by Coury of MyLifeinGaming, and turned into a higher res bluray. (Don't get excited, he still had to work with my shaky handcam footage.)
This was being sold on Amazon's print on demand bluray service. Until they shut the whole thing down. Annoyingly before I'd recouped my costs on editing. I ordered 50 copies for myself and have been selling them off one at a time.
You can buy one for £40 direct, or there are pirate rips on YouTube which I've become lazy with demanding they be taken down.
Everdrive GBA Mini (GBA games, and GBC for this test)
Tested on an Analogue Pocket.
The dedicated X7 cartridge runs GB and GBC games flawlessly, including Army Men. This cartridge replicates the functionality of an original GB or GBC cartridge. It will work in a GB and GBC and a Super Gameboy on SNES.
The Everdrive GBA Mini... This does not run GB / GBC games natively. You need an emulator on the cartridge. I did not have one. So I looked online. Krikzz explains you need to use Goomba as the GBC emulator. In the GBASYS/emu/ folder is a readme which states:
Store emulators in this folder. The emulator name should match to the target ROM extension example: "nes.gba" for .nes files, "gbc.gba" for .gbc and so on
currently supported emulation for the following systems:
[system] [recommended emulator] Game Boy goomba Game Boy Color goomba NES pocketnes Neo Geo Pocket ngpadvance MasterSystem smsadvance GameGear smsadvance
OK, so then...
I went to the Goomba site and downloaded the latest version (2019). I put it on my GBA flashcart, along with the Army Men games.
The emulation is awful. The title screen has garbled graphics, the digitised sound is wrong. It's just awful.
This isn't really the fault of the GBA Everdrive, since it's relying on the Goomba emulator to run GBC games. If you check your GBASYS folder on your cart you should see the emu folder, and files inside.
If you're using an Analogue Pocket, and don't want to faff with cores, etc., but want to play GBC games, I recommend the X7. I have one since I like to move it between the AP, the Gamecube, and SGB.
If you're trying to run GBC games on a GBA flashcart, then you're basically emulating the GBC on the GBA, with mixed results.
I hope that makes sense. Please feel free to ask for clarification.
Love it in fact. Though it was actually a bit pricey in my view - had to import it from a reseller in the US because Hyperkin's page seemingly doesn't exist. And I saw none on eBay. I paid £22.
Used the controller test app on my flashcart - the one that asks you to push the stick to 8 directions and then shows a red outline to compare to other alternatives (OEM, cheap knock-offs, modded GC sticks, etc.).
The limits of the stick are in line with the OEM stick by Nintendo. In fact, maybe even a smidge under? The program gives you an optimal baseline dot. Factory fresh OEM sticks are slightly over this. Broken-in sticks reduce with use. This is right on that optimal line. Also it is nothing like the red-line shown for modded GC style sticks - which produce a big square zone, showing how over-sensitive they are. This may seem like a GC stick, or be described as one, but it's been calibrated to function akin to an OEM stick.
I have no tested an actual GC stick that's been rewired to work in an N64 controller, the test program simply shows you the typical threshold range for one, for comparisons, so I'm working off that.
Mario can tip-toe slow walk. Goemon can run at full pelt. Mario Kart controls great. My OEM controller struggles to make Goemon run, because it's so worn down, but this doesn't have that problem. And it can detect subtle shifts when tested with Mario.
I have zero regrets. I know this post is way after the fact, but it took me a while to get around to buying one.
@slider1983 If I'm understanding correctly, you loaded a GBC game on the GBA Everdrive? As far as I known that GBA flashcart runs those older system games via a sort of inbuilt emulator I think. I don't know precisely because I never used it - I have a separate GBC Everdrive for GB and GBC games.
I play these on my Analogue Pocket, Gamecube Player, and Super GameBoy where appropriate.
I might be totally wrong. But I think if you pop a GBA Everdrive into a GBA and try to run a GB or GBC ROM via it, it doesn't load it in the same way as popping a GB cart or GBC cart into the GBA (or flashcarts for those systems). It will load those ROMs into a GB/GBC emulator.
Whereas a dedicated GB/GBC flashcart will run like a native GB/GBC cartridge.
I hope all that makes sense. It's late and my eyes are tired.
