Consoles

[Bluetonic]

Still playing my ZX Spectrum.

 

[JoshC]

PS2 which I never play and a Nintendo Wii which i play every now and then, I've only got mario and sonic at the olympics which is good but a little easy, looking forward to getting mario karts when I have enough money.

 

[MK Shrimper]

Still playing my ZX Spectrum.

Ah, Jet Set Willy...king of platform games.

 

[OldBlueLady]

sorry, when did this happen?

Honestly can't remember if it was two or three years ago at the Boot Sale at Sadlers. Still had the box and everything, and, yes, I did give him the money for it!

 

[Uncle Leo]

The original NES, Super Mario Brothers. What more could you possibly need?

 

[Mr Gilbo]

Interesting Gilbo. Regarding your streaming of movies onto your PS3, do you do it via the clever windows media player function, making use of a wireless router? I can't remember the exact term, but I found out about it yesterday.

I use the program Tversity. Which streams various media files to the ps3. had to wire up my ps3 direct to the pc as i found that due to the poor reception where the ps3 is located it struggled via the wireless router.

 

[seany t]

I'd love a PS3 one day, but refuse to pay that kind of money yet again for a console with so few decent games right now. I remember forking out £59.99 for Tekken 2 and then waiting 6 months for another half decent title... I don't think I get enough use out of them to pay that these days.

So I'm just raiding Game at the moment for classic PS2 games I missed. Currently enjoying Tomb Raider anniversary, Resident Evil 4 and Timesplitters Future Perfect for the princely sum of £20 for all 3.

XBox 360 does look great, but I fear it's coming to the end of its life. On the other hand, Playstation haven't really moved on enough for my liking (GTA 4, COD 4, GT 5, MGSolid 4, etc). Great games they'll be no doubt, but hardly anything new or pushing the envelope.

And thats why I guess Nintendo will always be the old school gamers favourite... Goldeneye still gets a regular run out in my lounge, and Mario / Zelda will always be remembered fondly

 

[fredheim_holm]

I use the program Tversity. Which streams various media files to the ps3. had to wire up my ps3 direct to the pc as i found that due to the poor reception where the ps3 is located it struggled via the wireless router.

Ah hadn't heard of that. The way I do it involves no programs at all, but you seem to be sorted :)

 

[Beefy]

Own a 360 but have played on the PS3 also. Graphics are very much samey samey but overall prefer the 360 for two reasons.

1. The joypad on the 360 is a superior design and more comfortable than the PS3's

2. Xbox 360 Live absolutely stomps all over Sony's attempt at on line gaming. COD4 on 360 Live rocks.

Until Blue Ray becomes the industry standard on the high street I'm not too bothered about the 360 being HD High Def only and I'm happy with the 360's ability to upscale ordinary DVD's to virtually Hi Def 720p resolution.


As an aside, Microsoft are in talks with Sony to supply a Blue Ray player (as they hold the patent) in a new updated version of the 360 for release in late 2008 or early 2009.

I think the controller thing is down to personal preference. I loathe the 360 controller and literally cannot get to grips with it.

You're right about X-Box Live. That's the big difference right now. Sony were intending that 'Home' and to a lesser extent 'Little Big Planet' would form the heart of the PS3's online experience but both have had massive delays and that really hasn't left the PS3 with any real online gaming set-up at all.

As for the Blu-Ray, didn't Microsoft say a week or so back that they'd decided against releasing a Blu-Ray player for the 360? They seem to think that downloadable content is the future of high-definition viewing rather than Blu-Ray.

For what it's worth, I've got a PS3 and am more than happy with it. I hate the 360's controller, I love the Blu-Ray player and have little or no interest in online gaming so it was an easy decision for me.

 

[Mr Gilbo]

Ah hadn't heard of that. The way I do it involves no programs at all, but you seem to be sorted :)

Tversity allows you to stream divx and avi files that the ps3 doesn't play directly.

 

[Bielzibubz]

As for the Blu-Ray, didn't Microsoft say a week or so back that they'd decided against releasing a Blu-Ray player for the 360? They seem to think that downloadable content is the future of high-definition viewing rather than Blu-Ray.

Depends what rumor mill you subscribe to. Lite On have said they are in the process of making a Blue Ray player for Microsoft and Microsoft have denied the reports. As I say, all rumor and conjecture, and my source was the BBC technology RSS feed so need I say more.

As another aside. Later on this year BT and Microsoft are teaming up to make all BT's On Demand content currently available through their excellent Vision package available via the Xbox 360 which will enable all their movies and TV programmes available in HD.

 

[Beefy]

To be fair, I'd agree with you anyway that there isn't much difference between good upscaling of standard definition and Blu-Ray, anyway. You can really tell the difference if you're within six feet of the screen but personally I sit a bit further back than that when I watch a film.

