New GC Hack Rumor

well the freeloader isnt al that, for example.... by using an PAL or USA cube with an freeloader to boot donkeykonga...you wont be able to save! .. (but with an USA 'modded', you can) So I hope there is coming a NON SWAP REGION FREE MOD for the (at least) EU cube... (but I highly doubt it)

 

Piracy?

Do you honestly believe that piracy killed the Dreamcast? Sega was hurting BEFORE they released the Dreamcast and it would have taken a miracle to save them either way. Piracy may have contributed but not to the extent that people blame it. Sega killed themselves through poor business decisions (32x, Sega CD and dare I say the Saturn in NA). I think many of you exagerate the extent to which a mod chip would hurt the system. Think about it for a second. The average GC owner in NA is too stupid/young to even burn their own games. Personally I would buy GC if I didn't have to use the awkward PSO BBA boot method to play hombrew and possible use linux when/if they continue it. I'm pretty sure people are more interested in getting mod chips for their POS2's and Sbox's

 

Re: Piracy?

Why don't you buy one to play the games that are released on it then? ^_^

Actually, most of teh Gamecube owners I know are all at least 15....and kids as young as 10 (youngest I know of personally) know how to pirate there PS2 games off of suprnova already so I'd assume if it was made as easy for them to pirate Gamecube games they would. Hell, I even know people who don't buy the Gamecube because they can't play pirate games on it. A cube mod-chip will just shorten the lifespan of the system....

I mean, lets face it...The Gamecube *is* dying already (or at least it is locally.....Game stores are starting to cut back their already small Gamecube selection....I know some stores that don't even sell 'cube games anymore). I love the 'cube so much aswell :smt009

 

Re: Piracy?

That is true, however Sega's miracle was the Dreamcast. It was well on track to recouping the $600 million spent launching it, however by the time they were close to finally start making good money the pirates had cracked the GD-ROM and ripped games were everywhere.

That is also true, however the bad decisions were made prior to the Dreamcast and have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with it. They made excellent decisions with the Dreamcast and had learned from their previous mistakes.

Again this is probably true, however there is allways some asshole on the same street or the friend of a friend that is known to deal in pirated software. The idiots don't have to burn themselves they go to the pirates and pay £5 going off the fact that by doing so they save £30 so no longer bother to buy from stores. Personally I know several people who have gone this route in the past - shame on them!

 

Why I havn't bought one

There are very few titles on it I actually want and that is why I haven't bought one yet (Where are the damn 3rd party titles and enough of this GBA link required garbage!). Now if they brough out an ok port of Linux that would be another story ;-). I know almost no teenagers who own a GC. Most I talk to own the Xbox because of it's 1337 6r4ff1x. As the GC is near the end of it's life cycle, the piracy scene would probably not muture that much before Nintendo brings out their new console. Look how long it took for them to bring out a half decent chip for the PS2 and that is the most popular system.

 

Re: Why I havn't bought one

Why do you want to run Linux on the cube so badly? What exactly do you plan to do? I mean, other than saying "Heh, I got Linux running on my cube" ...what good will it do?

I'm not trying to be rude here, I just don't understand ^_^ I can see the point of getting it on the Xbox.....and at a push the PS2....kindof...but I don't see the point of putting it on the cube...

 

Ahhh, but the main thing about DC piracy is the Selfboot. All other CD based consoles since Saturn/PS1 (other than handhelds) need a mod-chip installed to make pirate games run, or TSOP flash on Xbox. DC was the first console to have 99% of games selfbooting on standard consoles with no modchip installed.

But this does in a way help the DC homebrew community a great deal. Beats of Rage, with no messing around. Wooo

 

Beats of rage in itself is in a roundabouts way semi-pirate aswell though. Streets of rage rip off with illegally stolen character sprites ... hmmm ... nice all new game there then ...

 

...

they are not making money nor trying to do so.

 

True, but that does not make stealing sprites any more or less illegal.

Also do not forget the assholes making money by selling it (along with the stolen illegal sprites) on eBay. Granted Team Senile are likely not the people selling it but it still doesn't make it any less illegal.

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8119043309[/img]

 

CHEAP

Why? Because the GC is cheap! Cheaper than the Xbox. It's also rather small which makes it convenient.

 

I have heard that poor xbox sales in japan is because the apartments are to small to fit such a large monstrosity! :smt043

 

Did you know there's actually a warning in the XBox manual about how you shouldn't set it in a high place where it can fall on a small child or pet? My brother and I had a good laugh about it when he got his XBox last fall. :smt043

That was my initial thinking with the Gamecube (and Nintendo 64 as well) but after looking around a bit and giving some of the titles I previously hated (Metroid in 3d?? SACRILIGE!!) a try, I can honestly say that I am beginning to like the 'Cube more and more. It definately has a lot of games that can easily be dismissed as weird or stupid (i.e. Animal Crossing, Viewtiful Joe, Billy Hatcher, Giftpia) but are actually quite engaging. So if you feel up to it, rent/borrow/buy one used and give it a shot.