@Razieluigi
MID TYPING EDIT: Quickly checked the website and for the GBA cart it says:
NES, GB and GBC ROM formats are support (emulation mode)
Which probs explains it. But I'll pop my GB cart in and check out Army Men, just to be triply sure.
Comments 592
Re: Peter Molyneux's Most Infamous Cancelled Game Would Have Allowed Players "To Hang Out With Someone That Loves You"
I guess I'm still salty about what they did to Steel Battalion.
Re: Peter Molyneux's Most Infamous Cancelled Game Would Have Allowed Players "To Hang Out With Someone That Loves You"
I will never cease being amused by Kinect. I immediately thought it was a terrible idea and hated it. Everyone I interacted with online thought the same.
Wikipedia says 35 million units were sold. Why? How?! Who was buying this trash?
Re: Japan's Game Preservation Society Is Safe For Now, And It's All Thanks To You
@slider1983
I feel the conditioning goes back much further (centuries), and is a deeply rooted part of the culture and national psyche.
Two interesting Japanese phrases are (meanings copied from online):
1) "Mono no aware"
Japanese term for the awareness of impermanence or transience of things, and both a transient gentle sadness or wistfulness at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life.
2) "Wabi-sabi"
Centers on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. It is often described as the appreciation of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete". It is prevalent in many forms of Japanese art.
One example of the above is a famous haiku, about how Mt Fuji is permenant, but everything else is like the temporary clouds at its summit, coming and going.
The other English speaker at the GPS, Damien Rogers, gave a great example:
Nintendo set up a temporary online thing for the Mario anniversary. They made it clear it would shut down. At the end Japanese players were tweeting, saying they had fun and thank you for that. English speakers were horrified saying they can't shut it down, they need to preserve it. (He discusses this in one of the embedded videos above.)
So there's an acceptance of things not lasting. You saw it also with the SFC Satellaview. Games which were "broadcast" and only available for a short window.
I feel anxiety just thinking about it. In Japan players generally accept this and even see merit in it. Even their Kit Kats have one-off annual flavours that never come back.
Joseph also mentioned once needing to convince a collector that it was worth preserving his collection. He succeeded, and it was preserved, so it's worth trying to change the mindset.
I'm generalising here, and painting with broad strokes, but when you dig into the history you find that the "conditioning" isn't even a recent thing.
There's historical examples of ukiyo-e paintings being thrown out and foreigners saving them because they saw value in them.
I feel like it's less a deliberate attempt at conditioning, and simply how society's norms and values evolved over centuries, due to countless different historical events. At this point though you'd need an anthropologist to examine things. I'm just going on a few shallow readings from different essays.
But anyway. The GPS are getting there, and slowly things are changing.
Re: Japan's Game Preservation Society Is Safe For Now, And It's All Thanks To You
@slider1983 @gingerbeardman
LOL - it sounds almost conspiracy theory-ish. The reality is, I think, more mundane. It's not like some maniac politician sat down and deliberately tried to create an Orwellian dystopia. It's more that these rules were maybe fit for purpose a long time ago, in a different age, and they're now extremely outdated, and without having been updated.
There's also a lot of complex interlinking factors.
So, firstly, here's something that may surprise you. Every screenshot of a game in a magazine needs permission from the copyright holder. I've googled a random issue of Famitsu on the Internet Archive:
https://archive.org/details/weekly-famitsu-no.-211-january-1st-1993/Weekly%20Famitsu%20-%20No.%20211%20January%201st%201993/page/n49/mode/2up?view=theater
Notice how every page has a little copyright disclaimer for the publisher of each game. You don't see that on UK or US magazines. Also the Internet Archive has special dispensation to host old materials, which are uploaded primarily by people in the US. If the GPS was caught doing this, they would be in big trouble in Japan.
So here's a fun game. Every time you come across a Japanese games magazine, take a look and see if the pages are giving the same copyright notice at the bottom.
There's genuinely no freedom of press in Japan.
Look up also Japanese conviction rates. It's rated at 99%. Just think about how crazy that statistic is.
So, Japanese copyright... It's very strictly enforced, and the end result is the law - by extension - allows companies to control what's published. So here's two examples:
1) Professor Kishimoto, the creator of Pac-Land and Famista baseball, was approached by journalists in Japan to be interviewed about Famista, which sold millions in Japan. Namco forbid the interview and any coverage of it. They control the narrative in Japan because they control the copyright regarding those games. He specifically asked me to interview him since I would be publishing outside Japan, thereby circumventing Namco's reach.
