A Mamecab on television tomarrow!!!

[anthony691]

I was flipping through the stations and I saw a teaser for a MAMECAB segment on tomarow's TechTV's Call For Help. Very interesting... It is a Cocktail cab that they built... who knows? They may have even searched out help in this very forum.

It looks like it was a kit...

[right... flipping through channels...]

TechTV was a really cool station before they completely sold out  

It is cool they are doing a segment on MAMECABs though... all it means is a TON of newbies will soon flood the scene...

TTV is Direct TV channel 354.

Summer School gets out early so I can catch this show. I will post a synopsis after the show tomarow.

[Brax]

Summer school huh?  

It's spelled TOMORROW!

Let us know if its a total hack job Mame cab or something cool. Sounds interesting.

[Generic Eric]

I'd be curious to find out if they mention this site.

Don't have cable, so I can't watch it myself.  Or Satellite either.

[anthony691]

Summer school huh?  

It's spelled TOMORROW!

Let us know if its a total hack job Mame cab or something cool. Sounds interesting.

     I am sorry about that; it was not a spelling error (I know how to spell tomorrow

[Apollo]

Why is this a good thing? Is it better for more or less people to be downloading MAME ROMs? I live in fear already that some corporate ***hole is going to want to make money out of this. Surely this can only bring that day closer.

[Brax]

That day will come no matter what. It's when that's hard to determine.

Mame getting squashed someday is guaranteed in the American world of legal excess.

[TrickyFishy]

Thanks for posting this.  Got the TiVo to grab it.

[Apollo]

That day will come no matter what. It's when that's hard to determine.

Mame getting squashed someday is guaranteed in the American world of legal excess.

I was just thinking about what I said before. I guess it's going to be impossible to stop people using ROMS because there are so many on so many hard drives right now. If MAME suddenly stopped and people were prosecuted for using ROMS would it stop you from playing Pac Man or Street Fighter. I think not. MAME would just become completely underground.

[anthony691]

It isn't a MAME cab per say... I would believe that it is actually an Ultracade; and not unning MAME. It is still a PC Arcade machine though! (I think... I guess... okay... I don't really know what Ultracade is...)

[pmc]

Thanks for posting this.  Got the TiVo to grab it.

I can't find it. What's the show/time? Seems like it'd be on the gaming show (XPlay?) but none of the show descriptions show anything related to MAME.

[anthony691]

Thanks for posting this.  Got the TiVo to grab it.

I can't find it. What's the show/time? Seems like it'd be on the gaming show (XPlay?) but none of the show descriptions show anything related to MAME.

Looks like tomarrow's Call For Help... on at 2 PM in my time (chicago). It could have been a re-run that I saw the teaser on, but that is the time that they show new ones... I'll check my Direct TV.

[anthony691]

I was right;
And I qoute my DirectTV

"6/27
2:00 P.M.

Computers, How-to; building a classic arcade game table."

Fire up the Tivos! (My video capture card too  )

[armad1ll0]

Thanks all for the tip.

Me too... three cheers for TIVO!!!

[Malachai]

Here it is on their website:
http://www.techtv.com/callforhelp/howto/story/0,24330,3464289,00.html

[F|end]

The program must be a cool thing to see but i think also that people (newbies) who will be headed into this are gonna make atrocities like MAMEing a Pac man cab to play Golden tee our tekken 2!

It will be sad for ones and hilariant for anothers!  

[meta87]

Definetly not the best looking cocktail cabinet I've seen.

The X-arcade controls don't help either.

[BillyJack]

i don't think that guy shopped around since he said he couldn't afford a "real" arcade game.  I second that about the x-arcade controller.  I hope it makes all the could-be new cab builders think twice.  Instead of "let's all jump on it!", maybe they'll say "it just doesn't look real like that. . .  oh well, maybe some day it'll get better."  



BillyJack

[spectre]

my xarcade works fine in my dynamo cab...
but in a coctail cab EWWWWWWW that'd look awful!

