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Moving right along then...

My first experience
The first time I saw a Dreamcast up close was at an Ultimate Hardcore Gamer's house in early 1999. I'm not kidding, this guy went to Vegas and won a Street Fighter 2 tournament, spent all day learning the dial-a-combos in Tekken so he could fight in tournaments, et al.

My impression of the games
It was early 1999 and the aforementioned Ultra Hardcore Gamer had Powerstone and Sonic Adventure imported as well and I played them for one evening. That's right, Soul Calibur was nowhere to be found. With its atrocious AI I would have been blown out of ever buying a Dreamcast!

I played Powerstone and Sonic Adventure and absolutely loved them. Nothing on the Playstation or N64 had the sheer speed and fluidity of the controls these two games demonstrated. Not only would attacks and whatnot come from all directions, but, I could for the first time ever in a 3D game, actually dodge them all and counter attack. It was so much more than a typical generational leap, it was like 3D gaming had suddenly become valid compared to 2D gaming at the hands of these two games. No previous hardware could even attempt to run them and their gameplay was radically new and original.

My impression of the overall package
DVDs were just yet another movie format, I didn't care about watching movies from my game console. Actually, folks in the RGVS argued frequently that movie playback on a console was nothing short of making a set top box, not a game console. In September of 1999 I was impressed that the Dreamcast was only $200, I was not so impressed with the VMUs replacing internal saves we had as a luxury in the Sega CD and Saturn, and I was impressed by Best Buy's 6 months no interest scam.

The facts that changed my first impression
When I actually saw a PS2 running in a store kiosk I realized that the folks at RGVS had been right all along, trying to make an all-in-wonder console absolutely cripples its gaming components. Granted the rest of the world thought DVD playback was the best thing ever to be added to a console, so my opinion there is moot. All the same, until the Xbox and Gamecube were released in 2001, the Dreamcast had no real gaming competitor.

What season and year did I buy the system?
I walked in on launch day, September 9, 1999 and bought a Dreamcast, two controllers, a VMU, an extension cable and Sonic Adventure with pure credit. Ooh boy you wouldn't catch me even considering doing something like that today, but I did actually pay it all off several months early from the due date. Good ole' Best Buy still tried to charge me the interest, and happily credited it back to me with a simple phone call, scammers.

I was going to add this to the Sony Sucks thread but I'll start a new topic.

My 40gb (Spiderman 3) PS3 stopped reading any kind of discs a few weeks ago. Sony wanted $150 for repair, so I decided to fix it myself.

First, I had to take it apart. I searched all around for a Torx Security Screwdriver and couldn't find one at Lowes or Home Depot. I ordered one from Amazon. Then using some tutorials on YouTube, took my PS3 apart. It's been apart for about a week and a half, I've been too lazy to clean the lense and test it, or just buy a new laser component. I'll get to it eventually.

As bad as Xbox is, they're replaced my system 3 times in 4 years for no cost.

Well it's nice to see a study actually prove that game quality, nor artificially high review scores, really makes a difference compared to mega-corp marketing machines.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/marketing-influences-game-revenue-three-times-more-than-high-scores

Marketing influences game revenue three times more than high scores

Research by EEDAR has shown that a high marketing spend increases gross revenue three times more than high review scores.

The perception that high scores are crucial to sales is a myth, said EEDAR's Jesse Divnich speaking at the Montreal International Games Summit today, and developers should realise the cold fact that a poor quality game shipped with a big marketing spend will sell much better than a great game with little financial support behind it.

"You can make the greatest game and it won't even matter. I know that's discouraging to developers at first but it's very true," Divnich told the audience.

"Marketing influences game revenue three times more than quality scores. There's a giant myth out there that reviews scores are the most crucial to a videogame. The reason why that is is the information is readily available – we can go to Metacritic – and we see games like Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty succeed and we see they have a high quality score and we make that correlation. But the truth is, marketing actually has much more of an influence to game sales than high scores."

Looking at all games released between 2007 and the end of 2008, and comparing as many different configurations as possible – single format exclusives, handheld releases, Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii only – the research came to the same conclusion; marketing is more important than game quality.

Nintendo DS titles came out the worst, "this basically means that review scores for the Nintendo DS don't matter. If you're making a DS game don't even bother on quality, just ask for a bunch of marketing dollars," he said. "This actually suggests to developers that if you can, sacrifice quality to get a higher marketing budget."

For its first three months on sale, BioShock, which had $5.5 million in US marketing behind it, sold twice as many copies of EA's Dead Space, which had a budget of $2 million. The same results were found for EA Sports Active, which sold around 720,000 copies with a marketing budget of $5.6 million, compared to My Fitness Coach, which shifted an estimated 250,000 units backed with a $50,000 budget.

Divnich said that the research took in all variable costs and looked at whether the games drove more profits simply because they had more marketing spent on them.

"Looking at the gross margin, BioShock made $15 million more in the first three months than Dead Space, even when you take into consideration that Take-Two spent more money on marketing," he detailed. "EA Sports Active made $22 million more."