2) I had a Japanese agent talking with publishers to get my books translated and sold in Japan. Lots of interest! Every publisher though said the same thing: every time a game is mentioned, we would need written permission from the rights holder of that game, otherwise they could kick up a fuss and get the book pulled from shelves.
So it's not quite so much the government prohibits discussion, it's more like there's some really old copyright laws in place, and because those laws are strictly enforced, it allows companies to control any coverage of their material. And the government is slow to update the laws as technology and society progresses.
It results in some really weird loopholes. So you can't copy the files on a floppy disk to back it up, that's illegal, but you can make a high resolution magnetic scan of the surface, thus preserving all its data.
So the GPS has to deal with lots of antiquated rules, and antiquated wording of those rules, and part of their goal is lobbying to have the law updated.
I'm just scratching the surface here, but once you dig into the minutiae of it all, some of it's crazy.
Re: 30 Years Ago, Sega Took Its Biggest Gamble With Saturn And Failed
The Saturn outsold the N64. In Japan anyway.
Still my favourite console of the 32-bit era. If only because it had games that to this day you cannot find anywhere else, not even a similar experience to those games.
I often wonder. With a time machine and suitcase with £10 million, could one do anything to change the Saturn's fate? A fun thought experiment.
Re: We Might Be About To Lose A Powerful Force In The World Of Video Game Preservation
I do not represent the GPS, I am just the author of this piece, but to add a small reply:
Firstly, thank you to everyone who signed up as a member or made a donation. The response from the community has been heart-warming.
A statement / update will be made in time, regarding all the points made here, on social media (Twitter, Bluesky), and forums such as ResetEra and Reddit, plus plenty of emails.
Every comment has been read and all the feedback is appreciated, and each of the points is being discussed by the GPS board. Your feedback has been heard and taken to heart, especially ways to reward supporters with something tangible.
Many of the questions require a detailed response, hence the brevity here. As an example, the point by @BBOOKK about Ritsumeikan - they are already part of a collaborative consortium, with a detailed back story.
The GPS looks forward to sharing more details with the community going forward.
Re: Wii Homebrew Community "Built On Lies And Copyright Infringement"
So what? Keep developing for it. Just keep on trucking.
This sanctimonious virtue signalling is ridiculous.
Reminds me of the Dreamcast homebrew community. They would BAN anyone who even so much as mentioned the hacked katana SDK or anything using it, like the Mega Drive emu from the Smash Pack.
I was banned three times for mentioning it. Bunch of weak willed soft jawed weaklings. WEAKSAUCE!
Compare that to the Xbox hombrew community. Stolen SDK used for everything. Zero ***** given. Virile heroes all of them.
How about the Wii community grows up, stops caring about something completely irrelevant and unimportant, and carries on business as normal?
Be more Xbox and less Dreamcast.
Seriously though. Why do they care? If you're rocking the homebrew channel you're using it to play illegal ROMs anyway. Lol
EDIT:
what @-wc- said 🤣🤣🤣
Re: Random: Keiji Inafune Believed "Arrogance" & Overconfidence Led To Mega Man Legends' Poor Sales
I keep meaning to play this.
Which version is best?
Re: 34 Years Ago, Nintendo Begged Fans Not To "Risk" Importing SNES Consoles From Japan
There were countless reasons to import during the 16, 32, and 64 / 128 bit eras. Censorship, region exclusives, release dates, more content, 60hz speeds, etc.
It was pricey, and frustrating knowing the poor quality of PAL. But it was one heckuva time to be alive.
Re: Upcoming Saturn Tribute Reissue To Skip Xbox Due To "Provocative Expressions"
@jamess
"I’ve played the games on Saturn and it’s all pretty mild… The thought the we’ve regressed from then due to platform censorship standards is just depressing."
I agree completely - my thoughts exactly. Censorship is unacceptable, needs to be stamped out like the first burning embers of a forest fire, and the fact we have regressed to a more puritanical stance is extremely depressing.
