h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK, after I edited it and before you came along I didn't really think it was so subjective, but hey, I guess that may only be because I wrote it. Guess I'll just take this back out into the real world and re-write it then...

Oh by the way, it seems Nintendo is giving more support to 3rd party developers with the GameCube than Sony is with the PS2.

Aurelias, have you ever played Perfect Dark? Definitely worth €60.

Nintendo didn't aim for a younger audience, they just aimed for everyone, but unfortunately people took one look at something like Mario 64 and, without even playing, said "It's for kids".

Nintendo also raised the bar more so than Sony: D-pads, Analogue control on consoles, vibrating controllers 3d game environments, etc., which Sony than copied. I'm not putting Sony down here, just trying to get some clarity.

Hey, do you think I should delete the Appendix on handhelds altogether?

On a sidenote, I read in a magazine that, since the PlayStation was originally going to be a SNES add-on, Sony has been using the name illegally all this time! Could someone set me straight on this?

Finally, I'm not a typical Sony-hating Sega zealot, I'm a Microsoft-hating Nintendo-zealot (but I try to keep this under control).

> On a sidenote, I read in a magazine that, since the PlayStation was originally going to be a SNES add-on, Sony has been using the name illegally all this time! Could someone set me straight on this? <

Certainly. It's completely untrue. Nintendo didn't commission the PSX, it was something offered to them by Sony (who was an independent third-party publisher) which they then rejected, and have no claim on.

I definitely think it's debatable whether or not Nintendo aimed their console at kids, but Mario was certainly a more kiddie-friendly character than, say Lara Croft.

On the audience Nintendo aimed at, I think they didn't aim solely at a young audience, but have avoided less 'family-friendly' topics, such as drugs, gore, extreme violence and the like. Previously they censored games by third party companies (removing gore from Mortal Kombat is one example of this), although now the 'family-friendly' seemed only to apply to their own games, as I think later Mortal Kombats still had gore, and Perfect Dark had gore and some bad language (getting an 18 rating), and resident evil coming to N64.

Most of the time Nintendo seem to avoid stuff that wouldn't appeal to kids, rather than particularly target kids, although the cute monsters of pokemon, must surely be targetted at kids. Most of the time I would say Nintendo probably do go for things with rather general appeal.

Also, about the bit on handhelds. I don't think the current incarnation adds much to the entry, I think it could probably be deleted without losing very much, although it might be worth including the information, fleshed out, in a seperate entry. If you want to talk about handhelds, it's probably better to try and integrate them into the main narrative of the entry, if it's possible without the information appearing as padding.

The main areas for inprovement have I think been stated in my original posting, such things as including more dates to give a sense of the timescale, toning down some of the anti-sony language in the entry. I think it's worth you having a thorough read through of that, if you haven't already, as you don't seem to have responded to much of that apart from the target age group bit (I assume that you were responding to me)

Another point occurs to me. You say that Microsoft is aiming to monopolise computer games as it has computer software. Whilst they may want to be a monopolist in the area (although microsoft probably aren't alone if they do), they haven't monopolised the computer software market. They have competition in the applications market with Office (Lotus Smartsuite and Corel's office package), in the programming language front (Delphi, for example, is one competitor to some of Microsoft's languages such as Visual Basic). The only area I can think of where there is a lack of competition against microsoft is in the operating system market in particular, although linux seems to be becoming popular, and other operating systems are apparently used in business (unix comes to mind). There there is the Imac, which I know very little about, but I assume doesn't use windows.

You also seem to be suggesting that microsoft only entered the computer game market when they launched the X-box, whereas they have been in the market for a fair while, with games such as Age of Empires ('97), and I think quite a few others.

I am also reminded of the delay in the launch of the N64, which lead to the Playstation being out for quite a while before the N64 was out. I can't remember the details, but this can't have helped the chances of Nintendo. Some people might have waited (I was one), but people with no particular loyalty to any format might have gone for the 'next generation' console that was actually out, rather than wait. That could be worth mentioning.