However, Divnich admitted that publishers can't just rely on marketing to sell their game – it has to be targeted correctly to sell the product.

"There are times when marketing fails, you can spend so much money but it doesn't matter. Sony spent $150 million globally on the launch of the PlayStation 3," said Divnich before showing the PlayStation 3 baby commercial first shown in 2006.

"They honestly thought they could release any type of commercial and it would sell. It truly is a WTF moment in marketing history. It creeped people out. Sony got complacent, they were on top of the world and they thought they could say 'here's the PS3 go out and buy it'."

"A lot of people want to blame the high price points for the PS3's failure, but I don't think so, I blame the marketing, it impacted the success of the PS3 much more than the price."

Divnich compared more recent PS3 commercials that accompanied this year's price cut, and suggested these were more of a driver to sales for the console than a cheaper retail price.

"Sales went through the roof and a lot of people attributed that to the price drop. I disagree, I actually think it's the marketing. It's how you distribute that message to your consumers. I truly believe Sony's success in late 2009 had less to do with the price drop and more to do with how they delivered their message," he offered.

"Unfortunately now you have the burden of knowledge," he told the audience. "You can work as hard as you want on your game to make it as high quality as possible, but if the marketing is not there it will fail.

"You know your target market better than anyone. Most agencies that make videogame commercials come from outside the industry. I honestly believe that more level designers and even low level programmers can make a better marketing plan than most marketing managers," he concluded.

I solemnly promise as of today, that on this date I will pick up and play through some other role playing game not made by Square or Enix. Mark my words, a turn based RPG I will play from beginning to end starting on FFXIII's release date.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/final-fantasy-gets-us-euro-release-on-march-9

Final Fantasy gets US, Euro release on March 9

Square Enix has put a solid date on the highly-anticipated RPG Final Fantasy XIII – the game will hit retail on March 9 in the US and Europe.

"Final Fantasy XIII promises to be a huge event in the 2010 gaming calendar," offered Phil Rogers, president and chief executive officer of Square Enix Europe.

"This is truly a landmark title, arriving simultaneously for multiple platforms for the first time in the history of the series (because we've always whored ourselves out to the biggest seller, and this time there isn't just one). We are also immensely proud to be able to bring the game to the European and PAL audience much earlier than was publicly anticipated."

The franchise has shipped over 85 million units over the past two decades (exclusively to the highest selling, most superficially successful, consoles each generation).

My first experience
I first got to play an NES at a couple of friend's houses in 1988. Super Mario / Duck Hunt was pretty much all anybody had back then. Through 1989 I got to play Wizards and Warriors, TMNT, Section Z, Castlevania 2 Simon's Quest, Adventures of Lolo and of course Legend of Zelda and Metroid.

My impression of the games
Since my family had owned and broken several Atari 2600s I thought the graphics and sound of the NES was pretty good. I never found myself pining to play any of them unless that was just what everybody else was doing. The games just didn't 'click' with me or excite me, but I found some of them amusing enough to play for free.

My impression of the overall package
This would have been summer of 1988 and was really a tough call. When it came down to spending my own hard earned money on a game console I really only had one thing in mind. My foster brother had introduced me to Arcades and I knew that I wanted to play those games so badly that I simply couldn't afford to go to the Arcade enough. Since I had seen the Sega Master System in television commercials quite a bit, I had my dad find the only store in town that carried it. The Federated Group of San Antonio was a specialty electronics shop that actually let you play both the Master System and NES right next to one another. Long story short and a couple of hours after arriving at the specialty shop I walked out with a Master System even though I had told my friend before I left that I was buying an NES. Through 1988, the NES had nothing to compete with the SMS when the two were sitting side by side.

The facts that changed my first impression
The fact that I couldn't play anything exactly like Metroid and Zelda on the SMS, even though I had loved playing through Zillion and Golvellius, eventually got me to pick up an NES.

What season and year did I buy the system?
If I recall correctly I had saved up enough money and noticed a dearth of SMS games on the shelves by Spring of 1989. I snagged an NES console, I don't think it had a pack in but it must have, and Zelda 2 Adventures of Link (Which I prefer over all Zelda games to this day). Thanks to Nintendo's price fixing I paid $100 for a $10 console and couldn't afford much else for a while. When I found TMNT, Strider and Ninja Gaiden on discount I snatched them up, a friend gave me Bases Loaded, and I pretty much borrowed friend's games from then on. This was a busy couple of years for me, as I had purchased a Sega Genesis by Christmas and never really looked back, selling my SMS and NES in 1990 for a TG16.

http://raptr.com/

Worth the time and effort?

http://backloggery.com/

Apparently they're quite similar.

Bel

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/21458/Final-Fantasy-XI-Ultimate-Collected-Released/

Saw this and it got me interested, again, in FF Online(XI). I've always wanted to try it...I just don't want to have to pay to play. Thing is, with this HUGE pack only coming in at $19.99, I wouldn't mind putting in a month or two with it, just to try it out. Has anyone actually played it? Apparently it's available for PC, 360 and PS2(possibly PS3 if it will install on the system).