I lived through the senate hearings, and the Jack Thompson years, and every media scandal trying to scapegoat games, and I'll be damned before I accept the madness of those who have infiltrated games companies.
Enough is enough with this puritanical crap.
Re: Nightdive Reveals More About Its Failed GoldenEye 007 Pitch, But Its Answers Only Raise More Questions
Just to reiterate: the leaked Xbox 360 remaster of Goldeneye is amazing. I bought a modded X360 just to play it, and it was worth every penny.
The remaster shows how fantastic the original's level design is. It's a masterpiece.
An official NightDive remaster would have been incredible.
Re: Random: New Video Reimagines Indiana Jones & The Great Circle As A Classic LucasArts Adventure
@jamesamong007
What real game? A game for a modern system I don't own, haven't followed, wasn't even aware existed until now, and was too lazy to look up and compare?
That real game?
Fair enough I guess.
Re: PC-FX Translation Group Wants To Know What Games You'd Like To Play In English
I voted for Last Imperial Prince. It was programmed by Yoshio Kiya of Falcom, and resembles one of their pkatform RPGs.
Re: Random: New Video Reimagines Indiana Jones & The Great Circle As A Classic LucasArts Adventure
Is that dialogue actually by Ford?
I might be wrong. Or crazy. Or paranoid.
But parts of this have the whiff of AI.
(And if I'm wrong, then this is exactly what I predicted - a form of AI psychosis where one can no longer tell what is real or not.)
Re: Nintendo Just Broke The Hearts Of GameCube Scalpers Everywhere With Switch 2
@Amsteffydam
I agree completely. I was joking, btw. Though I appreciate this wasn't obvious. I'd watched The Big Short recently, and so the "assets" was sort of a riff on people who view art in that way. Not sarcasm, but a dry irony? As in, I was sardonically mimicking them.
I only own games I want to play and only buy to play or, for some rare stuff, to upload to Internet Archive. Dropped £200 on Dive Alert Matt's Vers to upload manual scans, for example.
I have a private GC collection, but it's so easy to run the ISOs from SD card, I might as well sell them if collectors are crazy enough to drop triple figures, and there might be a price crash. On the other hand I might hoover up some deals if people are "dumping stock".
Re: "Free SNK From The Saudi Royal Family" - Fans Aren't Pleased About Fatal Fury's Celebrity Fighters
I have less than zero interest in another SNK fighter. But even as someone with no (negative?) interest, this is incomprehensibly bad. Just random unrelated pet celebs the Saudis own? I don't even know who they are. (I don't watch football nor do I... Listen to DJs?)
I stand with SNK fans in support. FREE SNK. ✊
Re: Nintendo Just Broke The Hearts Of GameCube Scalpers Everywhere With Switch 2
Glad I sold Chibi Robo recently. Should I dump my current GC assets? Or hold fast in case access to these titles drives a surge in people wanting to own the real thing?
I should probably just play and enjoy them.
Re: BAFTA Crowns Shenmue "The Most Influential Video Game Of All Time" In Surprise Result
@Lowdefal - of all the things that influenced this list, Baldur's Gate 3 is certainly one of them.
This entire list is nullified also by the inclusion of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, which is what... 2 months old? They even admit this in its entry.
Vox Pop fails again. I don't think the plebs, proles, gopniks, or rest of the peanut gallery actually understands what the word "influential" means, and so just voted for what they really, really, really, really happened to be enjoying when the poll went up.
I feel the curators should have put some effort into filtering stuff like that out. How can a game which is not even 100 days old have any influence on anything at all?
Re: "The Biggest Art Heist In History" - Castlevania Director Takes Aim At AI
@NinChocolate
Beautifully said. I went online looking for comments and, sadly, found plenty supporting it. Unsure if they were AI or not.
Nothing feels real anymore, does it?
Re: "The Biggest Art Heist In History" - Castlevania Director Takes Aim At AI
"If you're on pretty much any social media platform right now" - thankfully I am not, and now more so than before am I glad not to be. (My old FB account is still up for fam & friends to access, but I don't visit it unless someone sends an attachment needing downloading to desktop.)
The internet was fun, I dipped into it in the 1990s. And it was good for a while. But today the internet is dead: AI has flooded it with dog**** content, which is then crawled by countless AI bots to generate clicks, thus telling the AI algorithm that AI content is what's wanted.