[SirPeale]

That day will come no matter what. It's when that's hard to determine.

Mame getting squashed someday is guaranteed in the American world of legal excess.

MAME in itself is not illegal.  The only thing MAME does is document the original hardware that the games ran on.

Emulators themselves have been declared legal.

The ROMs themselves, however, are a completely different story.  And, unlike the legend that 'if I own the original, I must be legally able to have the ROM image' that's not true.  It IS true for music, but not for data (unless the license allows it)

[CitznFish]

No mention of BYOAC at all?? Blasphomy

[armad1ll0]

No red ball top... I cry... a coctail machine cries for a ball top 4/8 way Sanwa switching!!!

[paigeoliver]

MAME in itself is not illegal.  The only thing MAME does is document the original hardware that the games ran on.

Emulators themselves have been declared legal.

The ROMs themselves, however, are a completely different story.  And, unlike the legend that 'if I own the original, I must be legally able to have the ROM image' that's not true.  It IS true for music, but not for data (unless the license allows it)

What license? None of my games came with any licenses. The paperwork to my Crystal Castles, Time Pilot, and Kangaroo mentions nothing of the sort. Nowhere does it say that the software must be played on the original hardware. No where does it say that my game LIVES on those game boards. Sure, the game won't play without them, but it won't play without the fuse either.

Unlike modern software, old arcade games did not seem to have any real sort of "license", really just a copyright notice and that was it. I don't think they can retroactively impose restrictions on a product purchased 20 years ago.

Imagine this scenario. Sony comes up and sues you for replacing the original speakers in a set of 20 year old Sony speaker boxes, because you are no longer using the original defective speakers, yet the speaker boxes can still play music, and the boxes still say Sony on them. I see that as no different than Namco trying to sue you because your Ms. Pac-Man machine no longer has original boardsets. As a matter of fact, that is MORE rediculous because there was no such thing as a Namco Ms. Pac-Man machine until the reunion machine. The original Ms. Pac machines were made by Midway and were not a Namco license. I never made any agreement with Namco, and they didn't write the software, nor make the machine it is playing on. They might have ended up with the "rights" later, but that should not have any effect on pre-existing units.

Heck, I challenge you to even find much anything written in the old documentation about the actual software copyrights. Atari and Williams were selling arcade GAMES back in the day, not arcade "software".

The boardset was a tiny part of a larger machine. My arguement will always be that if I own any part of the machine, then I can play the game. Who is to say that my Pac-Man marquee bracket isn't the only good piece left from the original machine, and that I had to replace everything else do to failure and damage.

For that matter who is to say that my Pac-Man marquee bracket isn't a Galaga one (they are the same).

It isn't my fault that the original boardsets did not hold up and had to be replaced with a more reliable part. When you get new tires for your car, you don't keep the old ones around any more.

[meta87]

MAME in itself is not illegal.  The only thing MAME does is document the original hardware that the games ran on.

Emulators themselves have been declared legal.

The ROMs themselves, however, are a completely different story.  And, unlike the legend that 'if I own the original, I must be legally able to have the ROM image' that's not true.  It IS true for music, but not for data (unless the license allows it)

What license? None of my games came with any licenses. The paperwork to my Crystal Castles, Time Pilot, and Kangaroo mentions nothing of the sort. Nowhere does it say that the software must be played on the original hardware. No where does it say that my game LIVES on those game boards. Sure, the game won't play without them, but it won't play without the fuse either.

Unlike modern software, old arcade games did not seem to have any real sort of "license", really just a copyright notice and that was it. I don't think they can retroactively impose restrictions on a product purchased 20 years ago.

Imagine this scenario. Sony comes up and sues you for replacing the original speakers in a set of 20 year old Sony speaker boxes, because you are no longer using the original defective speakers, yet the speaker boxes can still play music, and the boxes still say Sony on them. I see that as no different than Namco trying to sue you because your Ms. Pac-Man machine no longer has original boardsets. As a matter of fact, that is MORE rediculous because there was no such thing as a Namco Ms. Pac-Man machine until the reunion machine. The original Ms. Pac machines were made by Midway and were not a Namco license. I never made any agreement with Namco, and they didn't write the software, nor make the machine it is playing on. They might have ended up with the "rights" later, but that should not have any effect on pre-existing units.