Bel

Edit: Wow, private servers! $19.99 for the game and all expansions...free servers...man, almost sounds too good to be true!

http://projectxi.sourceforge.net/index.htm

http://ffxi-fantasy.tault.com/final_fantasy_11_privateservers.html

Almost makes me want to try WoW:

http://www.wowstatus.net/

For very backhandedly helping the early demise of the Dreamcast. For paying off the NFL so you won't have to compete with a superior product, and for so many other reasons, I hope this isn't the last downsizing EA experiences.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/ea-details-job-losses-and-cancelled-projects

EA details job losses and cancelled projects

Electronic Arts has detailed the radical business changes – first announced last night – which will see it lay off 1500 staff by the end of March 2010 and reduce the number of blockbuster titles it releases each year.

Speaking during a conference call to investors, chief financial officer John Brown clarified that 900 positions in game development will go, 500 jobs in publishing and 100 at corporate level, in a bid to to save USD 100 million annually.

"Laying off employees and closing facilities is never pleasant," offered John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts. "We have a lot of compassion for those impacted but these cuts are essential for transforming our company. Our operating expenses will be reduced by at least USD 100 million compared to our current run rate."

Although solid details on teams affected have not yet been addressed, it's believed Black Box, Redwood Shores, Tiburon and Mythic have all been hit, and the publisher has said it will close "several" facilities down entirely.

"We think the cuts we have made are very, very aggressive. We've cut teams, we've cut corporate, we've cut overhead, we've cut publishing but not to the point of hampering ourselves," added Riccitiello.

As well as letting staff go, EA plans to reduce its portfolio of titles, with Riccitiello suggesting that around 12 unannounced projects in various stages of development have been cancelled.

"Electronic Arts has a core slate of games label and sports franchises that we will iterate on a either annual or bi-annual basis. And I think you know what those major titles are - all of them are selling or have sold in their most recent edition 2 million units or more," he detailed.

"After that, we've got The Sims and Hasbro, and frankly anything that doesn't measure up to looking like it can pencil out to be in very high profit contributor and high unit seller got cut from our title slate from this point going forward.

"So it is really, in a way, if you could array our title slate up knowing what we did about what we would have otherwise brought to market, we cut the bottom third of it."

My first experience
I first saw and played a TurboGrafx-16 at a friend's house in San Antonio sometime in 1990. They were really poor, as poor as my family was really, but they had an Amiga computer and a TurboGrafx-16, two machines I had never seen running before but had only heard good things about.

My impression of the games
I had a lot of gaming sessions over at said friend's house, and they all kind of blend together. One way or the other I managed to play Legendary Axe, Keith Courage, and Fighting Street CD at the minimum. I was impressed by the general smoothness of the graphics and that they seemed colorful in a distinct way from the Genesis games I already owned.

My impression of the overall package
As the price tag was $199, and I had bought a Genesis just months before for $189 I wasn't thrilled, and I knew I'd never own the CD-ROM attachment. I wasn't experienced enough technically to know what my friends called parallax meant, but I liked playing the games. Press reception of the system gave me hope that it would not go the way of my much played Master System.

The facts that changed my first impression
This question is kind of lopsided, as I sold the console as a result of the Sega CD's release in 1991. Nintendo had cultivated my hatred in monopolies by then, and Sega had blasted me with a ton of great action titles and arcade ports throughout 1990-1991. I had every reason to expect the Sega CD to take off the same way the Genesis did. Oh how limited my understanding of marketing machines and industry politics were. At any rate, I picked up a modded PC-Engine DUO and recollected what few games I owned for the Turbo in 2005-2006 and would never trade that system again.

What season and year did I buy the system?
In 1990 I ended up saving up lawn mowing money and selling my Sega Master System, NES, and all of their games and controllers for a premium to a daycare in my neighborhood. Man, if I had only cultivated that salesmanship. The sale gave me enough funds to buy a TG16 with Ninja Spirit, Legendary Axe and Bonk's Adventure, all of which I enjoyed the hell out of.

Over at Pleasure Kitty's place, someone in her neighborhood keeps cracking in to her wireless connection and using it to do God-knows-what. I've tried and tried to keep them out, but nothing seems to work.

This last time, it appears they(hackers) cloned a MAC address of a computer in their house and then started setting up all sorts of forwarding in the router(for bittorrent, most likely).

This last time around they had their router set to not broadcast the SSID and they've got TKEP+whatever(or whatever it's called) security going on. Past that, I don't know what else to do. I've heard that MAC filtering works really well, but if these guys know how to clone a MAC address, will that even work?

I am going to completely redo their wireless setup this weekend, new SSID, new passwords, everything...but it'll still just be a matter of time before these dickheads get back in(this is the third or fourth time they've done it). Can anyone help me figure out something that may be enough of a pain in the ass for them, that they'd just leave her alone...or maybe help me find a way to hide her connection from them, just something that will keep them off.

Any thoughts/suggestions/input would be most appreciated.

Bel