It's dead. It's now made by robots for robots.
This website is about the only place still clean enough to step into. Everywhere else is turning into the worst toilet in Scotland.
Re: Lost F-Zero Tracks Found After $2,500 Was Offered For Their Preservation
I love the fact that bounties are starting to appear for the preservation of this rare stuff. Money talks, and it'll encourage people to dig and keep their eyes open.
Re: Random: A "Fictional" Band From A Sega Dreamcast Game Has Just Won A Music Award In 2025
I'm hoping this news encourages someone to fan-translate it. Segagaga is higher priority, but this is the sort of bizarre experimental title I loved on DC. (Alongside games like Seaman and Tokyo Bus Guide.)
We can but wait and hope.
Re: "A Kid's Desperate Wish In 1992?" - Yes, This Is Street Fighter II On The Philips CD-i
@jygsaw
It had Rise of the Robots. Which is awful. But it shows the system could handle two large sprites attacking each other at least.
I mean, the monochrome GB had SFII, so if you're willing to sacrifice enough, you could squeeze it on I guess?
Re: "Poorly Analyzed US-Centric Garbage" - Why Do Americans Keep Ignoring European Gaming History?
@slider1983
Wow!
“I just feel like ‘the’ videogame archive belongs in the USA,” said Kelly. “Videogames were born here and their ultimate historical archive should also be here."
I am absolutely lost for words.
Thank you for sharing that.
EDIT:
I can't stop reading that sentence - I will be hyperlinking this in my essay. Thank you again for bringing t to my attention. Absolutely mind blowing. MIND BLOWING!
Re: "Poorly Analyzed US-Centric Garbage" - Why Do Americans Keep Ignoring European Gaming History?
@slider1983
Did the VGHF say that? Interesting. Got a link? This might be useful. (I'll also go trawling for it.) But your comments are useful!
Re: "Poorly Analyzed US-Centric Garbage" - Why Do Americans Keep Ignoring European Gaming History?
@slider1983 Thank you for the confidence 😊
I'm working on a follow up essay to this topic regarding the US understanding of Japan - plot twist: high profile JP devs who directly influenced US devs, state in interviews they themselves were influenced specifically by Euro computer games.
This "Euro scene" nonsense is laughable once you start reading Japanese interviews.
There was a lot of interplay between the different regions. It's childish and reductive to attempt to dismiss or prioritise one over the other. Not even overt influence you'd notice - notable JP companies actually modelled their business on British software houses. They explicitly state this.
Re: "Poorly Analyzed US-Centric Garbage" - Why Do Americans Keep Ignoring European Gaming History?
@Grackler - remember that Grubb wants to help bridge this divide. And you can help him by just accepting what he says is true.
LOL. I'm kidding. Grubb is borderline gaslighting with his nonsense. You've made good points.
I was debating wether to wade in on this debate, since Europe is not my speciality.
But in my view America - journos, writers, Youtubers, collectors, historians, academics, authors, etc. - absolutely 100% have a problem with bias.
I know based purely on documenting the history of Japanese games.
They view Japan entirely through the lense of what was localised and popular in America.
They ignore Japanese computers. There was a research paper which showed NEC had an over 80% monopoly on JP computers, and all three of the leading JP brands (NEC, Fujitsu, Sharp) created a galapagos scenario of isolation.
And JP computers were dominant for a time, with Nintendo only slowly getting bigger.
Even then, the console markets were different. Americans overlook landmark releases like Hydlide because they received them years later than JP.
It is infuriating. Because a lot of the US cobsole market was defined by JP, yet they have zero clue as to what was going on in JP to lead to that.
So this spat over the crash Vs Europe is amusing to me.
Everyone defending the Euro POV here: don't take it personally, America also utterly fails to understand Japan too.
But we can all help to educate this great nation. Let's do it together in solidarity.
Re: Turns Out Ken Kutaragi Has A Nintendo PlayStation Kicking Around In A Cupboard
@jygsaw Ted Woolsey, localiser on Secret of Mana, also said that SoM was planned for the SNES CD. If I recall correctly from his interview, he said "40% of SoM had to be nuked" due to moving to cartridge. Don't quote me - I'm paraphrasing from memory. But the Woolsey interviews are all over the net.
