Retro Gaming Comunity

[ant512]

Originally posted by FromWithin
Piracy had nothing whatsoever to do with the success of the Playstation. When it was released, a CD-writer would have set you back over £1000 (not to mention the SCSI PC you would have needed), and blank CDs were about £15 each. The ability to copy games was out of pretty much everybody's reach. Even though the swap-trick became well-known quite quickly, piracy was not a problem except for commercial copiers.

Piracy may have had nothing to do with the initial success of the Playstation, but you can't ignore its impact on the console's continued longevity. From the days of the Spectrum onwards, people have bought the console that everyone else has, mainly because they can either buy dodgy copies from their friends or borrow the games and create their own copies. The last time I heard the Playstation discussed in public, three kids were cajoling their friend for being the only one with an unchipped machine.

Everyone I've met who has owned a Playstation has had it chipped ('cept for that one kid, natch, but then I didn't actually talk to any of them). Every Playstation owner I've met has a collection of pirated games, and the number of pirate copies is usually significantly larger than the number of originals.

I think you also have to lay more blame at the door of Sega. The Saturn was undoubtedly a mistake, and demonstrated Sega's complete misreading of the market and its movement towards 3D. However, Sega had already ruined their reputation with the Mega CD, 32X and Game Gear - they kept releasing sub-standard hardware and abandoning it a few months later. (Of course, they eventually did that with both the Saturn and the Dreamcast. Now there's a shock!)

Who was going to spend ~£300 on a slab of black plastic that would be obsolete and worthless within a year? After three mistakes, it is not surprising that the public waited to see what Sony could produce instead.

From the developer's point of view, they did indeed split the market with the 32X and Mega CD. From the perspective of the average punter, Sega kept releasing overpriced, underpowered hardware with no software support. Mix in the bad press that the Saturn and Sega itself were receiving, even before its release (Sega Power were increasingly sceptical about the machine, especially as it became more and more apparent that it was a Frankenstein's monster inside the case; they were also unimpressed by Sega's treatment of the Mega Drive expansions) and it is hard to imagine anyone but the most die-hard Sega fans buying a Saturn at all.

And now you have to lay some of the blame at Nintendo's door. Once again they released their new hardware months later than their competitors, a trend started with their reluctance to update the aging NES. With Sega's reputation in tatters and an indefinite wait before Nintendo got their act together, the Playstation was the only option.

The rest is fairly obvious: the early-adopters buy the Playstation; the Playstation gets all the best games because it has the largest established user-base; Sega abandon the Saturn; Nintendo stick with cartridges and drive away 3rd-party developers, partly because of licencing costs and the cartridge limitations, and partly because the PS already has a large section of the market cornered; the Playstation becomes cool; piracy becomes cheap; Sony win.

The most astounding thing is the mind-boggling level of arrogance and stupidity exhibited by Sega and Nintendo. They must surely have gone to the same business school as Commodore. After years of paying vastly inflated prices for their games, though, I can't help but take some satisfaction in seeing them get their collective arses kicked.

[killergorilla]

Originally posted by ant512
they kept releasing sub-standard hardware and abandoning it a few months later. (Of course, they eventually did that with both the Saturn and the Dreamcast. Now there's a shock!)

For a start, Sega didn't abandon the Saturn, in fact quite the opposite. The reason Sega lost so much money is because they wouldn't let go of the Saturn (especially in Japan) and ended up pouring more and more money into to try and keep it alive. This is why the Dreamcast became the make or break system for them. And to be honest, it could have done the job. They needed it to make money and it may have done so was it given a chance.

It was released at the wrong time, Sony had such a strong foothold and seemed to have released information on the PS2 at a time when the Dreamcast was trying to make an impact. A lot of people just sat tight with their PS and thought that the Dreamcast would do another Sega.

Unfortunately all the early adopters of the dreamcast were in for a shock when third party support all but dried up because of piracy. No one was willing to make games for a console that wouldn't sell any games. And Sega weren't about to kill themselves off completely. At least they learnt from the mistakes of the Saturn for one thing. They let it go. Many people hated the fact that Sega dropped the Dreamcast because games just stopped and the console died prematurely. If Sega would have carried on supporting it, yeah we might have seen some more games, but we would have also seen Sega dissapear completely and they would have never been able to carry on as a Software Company.

The strangest thing about the Dreamcast is how it is always looked back upon fondly. People always thought it was a good system, with a great lineup of games.

So much innovation too. Oh well. Such is life.

[ant512]

Did Dreamcast 3rd-party support really dry up because of piracy? It's difficult to accept that when piracy was so widespread on the Playstation. Was piracy simply an excuse for 3rd-party developers to dump the system in favour of the more successful Playstation series, which promised more sales simply because of its larger audience?

