You’re Twisting my Arm Here Sony
September 1st, 2008
NB: As it stands the Australian dollar stands at about $0.98 American dollars, so almost equivalent, keep this in mind when reading. Of course this article was also written a while ago too.
Despite my enthusiasm for the release of Metal Gear Solid 4, there was a lot of friction involved in balancing up whether a Playstation 3, at this stage in the game, was worth the $AUD750 purchase. Truth is, I am a very cautious buyer and I never like to plonk down the cash on a big investment unless I am certain that the investment with more than cater towards my needs.
Another personality trait of mine is that I hold no shame in playing games that are a few years past their used by date. So the bright lights of next gen didn’t really woo me to a great extent. Therefore if I was going to buy a PS3, I needed a real sufficient reason to do so. Fortunately for the big wigs at Sony, MGS4 was more than sufficient but it didn’t mean that the choice was an easy one by any lengths.
Five Advantages of Being a PAL Gamer
March 13th, 2008
This article was originally titled “The Top 10 Advantages of Being a PAL Gamer” but as you might have guessed I fell short at five.
There is a long tradition in the video game industry with consumers and the PAL encoding system. That is people whom live in PAL territories (that is Europe, Australia, New Zealand among others) more often than not end up drawing the short straw. Unlike our NTSC counterparts it often takes a long time for new technology to reach our shores and even when it does our price is marked up, we have lower distribution numbers and often receive modified/downgraded content. Basically it is the manufacturer’s way of telling us that we are simply not a priority for them.
On the rare occasion though us PAL gamers might be treated to something that trumps our American and Japanese friends. These special treats are rare cases indeed, thinking up even a measly five perks has been a formidable challenge. But the advantages are there, just a little hard to find. ^_^
I’d also like to thank the forum members over at PALGN whom suggested a few ideas and helped with the brainstorming process.
Early/Exclusive Releases
Although it had taken a long time for this trend to set in, occasionally in the industry you will notice that some PAL (especially European and Australian) games are released a few days earlier than their respective American counterpart. Fifteen years ago, excluding European developed games this trend was not existent but in the past 6 years early European releases have taken off and continue to occur quite frequently.
There are a couple of reasons as to why this situation is turning around. Firstly the increase of European game development. Take a flick through the back of any EDGE magazine and you will notice just how many AAA developers are situated in the UK. Then there is the strength of the Playstation brand in PAL territories.
I could fill a whole separate article on the latter point but I will try to be brief here. Basically for years game companies had neglected the PAL markets. When the Playstation was produced, the situation started to slowly change. Sony actually viewed and treated the PAL market for what it was; a solid, viable area for strong game sales. Hence it didn’t take much for Sony to become and still maintain the European market with it’s Playstation brand.
Years later, prior to the release of the Gamecube, Nintendo Europe was noticing slow adoption rates of Nintendo consoles compared to other territories. NOE representatives admitted that the UK markets had been previously neglected by Nintendo (release dates particularly) and in an attempt to turn the tides they changed the way that they viewed Europe and PAL territories. As a result the UK started to see several earlier releases for significant Gamecube and GBA titles, some games even launched first in Europe and then to the rest of the world. In the meantime Phil Harrison (of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe) pushed for a greater emphasis on mass market Playstation 2 devices (Eye Toy, Buzz, Singstar etc.). This payed off for Sony and these games were and still are a huge success in the UK and Australia. The success of these titles (as well as Nintendo’s new found interest in Europe) ensured that earlier PAL releases would continue to occur and have done so ever since.
Along with this, PAL territories do occasionally receive PAL exclusive titles and they are listed as well:
Tags: , australia, box art, Dragon Ball Z, europe, pal, super nintendo
DP’s Gaming Videos #1
March 5th, 2008
Ever since I started working on some video content for the site last December, I’ve had a couple of ideas floating around about what I could offer beyond the video retro reviews. So far I have a few, very ambitious ideas for upcoming posts which you’ll probably see a long way down the track.
What I also plan on doing is capturing anything that I find interesting while I am playing a game and then share it with you readers. So with this in mind I have four videos which I have recently uploaded which are worth discussing.
Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams PAL Options
This is a quick snippet from Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams for the Playstation 2. The video is of the frequency and language select screens (PAL regulations) with some fantastic localization.
GameBoy Camera – Run! Run! Run! Speed Run
Remember the GameBoy Camera? It was that dodgy, first party camera peripheral for the Gameboy Pocket. If you have used one of these before then you’ll know that the camera cart comes with a surprising number of extras such as some primitive photo editing tools, slide shows and mini games. The mini games are notorious for having insanely high scores, this video displays me hitting the 15 second mark for the impossible, button mashing mini game; Run! Run! Run!
I hooked my camera up to my Super GameBoy and then used a SNES turbo pad to cheat my way to this high score. By past memory, I reckon that the set high score to beat is 15 seconds which I could have beaten depending on the timing of my jumps.
Today Tonight – Red Ring of Death Article
Today Tonight is a current affair program which plays weekdays in Australia. They ran this segment about the Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death problem. In typical Today Tonight fashion there is plenty of cringe worthy mistakes, I think that the worst one is how the guy in the clip states that EB Games pay for his replacement consoles which I found quite hilarious. My apologies on the out of sync voices and meh quality.
Mario Kart 64 – Awesome Finish
I played a surprising amount of Mario Kart 64 multiplayer last holidays, this 3 second snap is of one of our great finishes. I (Toad) was about to hit a bomb (another friend) while my brother (Luigi) was floating in mid air.
I’ll be keeping a close eye out for any other unique video ideas that come my way over the coming weeks.
Tags: gameboy camera, mario kart, onimusha, pal, red ring, today tonight, xbox 360
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