Heck, I challenge you to even find much anything written in the old documentation about the actual software copyrights. Atari and Williams were selling arcade GAMES back in the day, not arcade "software".

The boardset was a tiny part of a larger machine. My arguement will always be that if I own any part of the machine, then I can play the game. Who is to say that my Pac-Man marquee bracket isn't the only good piece left from the original machine, and that I had to replace everything else do to failure and damage.

For that matter who is to say that my Pac-Man marquee bracket isn't a Galaga one (they are the same).

It isn't my fault that the original boardsets did not hold up and had to be replaced with a more reliable part. When you get new tires for your car, you don't keep the old ones around any more.

I agree with you, but what about us that make our cabinets from scatch and contain no parts of any of the original arcade games?

[paigeoliver]

I agree with you, but what about us that make our cabinets from scatch and contain no parts of any of the original arcade games?

Well, with a completely scratchbuilt cabinet you really don't have any legs to stand on as far as my arguement goes.

But, its not like I own pieces to every game I play anyway. (At one point I did own pieces to over a hundred games though, about 60 boardsets, various cabinet bits, artwork, manuals, and controls, but I traded most of that stuff off in the last year, it was eating too much space and I never used it).

There is also the mystery board approach.

Mystery Board Approach

• Purchase unidentified boardset on ebay.
• Place boardset in cabinet along with your Mame gear.
• You don't know what game the boardset is.
• You assume boardset is whatever game you happen to be playing.

[SirPeale]

What license? None of my games came with any licenses. The paperwork to my Crystal Castles, Time Pilot, and Kangaroo mentions nothing of the sort. Nowhere does it say that the software must be played on the original hardware. No where does it say that my game LIVES on those game boards. Sure, the game won't play without them, but it won't play without the fuse either.

I wasn't necessarily talking about arcade stuff.  I was talking generally about digital media in general.

Here's a snippet from a website that gives an overview of the law:

http://www.consoleclassix.com/legal_roms.htm

[grafixmonkey]

kinda sad that so many people are so loophole-happy that we have to provide definitions of words like 'repair' and 'maintenance' in all of our legal docs.  

I think someone's rights to stuff like software etc. should only apply if they are producing the item in question or receiving fees from someone else who is producing it.  Unless I'm mistaken, none of these companies are still producing most of the games whose roms could potentially be downloaded for Mame.  Why should the companies have a right to complain if we procure a copy of a software product they currently have no financial interest whatsoever in?

(this of course would only apply to some roms...  a few were brought back as "old arcade hits" packages I suppose)

[armad1ll0]

the issue of legality to me is that of intellectual property and not copy write infringement. Copy writes, trademarks and Registers are more for protecting the property/brand/likeness/creativity... Here, the issue is that of the software... the ROMs... when Atari sold you an Arcade machine they sold you the software and the physical hardware to play it on.

Much like movies, the purchase of software (esp. games) is really not ownership but that of an end user license. I'm not a lawyer but I've worked in the games industry as a producer for many years.

You don't own the game's IP. You bought a license to play the game as much as you like, but it's tied to the ownership of the actual game. Did you know that most publishers actually don't see disk as game but the package/manual etc... if you have a damaged disk but still have the manual/serial number, you can get a new disk.

Even though the games are ages old and often times the company is dead or bought out by someone else... someone, somewhere owns the intellectual property to that game. SNK is a good recent example. Playmore now owns it...

Paigeo, even though your arcade games didn't come with any documentation for the license, it's implied. You own the board so you can play the game. No one really polices each ones house so it's almost an ethics thing.