Well, I actually did mention a couple of these in the new entry. It's there now, so check it out.

"Aurelias, Have you ever played Perfect Dark? Definitely worth &#8364;60."

That should have read: "robtree, have you ever played Perfect Dark? Definitely worth 60" .

PS: I now have even more on the SNES vs Mega Drive.

Sam, I reckon this is ready. Oh btw, if this happes to make the front page, could someone please drop me a line in case I don't get online that day?

There has been an improvement on the preview incarnation, but I still think there are problems with the entry.

One general problem is that the paragraphs seem to be too long, making it a bit difficult on the eye.

Some problems relate to the paragraph about the commodore 64 and spectrum. You seem to be saying the main distriction of them was that you could re-code games. As far as having infinite lives is concerned, you could get them in a similar with with the action replay cartidge or similar on many pure consoles, such as the SNES. I would say the main difference was that the C64 let you write programs. The main screen that popped up was one where you could write programs in BASIC.

Also, I doubt whether more people were writing their own games, rather than entering codes for infinite lives, or to skip levels etc.

The paragraph after that, mentioning various other consoles, seems a bit muddled. In particular, some dates would be worth including as you seem to be assuming that we know what period we are talking about. Also, some of the consoles don't seem appropriate in this section, or at least don't seem to belong together. The Atari 5200 was apparently launched in the 1982 (http://www.atari-history.com/A5200.html), whereas the Jaguar was apparently launched in 1993 (http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/showpage.phtml?page=a2), so it seems odd to include them in the same section, particular as if the dates are correct, the Jaguar came after the NES (launched in 1985 apparently :http://www.gamersgraveyard.com/repository/snes/history/snesbirth.html), and even SNES (1991 according to this site:http://www.gamersgraveyard.com/repository/snes/history/snesbirth.html)

There is also a minor niggle about the use of the phrase 'microsoft-style tactics' relating to Sony's marketing of the PS2. The issue is that the tactics in this case appear to be mere hype. Whilst microsoft are not known for being reserved in their self-promotion, hype is hardly something microsoft have a monopoly on. Microsoft have been accused of much worse.

That leads onto another point unresolved from my last comments, that of microsoft currently monopolising computer software. I think, the claim is rather exagerated, for reasons I went into in the previous post.

Also, I notice you have upgraded the Gameboy Advantage to 'actually as powerful as the Playstation'. Like I said before, I doubt this. I would be more convinced if you provided a source for the information, so I, and the readers, can find out more about this.

Another thing occurs to me, how did battery backup affect things, when it allowed game progress to be saved to the cartridge. It did change console games quite a bit, as you could play games over a period of weeks or months even, without having to enter insanely long passwords. The SNES had it (from the becoming, I think), but what about the megadrive, and if not, how did that affected things.

With regards to the C64 and Speccy, I don't think either of them should feature in this entry - As a long-time 64 owner, I object very strongly to anyone who thinks it's anything other than a computer! (Or, in other words, "console my arse!") Up until Dreamcast, I would argue that if it has a keyboard, it isn't a console.

I agree that the time lines are very strange - Jaguar comes well after NES, as really does NeoGeo. And as for the Gameboy Advance, I seem to recall that in most ways it is a compacted SNES, not a compacted PSX.

'In the Beginning there was the word, and the word was Arcade. This is where Video Gaming began,'

That's really quite innacurate. Video gaming began in US universities when Steve Russell developed 'Space War' for the PDP-11, a huge and bloody expensive 1960's room-sized computer. It travelled around between a few universities, giving computer geeks across America a reason to not do any work (see any similarities with modern gaming here?).

You've aso entirely ignored the Magnavox Odyssey, the worlds first video games machine, and Atari's development of Pong.

http://www.pong-story.com is a good place to start when researching the early history of home computer gaming.

OK, that's a lot of info...

The GBA is as powerful as a PlayStation - it has CastleVania - Harmony of dissonance on it - a PlayStation title. However, due to the smaller screen it would generally be unable to display PlayStation-style graphics, which is why most games look like (and, indeed, are) SNES titles.