I didn't know that Sega kept supporting the Saturn for so long. It was around the time of the Saturn's release that I gave up on Sega.

[killergorilla]

Piracy was more of an issue with the Dreamcast than it ever was on the Playstation.

For a start, to pirate a game for the playstation you needed to open the console, buy a modchip, solder the thing in. And when the PS started, CD writers cost around £1000.

With the Dreamcast all you needed was a cd writer. No modchip no soldering, no nothing. Just download a game, burn it, play it. And cd writers cost less than £100

[BobRedthorp]

On the first gen version of the playstation you didnt need to modify it to play pirate games.

You could swap discs as the PS logo appeared, makeing the PS think it was a different game it was running.

I did this for a while until the small bit which the disc clips into decided to fall out

[cv643d]

I remember first time I saw a PSX live late in 1994 or in 1995. It was at a computer show. They had it set up with a huge 40 inch TV with loud CD-quality music and they where running some Ridge Racer compo. There was a huge crowd.

It was imediately clear the first time I saw that game that there was a new standard in videogames. Even thought they only demoed a single game it was clear that what they showed was so fresh and new everything else sucked. Nintendo was still pushing its SNES at the show, hyping Donkey kong land with a huge videowall running interviews with Rare, and I remember a Jaguar styled truck that had some Jaguars but no-one was playing with them! haha... and they even had some CD32's set up for gaming but I dont think Body Blows and Oscars/Diggers made such a huge impact.

Just 4 weeks ago I found that Ridge Racer ISO on the net, its only 4 MB large.

[FromWithin]

Originally posted by BobRedthorp
On the first gen version of the playstation you didnt need to modify it to play pirate games.

You could swap discs as the PS logo appeared, makeing the PS think it was a different game it was running.

I did this for a while until the small bit which the disc clips into decided to fall out

There was a better way than that (which probably would have meant the clip didn't break). You'd boot up with no disc, go to the CD player, then insert your original. Take out the disc (holding the door-open button closed), then put in the CD-R. Exit the CD player and it would boot up fine.

The CD table would be knackered though, so if the first disc had less CD tracks than the copy, it wouldn't be able to play them in-game.

[BobRedthorp]

.

There was a better way than that (which probably would have meant the clip didn't break). You'd boot up with no disc, go to the CD player, then insert your original. Take out the disc (holding the door-open button closed), then put in the CD-R. Exit the CD player and it would boot up fine.

Yes, I did that too but it only worked for certain games, you couldnt do it with newer games.

Now I just stick to buying the games.

Infact I now buy most of the games I had from second hand games shops etc.

[7-Zark-7]

Just wanted to add a "well done" to From Within's succinct "inside viewpoint", on the Sega/Nintendo vs Sony.

And I think he made an excellent,underplayed point regarding the PS2,with its PS1 backwards compatibility-for once your old collection of classics weren't rendered useless. Alongside the DVD playback,& a general expectation that it wasn't a matter of if, but when Sega would fail,(as far as the gaming media were concerned), always made the PS2 the obvious choice.

[Hammy]

wonder what would happen if sega started to make t.v's!
( )

hey. ive not got a playstation.. and never will have one.. so it wasnt what everyone wanted..
once the saturn died i got an N64 pronto.. and still have not baught a newer console..

[Unknown_K]

Originally posted by 7-Zark-7
Just wanted to add a "well done" to From Within's succinct "inside viewpoint", on the Sega/Nintendo vs Sony.

And I think he made an excellent,underplayed point regarding the PS2,with its PS1 backwards compatibility-for once your old collection of classics weren't rendered useless. Alongside the DVD playback,& a general expectation that it wasn't a matter of if, but when Sega would fail,(as far as the gaming media were concerned), always made the PS2 the obvious choice.

I dont think being backward compatible is much of a selling point. If you had a psx1 with games you either kept them all or sold them all. I dont know anybody who sold a psx and kept the games.

[woody57]

May be I,m part of the analagous statistics brigade but my son in law bought a PS2 { for him and my grandson } sold on the PS1 kept the games it gave him a start libary ! , two of my second eldest daughters ex boyfriends traded up to PS2 kept old discs to play because they cost a fortune original 1st time round ..... in fact so did my son when he upgraded ! . In each case they were determined not to have to start from scratch and lose choice ......... hang on thats four , damn my senility

[Unknown_K]

Originally posted by woodshed57
May be I,m part of the analagous statistics brigade but my son in law bought a PS2 { for him and my grandson } sold on the PS1 kept the games it gave him a start libary ! , two of my second eldest daughters ex boyfriends traded up to PS2 kept old discs to play because they cost a fortune original 1st time round ..... in fact so did my son when he upgraded ! . In each case they were determined not to have to start from scratch and lose choice ......... hang on thats four , damn my senility

Must be something in the water you guys in the UK have.

[woody57]

.....And the beer