I pretty much own some sort of version of every game that I really like so I don't have too many problems of playing the ROM in my ArcadePC. ex.. I have the super rare Sega Saturn D&D SoM/ToD. It's the only console port so I often play that arcade ROM on my ArcadePC. I've never gone over it in with the legal department at work, but in my personal ethics I think that it's fair. That port sucked anyways... (Cost me about $100)

"Why should the companies have a right to complain if we procure a copy of a software product they currently have no financial interest whatsoever in?"

This thought is so wrong. Having worked at Namco/Activision/Sony/Capcom... I can say that they do have interest that people download the ROMS. Did you know that Hannaho is the only company that has a legal right to distribute those ROMS with it's Capcom arcade pack (and ArcadePC) No one else does... (Ultracade died) Konami has been recently doing arcade classics as a PC product as well. Go to Fry's and take a look. How many Namco museums have they done... every console platform has been supported! They still sell and the very fact that people download them and play them for free is against their wishes...

I'm not going to throw the first stone but I don't think that the argument here can't hold water. I would stand by this thought... if you bought one of the versions, then I think that it's pretty ethical to play an emulated version as much as you like. You have some end user license somewhere to play that game. Distributing it and saying that you are not selling it doesn't hold water as well. It's simply against their wishes... would you say that it's OK to publish the latest Harry Potter book online? On CD and not sell it??? It's not that hard to do... OCR every page... PDF... That would be so wrong...

Reusing one 1" strip of T-molding doesn't entitle you to rip off every ROM out there... ownership of each board/set or physical ROMS is the legal arguement. But as I mentioned, in this technology/ROM readers/Internet etc... it's more of a Moral argument...

I've played games that I can't buy... but then if they ported it, I'd buy it... AVP, GoldenAxe: RODA...

It's just my $.02... I know... no one asked... sorry to try to burst your bubble... working for "THEM," I just couldn't let this one go...

and now... I know I'm going to get flamed...

[armad1ll0]

Oh, back to the original thread.

I just watched the episode and they really barely know what they are doing. They give Arcadedepot credit but they don't credit Chung for the XArcadeSolo idea... (only on the webpage) and it's so wrong that they don't credit BYOAC... never pointing to the many prime examples and also to talk about how to get more authentic controls etc... It really needed a Cocktail glass underlay... and smoked glass...

You know that I'm not fond of the X-arcades but they really should have given credit to chung since they flat out ripped his idea/cab off...

They tip toe the legal issues as well, never pointing to the fact that you can purchase legal versions of arcade classics for the PC to play on something like that.

[anthony691]

It wasn't a very good (or done) cab. It's software setup wasn't too great...

[paigeoliver]

... would you say that it's OK to publish the latest Harry Potter book online? On CD and not sell it??? It's not that hard to do... OCR every page... PDF... That would be so wrong...

Would you say it is OK for the library to purchase a copy of the Harry Potter book and lend it out to hundreds of people over the course of a few years. Allowing them to read each page without paying.

And if that is OK, then why is it wrong to have a copy of the data that came in a much larger product, that is no longer available (remember, unlike a console title, the data on the rom chips of an arcade games is only a tiny part of the whole product).

Sure some games are available in legal format, and almost every single one of them is in some terrible format that is not even half as good as Mame.

What do we have available legally?

Playstation ports of Namco games? Don't make me laugh, I played Pac-Man on the playstation, it was a joke. Don't sell a game on a console if the console doesn't have a controller that can properly control it.

Dragon's Lair and Space Ace DVDS? Once again, a joke, the daphne versions of these games are much better than the DVDs. And WHY are Laserdisc (and pinball) roms largely distributed freely? What makes them different?

Hanaho's little collection? An inferior mame setup, and probably comes with a license that doesn't allow the roms to be used any other way.

So basically, the few manufacturers who do provide legal alternatives are providing a defective product. I'm sorry, Playstation discs do not cut it for me, not when there is actually a GOOD alternative available. Also, talk about missing your target market. The average classic game fan is in their mid 30s, while the average Playstation owner is 17 (anyone older would have woken up and realized that PCs surpassed consoles in all respects back in 1997).