Wombat: About your freeloader problem, have you checked to see if it is at all related to your memory card? I've heard that unlike Playstation/PS2/Dreamcast, there are different memory card formats for each region of the Gamecube. Some games give you the option of initializing your card (and therefore wiping all the data for whatever region you previously had) but I think some just assume you have the proper card, and when they don't find the region they want, they don't care. I'm not sure if this could be your problem, but it might be worth checking out.

 

Animal Crossing and Metroid

I've tried both these titles and wasn't too impressed. I really wished Metriod was in 3rd person as I found it awkward in 1st person. I also tried Animal Crossing and wasn't too impressive without multiplayer. I really wish Nintendo didn't let Rare go as the added some maturity to their line up. It almost seems like Rare don't want to make games for the Xbox as they have 1 title out if that (Grabbed By The Goulies I think and as far as I've heard it SUCKS). Hopefully Nintendo gets back the 3rd paries with their next console and throws in some online support, infact their next console is the only one I'm looking forward to in the next gen.

 

Re: Animal Crossing and Metroid

Maybe thats why Nintendo let them go for a "modest" amount ;¬)

 

On the Subject of this,how can this guy reengineer a dvd burner to burn GC like dvd's??I'm just getting a little more confused about this as time goes on.Surely if this was possible Datel would have considered this when makin the freeloader,or would dvd media only boot with a mod chip installed.I know this sounds a bit silly but surely datel could have quite easily put those bumps into a normal dvd r.I may be talkin crap here but can someone in the know clear up the confusion here.

 

I think the guy(?) is using a DVD writer to read the disks, as the firmware is generally easier to upgrade on them. The wires soldered onto it are probably for the firmware flashing, or could be be used for debugging.

 

Re: Piracy?

I've said this before and I'll say it again. While piracy played a part in the early demise of the Dreamcast what killed the system were three main things.

Customer and publisher distrust from Sega's previous bad business decisions. People got burned by Sega's past decisions and believe me it made people think twice before they decided to buy a Dreamcast or publish for it.

A lack of premier third party titles. This is probably their biggest mistake as well. In my opinion for a system to lead in the console wars it must have Square, EA, Namco, Capcom, and Konami's (I consider Sega on the list nowadays) top franchises locked up. This has been proven time and again for every console generation.

8bit - Nes
16bit - Snes
32/64bit - Sony
128bit - Sony

Sega has never understood this. They had Namco, Capcom, and Konami as publishers but Capcom was the only one to really put it's full weight behind the Dreamcast. Imagine now if Sega had gotten exclusive rights to Final Fantasy X, Tekken, Castlevania, ect or lengthly lead times for games like Metal Gear Solid 2 and the 3D Grand Theft Auto series like Sony did. Combine that with a year long head start and Sega's own titles and things would be a lot different today.

The final one is the lack of DVD support. I don't blame Sega too much for this though. DVD was still expensive at the time. The fact is though is Sony sold a ton of Playstation 2 because it was a cheap DVD player at the time as well as a gaming system.

Piracy did its part but those three things are what really took the Dreamcast for a ride.

 

Re: Piracy?

No one here in my town thought twice about it. Everyone was excited there was a new toy. I never had any distrust in Sega nor do I even know anyone who ever did.

Sega don't really need the 3rd party crap. Most of it such as the EA stuff is tripe anyway. The fact it didn't have many multiplatform games from 3rd parties is actually a good thing as it meant the console had more original titles.

It's a console not a DVD player. It wasn't just a case of DVD's being expensive, but there was no reason to justify the use of a DVD when the games would take up nowhere near that much space.

It was bought mostly by casual gamers, who don't count as they wouldn't know a good game if it jumped up and bit them on the ass. It is more of a cheap DVD player with built in PS2 than PS2 with built in DVD player -_-

 

I'm not having a go at you here Legit mate or trying to insult you in any way but I think you are looking with the blinkers on here.

What A snow said about the Dreamcast is probably very true.Sega never recovered in places like the US after the Saturn fiasco and althought he Sega hardcore was always going to be there to buy machines,people who felt hard done by after buying Saturn's never bought into Sega again.

Sega also made some crucial enemies in distribution with the surprise launch of the Saturn, some big chains never came back to Sega after feeling they just did not care about them.Sega's distribution plan of the dreamcast was much better than the Saturn's but lacked the punch and marketing prowess of Sony's who was stil selling psone's for fun even when the dc launched and during it's lifespan.

Sega's marketing of the machine in the US too was exceptionally poor,who can forget the advert with the picture of the US and the dc swirl looking like a huricane going towards the US.Nearly 90% of the general public never knew this was the dc swirl and assumed it was just a picture of a weather warning,as the dc swirl on this pic looked almost identical to a hurricane on this photo all in white.They made many errors like this and I have an article which shows you the marketing blunders by Sega in the lead up to both the US an euro launches.The jap launch was hardly a resounding success either with many customers feeling very disgruntled by Sega's lack of ability to produce adequate launch numbers.

In the end it was Sega themselves who shot themselves in the foot pre launch,and although they got into their stride eventually,many people never gained the trust back and never bought into Sega hardware again.