Re: 30 Years Ago, The Grandfather Of Game Journalism Told 2D Fighting Game Fans To "Get A Life"
He references a journo at a newly launched mag catering to the hardcore.
I have my theories as to which mag this was... Diehard GameFan?
Anyone else have an idea?
Re: You Can Now Play Namco's Controversial Cancelled PS3 Remake 'Dancing Eyes'
@jamess
@dodgykebaab
I'm assuming someone will just patch and upload it somewhere.
If nothing happens I'll have a go myself.
It's obviously possible. Any rec on which PC OS to use with patching? Some obscure tools prefer XP, Win 7, Win 10, etc. depending.
Re: You Can Now Play Namco's Controversial Cancelled PS3 Remake 'Dancing Eyes'
@jamess
I have a jailbroken PS3 too. I look forward to your update.
What you typed makes no sense to me.
The PS3 is easier to use than my jailbroken PS4 (a right PITA). But it's usually install from USB, drop the license file in another folder, and away you go.
I have never had to patch anything...
Tbh I'm surprised they didn't make it available in a ready to use format. What does providing it like this serve? Anyone who intends to use it will be like us, wuth jailbroken systems.
Ah well.
Good luck good sir.
Re: Random: This Two-Sided NES Cart Is Blowing Our Tiny Minds
Where's the Requiem for a Dream style video of two NES making use of it while nerds stand around chanting aloud: SLOT TO SLOT!
Re: SNES Consoles Appear To Be Getting Faster As They Age
@Aiodensghost
I use a flash cart and run the system on a CRT. I used to use emulators, but abandoned them because there's no scroll blurring on a CRT (with an LCD and emulation, horizontal movement causes blurring or ghosting, and none of the CRT filters help). Also the aspect ratio of the SNES is super weird, and again it was a PITA getting it just perfect with emulation.
In the end I just like using an authentic controller, via RGB SCART on my Sony Trinitron CRT.
It'll be a sad day when emulation becomes the sole means of playing SNES games.
Re: SNES Consoles Appear To Be Getting Faster As They Age
@avcrypt
Thank you! I've had a couple systems recapped. Not the SNES yet. This is good to know.
However, this story reminded me of another similar SNES story about how the processor base was degrading.
https://www.timeextension.com/news/2024/01/does-your-snes-have-a-ticking-time-bomb-inside
Re: SNES Consoles Appear To Be Getting Faster As They Age
This horrifies me. I love my SNES. I want it to live forever. ; _ ;
Re: Square Enix Staff Discover Cache Of Pristine Retro Games, Some Of Which Date Back 30 Years
I see VHS tapes. Any word on what those were?
Might contain lost footage.
Re: Super Mario Bros., A Game From 1985, Is Being Used To Benchmark AI 40 Years On
I wish AI could have waited a few decades until I was dead and buried. Or I wish I could have been born just 20 or so years earlier so it arrived when I was too old to care.
I resent that I have to spend the last couple of good decades where I don't have dementia having to witness AI poison. I've even started seeing AI art on food packaging now.
Re: "These Short Games Mean Nothing To Me" - Retro-Bit Translator Denies Wrongdoing In "Baffling" Rant
@BionicDodo
It happens sometimes. One of the Ys games by Xseed licensed Jeff Nussbaum's fan translation officially. However... The hacker who partnered with Jeff to make a fan patch previously went nuclear at his "betrayal". The results were unpleasant.
There has been endless drama in the fan translation community for the last 25+ years.
My guess? Who wants the hassle? A professional company wants to spend some budget, get results, and move on, not deal with high strung prima donnas.
Most in the community are super cool. But there's always one or two whose ego causes atomic levels of trouble.
Re: "These Short Games Mean Nothing To Me" - Retro-Bit Translator Denies Wrongdoing In "Baffling" Rant
It pains me that such beautiful games have fallen into the hands of such people - Gleylancer, Valken, and Majuuou are all exquisite masterpieces.
@PinballBuzzbro is correct
Re: What's The Most Influential Video Game of All Time? BAFTA Needs Your Help To Decide
@Steel76
If you want sources, check out the YT video here:
https://www.timeextension.com/features/paper-peepshows-wargame-history-and-pooping-mascots-n-my-spanish-retro-gaming-adventure
Rough time stamps:
18:34
37:26
01:05:58
01:07:00
Re: What's The Most Influential Video Game of All Time? BAFTA Needs Your Help To Decide
I voted for Tower of Druaga, since so many developers have stated taking direct influence either from it, or games influenced by it.