Secondly, there is no connection between a port and the arcade version. Paying for Atari 2600 Pac-Man gives you no right to the arcade version of Pac-Man. I say having a marquee bracket from a Pac-Man machine gives you more of a right than a 2600 cartridge. At least with the marquee bracket you know that someone somewhere PAID for a Pac-Man machine that you are in some manner playing.

[SirPeale]

Would you say it is OK for the library to purchase a copy of the Harry Potter book and lend it out to hundreds of people over the course of a few years. Allowing them to read each page without paying.

You're doing the whole apples/oranges thing.  The book has been paid for.  One physical copy.  The copy gets loaned out.  It then gets brought back, and someone else borrows it.

It's different with digital data, where you can make perfect copies of the original every time.

I have to agree with Armad, that just because you have a screw or a bolt that used to belong to a machine, does not give you the legal entitlement to possess the intelectual property.

That said, it IS a moral argument here, at least in our case.  I do have every ROM that MAME supports (plus a few testdrivers)  Would I like to have every board/cassette/cartridge that I play?  Sure, but it's not feasible.  So I've got the image.  I just don't have any moral feelings regarding the matter.

[anthony691]

     I wonder if someone has gone to each of these companys (probably about 700 of them) and asked if they could place any of thier games in the public domain for use in MAME. Heck someone could even toss in a nominal amount of money... if they would make them PD. Instead of just buying the PCBs and dumping these games that a computer won't be able to play for like 5 years; why don't they buy licences for the really obscure crappy games?

     It would add to the legal use of MAME... how many PD Roms are there now? 4?

     Just a thought... I am sure for some reason or another it wouldn't work...

Just an idea

(I know we couldn't buy licenses for games like Pac Man et al, but what is keeping us from buying the license to The Chinese Exorcist or Disco Mahjong?)

     I don't know... instead of making my MAME related donation this year... I think I will try to get another MAME emulated game released into the public domain...

[armad1ll0]

There's a legal argument and to me a more moral/ethical one.

I think that morally and ethically purchasing a port give you more "rights" to use the MAME ROM but in actuality, neither give you the legal "right."

The legal right involves having the actual PCB board, because that is the game. The cab is not the game. They totally see hardware and software different. It's just like a VCR and Video tapes. Saying that you have the marquee holder and using the ROM is a weak argument. Since many of these machines were JAMMA machines, the boards were totally interchangable so the cosmetics have only a visible connection to the game. Now if you purchased a burnt PCB board then I'd say that you have a total right.

Bashing on Hannaho just cause their set is small has little to do with the fact that they are selling one of the few legal variants of arcade ROMS. My point was only that they have properly licensed it from Capcom. The extent of the license to use the ROMS has little to do with the fact that they actually do offered a license to play those ROMS.

Quality and Legality are two different things!

Yes, passing around a book is totally OK AND LEGAL. There is a little something that has been around for centuries... IT'S CALLED LIBRARY.

Ever since the digital era copying things is a huge problem. We can't use weak arguments to justify it. I'm not trying throw stones. In this area, I'm actually stealing from some publishers for playing their game w/out owing the PCB. That's the Legality. Morally in my mind (not for you but for me) I've supported the games that I love by purchasing some version of it somewhere, if not multiple versions. So morally I think that I've done what I can to at least support and throw my hard earned bucks their way.

[spectre]

"anyone older would have woken up and realized that PCs surpassed consoles in all respects back in 1997"

^^^^very true^^^^

also, rather than throwing my hard earned bucks their way as the last poster stated, i'd rather keep my hard earned bucks since there isn't a great demand for a lot of mame games... why don't we find the guy who made some obscure game in 1980 and pay him to use the rom no one will play, LMFAO...

[1UP]

And if that is OK, then why is it wrong to have a copy of the data that came in a much larger product, that is no longer available (remember, unlike a console title, the data on the rom chips of an arcade games is only a tiny part of the whole product).

