I'm going to cover a bit in this so bear with me. First off, I have a good buddie going to Japan soon. What should I ask him to look out for? Every game system I have is multi region so games would be easy to bring back(No Japanese RPG's, I have yet to learn the language). I asked him to keep an eye out for a Saturn or a PC Engine for a reasonable price due to the fact I don't have either yet, which leads me to this. Can I use Pal Saturns and PC Engines on my NTSC? I'm not afraid to bust things open and solder video out's if I have to. I know you can easily make both of those systems multi region, but can they be modified to output NTSC(I can run PAL through my projector, but its not ideal to say the least). Second, I just got my hands on a Dreamcast for the second time in my life (first time was the fire sale of 2001). I for some odd reason I've been tweaking for SHUMP's. Border Down kicks ass. Its an upgraded Einhinder. Hero Gunner 2 really nice too. Third, Guitar Hero ROCK'S!!!! :evil: Fourth, finally got some good RE4 time in on GC (thanks Ace). Man thats a good game. I cant wait to spend another few hours with it. I was a RE hater untill this gem. In order to stay somewhat with the paragraph (ie GC) let me just say that if they delay Zelda TP one more godamn time... Fifth, Why did the Naomi and triforce boards use GDROM? Was it really cheaper to use GD drives as opposed to flash roms or HD's(Im aware of the mfr costs of a HD)? You can get 4 gig micro drives for cheap. Did it make more sense from a piracy perspective? Sixth, is there any reason at all to spend $400 on a 360 short of the HD output (I can run HD)? Don't get me wrong, arcade has some nice things, but can't I do the same if not better with what I already own? My Xbox along with XBMC kicks far more ass. Wheres the streaming HD with ANY Microsoft OS made in the last 4 years(short of XP media, which sucks)? Its possible, why are you holding us back? HDDVD?
5) Arcade game manufacturers are more paranoid than the MPAA/RIAA about their games getting copied. CD's, DVD's and HD's can all be very easily copied, but GD's are a bit harder. 6) Where is their incentive? The MPAA controls most of the legal content and refuses to release it until they affix ankle bracelets to all of us.
good stuff, thanks Mairsil. One question. Why the paranoia? Do arcades really exist outside of Japan? We have our Dave and Busters in the states here, but who here at ASSEMblers really goes to that place and play games on a regular basis?
D&B and Gameworks never had any working machines when I went. The boardwalks that used to be mostly arcades are now mostly redemption games (i.e. Wildwood, NJ). The paranoia stems from two occurances that I can think of. First, when arcades were just becoming popular, people were hacking the hell out of the boards to change, improve and fix the games. Manufacturers felt they were losing money, so they started to implement security measures to prevent chips from being copied and swapped. The security features evolved over time, but security rarely beats ingenuity in this matter. The second problem stems from what happened with the Neo Geo cartridges. The ease with which they are now bootlegged scares manufacturers, regardless of the success of the NG arcade systems.
handles25, it would be helpful if you said where you lived. You made it seem that you live in an NTSC region, so Japanese imports are no problem. Japan uses NTSC, not PAL. Regional lockout is more of a problem, with US Saturn and Turbografx games refusing to work on Japanese systems. For the Sat, you need an Action Replay-type cartridge (or use the swap trick). For the PCE you need an adaptor to run JP games on a US system; and an adaptor PLUS hardware hack to run US games on a JP system.
Oh I'm in the USA. I could have sworn Japan used PAL, good to know they don't. The one or two Boardwalks we had here have been gone for a decade.