That's why I'm refusing to buy anything on Blu-Ray that's already in my not unsubstantial DVD collection.

 

[Bielzibubz]

That's my reasoning too. Good upscaling is just as good as Blue Ray, unless your sitting within 6ft or so to your screen. And who in their right mind would sit that close to a 32" plus TV anyway?
General rule of thumb, amongst gamers anyway, is three and a half times the screen size is the optimum distance. I assume that's also true for movies etc.

I have a friend at work that went and shelled out over £350 for a Panasonic Blue Ray player and he was right pee'd off when I told him about the upscaling capabilities of the 360 so he asked me to prove it. I took a standard copy of one of his Blue Ray movies to his place and we sat and watched portions of both on his 42" plasma, one through the Panasonic and the other on his 360 and the difference was negligible at best from approximately 12ft away.

As I said before. Until the standard DVD format goes the way of the Dodo and Blue Ray becomes the standard I'll stick to the 360 for both my gaming and movie watching.

 

[Ron Manager]

I'm not really a 'proper gamer' but have a Wii and love it. That's probably excatly the market the Wii is aimed at I should imagine.

 

[Bielzibubz]

Nintendo spotted a gap in the gaming market that had been ignored for years, that of the family orientated, fully interactive, back to basics games console. For years the two major players had been so intent on producing the most processor powerful and graphically superior console they completely left a certain section of the market behind. Nintendo knew they had neither the finances nor the developer base to take on the mighty two at their own game but boy did they come up with a winner in the Wii.

It's no coincidence that both Sony and Microsoft are now actively developing clones of the Wii's infrastructure and peripherals and games developers that are already in the process of developing games for these two are now putting back release dates for their games because they've had to rewrite substantial amounts of code to incorporate and make use of these new developments.

 

[Up the Shrimpers]

Over the years I have owned:

Intellivision
Atari 2600
Atari Jaguar
Sega Megadrive
Sega Saturn
Sega Dreamcast
SNES
Nintendo 64
Nintedo gamecube
Nintendo Wii
Playstation
Playstation 2

Also

Commodore PET
Commodore VIC20
Commodore 64
Commodore Amiga
Acorn BBC B
Mattel Aquarius



Most have been eBayed to make space however I still own the Wii, N64 PS2 and for C64s!

Not a bad effort here is my console & computer list:-

Sinclair ZX80
Sinclair ZX81
Sinclair ZX82 Spectrum 48K
Atari 2600
Coleco Vision
Dragon 32
Commodore VIC20
Commodore 64
Atari ST 500
Apple IIe
Sega Game Gear
Sega Master System
Sega Mega Drive
Neo Geo
Nintendo Game Boy Advance
Nintendo DS
Playstation 1
Playstation 2
Nintendo WII
Various IBM PC's can't remember them all.
HP Pavilion ZD8000

 

[Mr Gilbo]

That's my reasoning too. Good upscaling is just as good as Blue Ray, unless your sitting within 6ft or so to your screen. And who in their right mind would sit that close to a 32" plus TV anyway?
General rule of thumb, amongst gamers anyway, is three and a half times the screen size is the optimum distance. I assume that's also true for movies etc.

I have a friend at work that went and shelled out over £350 for a Panasonic Blue Ray player and he was right pee'd off when I told him about the upscaling capabilities of the 360 so he asked me to prove it. I took a standard copy of one of his Blue Ray movies to his place and we sat and watched portions of both on his 42" plasma, one through the Panasonic and the other on his 360 and the difference was negligible at best from approximately 12ft away.

As I said before. Until the standard DVD format goes the way of the Dodo and Blue Ray becomes the standard I'll stick to the 360 for both my gaming and movie watching.

TOTALLY DISAGREE!!!! The difference between an upscaled DVD and Blu-ray is really noticable. The DVD cannot compete.

However, you do need atleast a 37" 1080p TV to notice the difference in resolution. Also depends if the TV has been set up correctly, and ofcourse how far that you sit from the TV.

 

[Beefy]

I must admit I haven't got the biggest TV in the World. Only 27" so it only does 720p anyway.

I got a DVD player that upscales about 18 months ago and whilst it's not Blu-Ray good, the picture is still stunning and much, much better than standard DVD. The difference between upscaled and Blu-Ray is nowhere near as big as the one between standard DVD through a scart and upscaled DVD through an HDMI is.

 

[Mad Cyril]

Ah, Jet Set Willy...king of platform games.

No it isn't because the Spectrum version had a bug that meant it could not be completed.

 

[seany t]

All this nostalgic talk reminded me that you guys might like this:

http://www.scummvm.org/

Basically, its a little application that allows you to play those old school point and click games on your PC / Mac / iPhone / etc. They have a few of them on there to download for free (Flight of the amazon queen / Beneath a steel sky / etc). If you want the Lucasarts ones, you'll have to hunt a little harder...