The argument you're trying to make here is pretty suspect:  The game ROMs are the game!!!  They're not a very small part of the whole product, they are the MAIN product!  No one would bother to manufacture a cab and put it in an arcade without the ROMs.  But as we all know here, you can easily play the ROMs without a cab, as a PC will do (replacing the game boards).

None of us have any legal standing that allows us to play game ROMs on a PC unless you have written permission to do so from the current copyright holder.  As I understand it, even owners of the original games can't dump ROMs from their LEGALLY OWNED boards, and play them on their PC.  They may be entitled to dump them as backups, in case the original ROMs ever fail.

One last thing.  Just because you weren't provided with a license agreement, doesn't mean you're not bound by the license.  If you buy a used software CD off ebay, and the original owner fails to provide you with the license documents, you're still bound.  Ignorance of the law is never an allowable excuse.  It's not the manufacturer's responsibilty to go out and make sure that all used media have proper documentation provided.

But reality is, we can pretty much consider most ROMs vaporware.  At the moment, most of these games are no longer being manufactured or supported by anyone.  Many probably don't even have current copyrights.  In that sense, they are virtually public domain.

Consider ROM usage like stealing old junk from a junkyard that no one maintains or secures anymore.  Some of the junk might still legally belong to someone, but since the owners never show up to claim or protect their old junk, and law enforcement won't do anything unless the owners press charges, it's pretty much fair game.

As the years go by, and eighties stuff isn't cool anymore (once the current marketing of 80's nostalgia to thirty-somethings has subsided) most of the classic games won't even be ported anymore.  I doubt we'll even see many 3D spinoffs after that point.

[BobA]

Back to the original topic.

Call for Help played late last night in Western Canada. I missed the earlier showing.  

It was MAME and not very well setup.  Looked like the front end was horizontal on the vertical screen.  At least he got the game rotated.  Implementation was a bit clunky but not bad for 2 days work and who knows how much prior knowledge of cabinets.

He sure did not have any finishing touches to make it look good.  The cocktail cab kit sounds like a good way to go when you are all thumbs.  The kit itself looks solid and is really nice when setup with proper controls.

They really did tip toe around the legality issues.

Just my 2 bits.

BobA

[HeadRusch]

PC's smoked the consoles much further back than 97 people....in 1988 my Amiga 500 played games a Nintendo 8bit couldn't even conceive of.  Hell, in 1994 my Amiga 500 played games a PC couldn't conceieve of, or for that matter, the clunky 64 color Genesis (which I love, but I'm just making my point).

Oh...and as a follow-up, Consoles are now smoking the PC's ass.  The only thing that PC's have going for them right now are higher resolutions.  X-box is doing environmental bumpmapping on just about every game, whereas most recent PC games wont even touch the effect because of the potential slowdown issues that arise.

Thats what I think is funny now: a super-fast running Radeon 9800 is stil giving us games that aren't as good looking as a PS2 or XBox title.  The chip makers seem obsessed with ultra-high resolutions (stupid) and anti-aliasing and texture sharpening..well thats cool, but what about all the cool 3D effects like pixel shaders and stuff.  

Back 8 years ago, it was a resolution race...but once we hit 1024x768 on all games at 60fps, then the concept needed to shift to "Visual effects" instead of just upping the resolution issue.

Unreal Tournament 2003 is a good example: Its a high-end PC game...at max detail however, even requiring a reaonably beefy PC to fire it up, it doesn't really look too different from the glut of other pc titles out there....because they're skimping on the visual effects and intsead focusing on higher poly count and higher resolutions.

I'd rather the game maxxed out at 1280x1024 but had full environmental bump mapping and pixel shaders and other eye-candy treets..

[meta87]

Oh...and as a follow-up, Consoles are now smoking the PC's ass.  The only thing that PC's have going for them right now are higher resolutions.  X-box is doing environmental bumpmapping on just about every game, whereas most recent PC games wont even touch the effect because of the potential slowdown issues that arise.