@Steel76
Haha! Indeed. Did you know Miyamoto loved Druaga so much he had the arcade machine installed in his office to play, while making Zelda? There's an interview with him on YouTube citing Wizardry and The Black Onyx too. And in a French magazine in 1994 he said in interview he loved European computer games from a decade ago (ie: circa 1984), which is an obvious reference to the 8-bit micros of the time.
I am 100% certain none of the games voted for and presented by BAFTA will be influential.
They'll simply be highly nostalgic for the people voting, but won't take into account the games which came before them, which did the actual influencing.
Ah well.
Re: A Full Set Of Street Fighter II Toys From The '90s Has Just Been Preserved
@KingMike
Indeed - when I was told they had to ditch Mort's catalogues of scans due to wrong DPI, I winced inside. >_<
Re: Please, Please, Please Treasure Your Offline Multiplayer Buddy
I still have all my multitaps. Just in case, one day...
Re: Review: Mega Everdrive Pro - The Best Flash Cart For Your Genesis / Mega Drive
@slider1983
Installing cores on my AP was daunting. But I followed the guide on TE which linked to a utility that sorts it for you.
I don't install manually, I use the utility to go online and download the latest cores for me. I forget the name. But it made installing the Wonderswan on the AP super easy.
You could also invest in a GB/GBC flashcart. The X7 is great. Though if you're not moving between systems like I am, then a GBC core should suffice.
I can't recall the name. It's a Windows program. You stick a micro SD card in your computer, load the prog, tick the boxes for the FPGA cores you want, and it downloads the latest official builds. You just need to stick your games in the assets folder.
EDIT:
Just grab one of the updater utilities:
https://www.timeextension.com/guides/all-analogue-pocket-openfpga-cores-and-where-to-download-them
Re: Review: Mega Everdrive Pro - The Best Flash Cart For Your Genesis / Mega Drive
@slider1983
They shut down the entire bluray division. Also their music CD and DVD print on demand services. I thought it was weird since there isn't any alternative which offers direct sales on the Amazon marketplace. So a lot of people's work got the chop sadly.
Re: A Full Set Of Street Fighter II Toys From The '90s Has Just Been Preserved
I continue to wonder:
Are these being scanned in a sufficiently high enough resolution?
I recall many years ago, when magazine scanning for internet preservation was in its infancy, gigabytes (terrabytes?) of data had to be thrown out, because the DPI was not high enough on initial scans, because no one had agreed on what constituted best practice. All of Mort's scans were discarded.
And then... Every page which had been scanned once before, had to be scanned again.
A major waste of everyone's time and resources because it wasn't don't correctly the first time.
Is there an official consensus on the correct resolution for scanning 3D objects? Is there even a "resolution" for them? Am I just not understanding the concept?
The Japanese Game Preservation Society started "scanning" laserdiscs, in order to capture all optical data; a single scan was 8 terabytes. But at least they know they're doing it right first time:
https://www.timeextension.com/news/2024/01/this-game-preservation-group-wants-to-archive-laserdisc-games-before-theyre-lost-forever
Re: Review: Mega Everdrive Pro - The Best Flash Cart For Your Genesis / Mega Drive
@slider1983
Huzzah! Many thanks! Ah yes, the Episode IV DVD. Copies of that are all sold out, but I had it re-edited by Coury of MyLifeinGaming, and turned into a higher res bluray. (Don't get excited, he still had to work with my shaky handcam footage.)
This was being sold on Amazon's print on demand bluray service. Until they shut the whole thing down. Annoyingly before I'd recouped my costs on editing. I ordered 50 copies for myself and have been selling them off one at a time.
You can buy one for £40 direct, or there are pirate rips on YouTube which I've become lazy with demanding they be taken down.
Leave an email or message me on Facebook?
Re: Review: Mega Everdrive Pro - The Best Flash Cart For Your Genesis / Mega Drive
@slider1983
OK, I tested this on my carts.
I'm using:
Tested on an Analogue Pocket.