"As far as having infinite lives is concerned, you could get them in a similar with with the action replay cartidge or similar on many pure consoles, such as the SNES."

Not quite true. The acton replay cartridge was an add-on, but the coding I speak of was actually reprogramming the entire game.

"Whilst microsoft are not known for being reserved in their self-promotion, hype is hardly something microsoft have a monopoly on. Microsoft have been accused of much worse.

"That leads onto another point unresolved from my last comments, that of microsoft currently monopolising computer software. I think, the claim is rather exagerated, for reasons I went into in the previous post."

While Microsoft don't have a monopoly on hype, they are the world leaders in it. I also felt that what I said implied Microsoft had *attempted* to monopolize computer software, but I guess I should clear that up.

Firstly, I'll respond to your replies to my last comments, Hussassan.

I'm still not convinced on the gameboy advantage being as powerful as a playstation thing. The screenshots for the game look pretty much like that for the SNES. It may be a game of the same name was released on playstation, but that doesn't mean that they require the same amount of power to play.

It seems unlikely that screen area (or resolution), is a factor in graphics here, the real issue to me is the sophistication of 3d graphics, which I would have thought could be displayed with the gameboy's screen. If not though, and this is the restricting factor, then I would say the issue of power is accademic here, as the power isn't being used.

On the issue of repramming, the bit you quote refers specifically to repgramming to get infinite lives, and similar, where there was very similar support on the SNES. As far as reprogramming games entirely, whilst it might have been technically possible to do that, I would imagine this would have required quite a bit of technical knowledge.

I'm glad you've scaled back the claim that more people were writing their own games that going for infinite lives, but you haven't mentioned BASIC at all, whereas that was something that I think was the subject of most of the C64 manual, and you could program straigth from the start screen.

Another distinguishing feature is that the c64 (and I think the speccy too), was that most things came on tape, with some stuff on cartridge or floppy disk (this was when floppy disks were really floppy). Most console games came on cartridge. This meant that you could have demos (and some full games) on coverdisks, which is rather difficult with cartridges (but possible now with CDs for the playstation). Also disks and tapes were writeable, so you could save your programs, unlike with cartridges.

Then onto the microsoft stuff. The first quote was an objection to the phrase 'microsoft-style tactics', which only referred to hype. Now you seemed to have changed this to 'microsoft-style hype'. This isn't really much more satisfactory, as microsoft aren't particularly known for a particular brand of hype, and this seems to be more of an excuse to have a dig at microsoft, than a useful analogy.

Also, I'm not sure that microsoft are trying to monopolise the games market anymore than their competitors have.

I haven't had a thorough look through the entry, to see all your changes, but I'll leave things there for now.

BTW - Battery BackUp first appeared in The Legend of Zelda on the NES.

This entry has just been updated. If you have any more comments, please tell me.

The opening is better, but we're still talking about consoles as evolutionary steps from early computers, which they are not.

As I see it, the first home video games were the late 70's TV plug-in boxes (which had hard-wired games). The more complex games available on early 80's computers (C64, Speccy and others) killed those, but there was still a market for pure entertainment vehicles. That's where the Atari consoles, then NES and so forth come in.

And I still want proof that the NeoGeo comes before the NES - I remember NeoGeo powered arcade machines at my leisure centre in the early 1990's, I think it comes after NES at the very least

The NES first appeared in 1985, whereas the NeoGeo entered the home console market in 1990. The SNES was released in 1991.

I'll change it, but this is basically an entry on recent history.

We know - We're just pedantic, soppy, nostalgic old men!

No problem. It's always good to have someone with first habd experience of stuff that happened before I was born.

Hussassan your patience SHALL be rewarded! Once again, this had been picked by a Scout and recommended for inclusion into the Edited Guide. Auberious, can we call this a wrap now? I'm *very* close to hitting the big red accept button.

I certainly hope so. If no-one has any more complaints, then accept it.