Thats what I think is funny now: a super-fast running Radeon 9800 is stil giving us games that aren't as good looking as a PS2 or XBox title.  The chip makers seem obsessed with ultra-high resolutions (stupid) and anti-aliasing and texture sharpening..well thats cool, but what about all the cool 3D effects like pixel shaders and stuff.  

Back 8 years ago, it was a resolution race...but once we hit 1024x768 on all games at 60fps, then the concept needed to shift to "Visual effects" instead of just upping the resolution issue.

Unreal Tournament 2003 is a good example: Its a high-end PC game...at max detail however, even requiring a reaonably beefy PC to fire it up, it doesn't really look too different from the glut of other pc titles out there....because they're skimping on the visual effects and intsead focusing on higher poly count and higher resolutions.

I'd rather the game maxxed out at 1280x1024 but had full environmental bump mapping and pixel shaders and other eye-candy treets..

I don't really agree with you. Take Splintercell for example. A good computer will completely blow both ps2 and xbox out of the water. I don't know all the technical details, only from experience. I've played Unreal Championship on Xbox and it doesn't even come close to UT2003 on a good computer. (PS2's graphics aren't even worth mentioning.)

And I didn't even bring up doom 3

[jakejake28]

also remember, thhe x-box and ps2 are rarely played on vga. that does make a difference in quality of graphics (from a visual perspective, not technically). anyway, i don't care about the tech details so much as the software available. until i get soul calibur 2, panzer dragoon orta, zelda:wind wanker or metroid prime on pc, i still will be buying consoles

[paigeoliver]

Visual effects that are slightly better than PCs NOW (but won't be in 6 months) still doesn't make up for load times, limited options, Load times, super low resolution, load times, higher prices, load times, media that is more likely to be damaged, load times, small software library, load times, and dumb long intro movies you have to watch every time you put the disc in, and that is before it even gets to the excessive load times.

I have only ever played one X-Box game, (Sega GT something or other), and it had an easy 30 seconds of load time for each and every screen in the endless sets of options and prerace things you can do. It was quite easy to do a 2 minute race and then sit through 6 or 8 30 second load times, each of which are only so you can press a single button. And this is coming from a machine with a hard drive inside (what the heck is the hard drive for if they aren't even going to use it properly? Is it so you can store 88,785,489 Mario Cube savegames?)

Sorry, but consoles are for children. Your playstation isn't 10 percent of the gaming machine that even a 3 year old computer with a $50 video card is, even if your PS2 does have better "visual effects".

[jakejake28]

a pc may be a better gaming machine, but it does not have the software that a console boasts. sure, it has online capabilities, constant upgradiblity, and amazing graphics, but it doesn't have many games that can make it superior to a console (from a gamers perspective).

what non-fps, non-strategy, games does it have that are better than it's counterparts?

[paigeoliver]

a pc may be a better gaming machine, but it does not have the software that a console boasts. sure, it has online capabilities, constant upgradiblity, and amazing graphics, but it doesn't have many games that can make it superior to a console (from a gamers perspective).

what non-fps, non-strategy, games does it have that are better than it's counterparts?

Doesn't have as many games? They have been making PC games for 20 years, it easily has the most titles of any platform by a factor of ten, and that is before you even count the fact that all the old consoles are emulated on the PC.

[jakejake28]

actually i said "it doesn't have many games that can make it superior to a console" meaning that the quality of the games is lower

[armad1ll0]

Even though Consoles target kids as toys, the PC game companies still can't produce a "Zelda" or a "Mario"... and you can't find a "Starcraft" on the console

The thing in the end is that there is no arguement on which is better. They have different strokes for diff folks. The arguement is mute...

[_Iz-]

anyone have a copy of this show I can download and watch?

[anthony691]

Even though Consoles target kids as toys, the PC game companies still can't produce a "Zelda" or a "Mario"... and you can't find a "Starcraft" on the console

The thing in the end is that there is no arguement on which is better. They have different strokes for diff folks. The arguement is mute...

Hmm... they made Starcraft for N64; it sort of blew... they made Civiization for SNES too... it sort of blew too...