The dedicated X7 cartridge runs GB and GBC games flawlessly, including Army Men. This cartridge replicates the functionality of an original GB or GBC cartridge. It will work in a GB and GBC and a Super Gameboy on SNES.
The Everdrive GBA Mini... This does not run GB / GBC games natively. You need an emulator on the cartridge. I did not have one. So I looked online. Krikzz explains you need to use Goomba as the GBC emulator. In the GBASYS/emu/ folder is a readme which states:
Store emulators in this folder.
The emulator name should match to the target ROM extension
example: "nes.gba" for .nes files, "gbc.gba" for .gbc and so on
currently supported emulation for the following systems:
[system] [recommended emulator]
Game Boy goomba
Game Boy Color goomba
NES pocketnes
Neo Geo Pocket ngpadvance
MasterSystem smsadvance
GameGear smsadvance
OK, so then...
I went to the Goomba site and downloaded the latest version (2019). I put it on my GBA flashcart, along with the Army Men games.
The emulation is awful. The title screen has garbled graphics, the digitised sound is wrong. It's just awful.
This isn't really the fault of the GBA Everdrive, since it's relying on the Goomba emulator to run GBC games. If you check your GBASYS folder on your cart you should see the emu folder, and files inside.
If you're using an Analogue Pocket, and don't want to faff with cores, etc., but want to play GBC games, I recommend the X7. I have one since I like to move it between the AP, the Gamecube, and SGB.
If you're trying to run GBC games on a GBA flashcart, then you're basically emulating the GBC on the GBA, with mixed results.
I hope that makes sense. Please feel free to ask for clarification.
Re: Hyperkin's "No-Drift" N64 Stick Is Available Now
I bought one and extremely happy with it.
Love it in fact. Though it was actually a bit pricey in my view - had to import it from a reseller in the US because Hyperkin's page seemingly doesn't exist. And I saw none on eBay. I paid £22.
Used the controller test app on my flashcart - the one that asks you to push the stick to 8 directions and then shows a red outline to compare to other alternatives (OEM, cheap knock-offs, modded GC sticks, etc.).
The limits of the stick are in line with the OEM stick by Nintendo. In fact, maybe even a smidge under? The program gives you an optimal baseline dot. Factory fresh OEM sticks are slightly over this. Broken-in sticks reduce with use. This is right on that optimal line. Also it is nothing like the red-line shown for modded GC style sticks - which produce a big square zone, showing how over-sensitive they are. This may seem like a GC stick, or be described as one, but it's been calibrated to function akin to an OEM stick.
I have no tested an actual GC stick that's been rewired to work in an N64 controller, the test program simply shows you the typical threshold range for one, for comparisons, so I'm working off that.
Mario can tip-toe slow walk. Goemon can run at full pelt. Mario Kart controls great. My OEM controller struggles to make Goemon run, because it's so worn down, but this doesn't have that problem. And it can detect subtle shifts when tested with Mario.
I have zero regrets. I know this post is way after the fact, but it took me a while to get around to buying one.
@Kobeskillz
@Skunkfish
@DeciderVT
@Shiesty
@ChromaticDracula
@slider1983
Re: Review: Mega Everdrive Pro - The Best Flash Cart For Your Genesis / Mega Drive
@slider1983
If I'm understanding correctly, you loaded a GBC game on the GBA Everdrive? As far as I known that GBA flashcart runs those older system games via a sort of inbuilt emulator I think. I don't know precisely because I never used it - I have a separate GBC Everdrive for GB and GBC games.
I play these on my Analogue Pocket, Gamecube Player, and Super GameBoy where appropriate.
I might be totally wrong. But I think if you pop a GBA Everdrive into a GBA and try to run a GB or GBC ROM via it, it doesn't load it in the same way as popping a GB cart or GBC cart into the GBA (or flashcarts for those systems). It will load those ROMs into a GB/GBC emulator.
Whereas a dedicated GB/GBC flashcart will run like a native GB/GBC cartridge.
I hope all that makes sense. It's late and my eyes are tired.
@Razieluigi
MID TYPING EDIT:
Quickly checked the website and for the GBA cart it says:
NES, GB and GBC ROM formats are support (emulation mode)
Which probs explains it. But I'll pop my GB cart in and check out Army Men, just to be triply sure.