In the mid-1990s, a man named George Wood created a TV show called
Flights of Fantasy on a Maryland public-access channel. The show was was dedicated to videogames, and gained quite a few detractors; Wood was not known for his playing skills, research, or good taste, and the production was rather cheap. He would also tend to go off-topic, sometimes markedly so.
It had a small following, being a local public-access show, but would have been lost forever had Wood not joined a video gaming association called NAViGaTR, who archived the entire series, edited each episode, and put them online as
Gaming in the Clinton Years.
posted by Anatoly Pisarenko
on Mar 21, 2011 -
12 comments
Platypus Comix has compiled images from around the Internet of
prototype game consoles and peripherals spanning from the original NES all the way to the Sony PlayStation 3. You'll see the NES's tape recorder, a touch pad for the Sega Genesis, the infamous Nintendo PlayStation, a PlayStation Portable you can clip to your backpack ("...or whatever reckless thing they thought you'd try."), a Wii controller with just one large button, and the embarrassing PS3 "serect" button.
[more inside]
posted by Servo5678
on Apr 14, 2010 -
38 comments
Citing security concerns, Sony has decided to release a firmware
update that will disable the "OtherOS" feature on its older (non-slim) PlayStation 3 systems. This is almost certainly a response to the system finally being
hacked two months ago by George "GeoHot" Hotz. To counter Sony's disabling of the feature, Hotz, who previously stated that he would not be releasing custom firmware for the PS3,
now plans to do so:
"The PlayStation 3 is the only product I know that loses features throughout its lifecycle. Software PS2 emulation, SACD playback, and OtherOS support are all just software switches you can flip. It's unbelievable you would go and flip one, not just on new boxes you are shipping, but on tens of millions already in the field."
posted by Who_Am_I
on Mar 30, 2010 -
126 comments
to my left is a youngish software developer from Yokohama, incandescent with rage. To my right is the finance officer of a major games publisher. Worryingly, he is tapping sums into a pocket calculator and shaking his head...
It shouldn't have been a surprise (
...) but yesterday's
announcement (pdf) from Sony has
crushed 14 year-olds of all ages. The
Playstation 3 is shaping up as a great
IT Disaster. The 'Times' man in Tokyo -
Leo Lewis -
elaborates, muses on being a games geek in Akihabara (with cash and a proper job) and explains the delights of
"beer flavored alcohol", just what we need to drown our sorrows.
posted by grahamwell
on Mar 16, 2006 -
61 comments
SEGA Fantasy VI - Our intrepid band of console heroes battle the evil of the Playstation Portable.
[Flash, long, extremely nerdy]
posted by neckro23
on Apr 20, 2005 -
15 comments
Lightning begin their Stanley Cup Defense During the lockout and cancelled season, a Tampa Tribune sports writer has been using a popular hockey simulation game to play out the 2004-2005 season, and has been covering each game as if it were real. Yesterday the SimBolts took a 2-0 lead in their first round match, on the strength of Ruslan Fedotenko's hat trick. Final
standings and
league leaders. ¶ The Virtual Ottawa Senators have a 2-0 lead over the SimLeafs. I'll be checking back to see faux Ottawa choke.
posted by KS
on Apr 17, 2005 -
14 comments
The Getaway is a game for the PS2 set in a realistically modelled representation of London. You'd have to be really bored to go and find all the locations in the game and re-create the missions for real,
wouldn't you?
posted by Mwongozi
on Aug 26, 2003 -
16 comments
Buy Bush a Playstation 2. If the fundraising goal is met, the President will be given a PS2 with a copy of
SOCOM and
Conflict: Desert Storm, hopefully distracting him long enough to forget about the real war. Send your donation and you'll save a lot more people than just Karyn.
posted by XQUZYPHYR
on Oct 28, 2002 -
11 comments
Under 5,000 Xboxes sold in Japan last week. This is compared to 100k Playstation2s and 25k Gamecubes. Since its launch, the Xbox has sold 190k units in Japan versus the Playstation's 980k units sold in the first 3 days.
Is the Xbox doomed in the notoriously tough Japan gaming market, or does the Xbox just need a price cut to stay competitive?
posted by jragon
on Apr 8, 2002 -
51 comments
Say goodbye to Bleem. If you don't know, Bleem made emulator software that allowed you to play Playstation games on another console system or your PC. Their 'farewell' is kind of funny in a sad way.
posted by Sal Amander
on Dec 19, 2001 -
6 comments
Playstation 3 chip to be designed by IBM.
The three companies (Sony, IBM, and Toshiba) aim to design a "super-computer on a chip" with a wide variety of consumer applications, they said in a joint statement.
"The result will be consumer devices that are more powerful than IBM's Deep Blue super-computer, operate at low power and access the broadband internet at ultra-high speeds," the statement added
Wowzers!
posted by zeoslap
on Mar 12, 2001 -
22 comments
PlayStation 2 not quite what it was promised to be. "Japanese have purchased about 3.5 million PlayStation 2s, but there are signs that sales have leveled off."
"Analysts had predicted a runaway success, but now they are forecasting Sony losses of more than $200 million on its game business in the year ending next March—its first such loss in years."
posted by Steven Den Beste
on Dec 12, 2000 -
20 comments
Now while these guys are not exactly the most unbiased source for an
evaluation of the PlayStation 2, they have nonetheless backed up their evaluation with a lot of convincing hard information on the
performance and in particular about the
financing. If these guys have got it right, Sony's going to take a bath on this; they'll never come close to recouping their costs of production, let alone all the research they did. If these guys have it right, Sony will lose money on the PS2 as long as they sell it. This Is Not Good. (Unless you hate Rambus, like I do, because this means both of their markets will collapse.)
posted by Steven Den Beste
on Oct 30, 2000 -
19 comments
How could Sony be low on cash when Target, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Circuit City all have lines of people around the corner who have been waiting since yesterday morning? All waiting to get their very own PX2.
Think about this - approximately 500,000 of the units will sell today, at $300 a pop, plus numerous purchases of games in addition to the console. Let's estimate that each lucky customer will spend $400 (1 PX2, and 2 games per customer - a modest estimate). That's a one-day gross of $200,000,000.
My bet? Sony will not only turn itself around by the end of the day today, cause a major boom in US currency flow, but also cause a sharp decline in spending for the next month - people will be at home playing their new games, and will have little interest in going out to buy anything else!
posted by tatochip
on Oct 26, 2000 -
31 comments
This has nothing to do with the web.. But in case you're like me and the time you spend away from your computer usually consists of
drinking beer and/or playing on your neato
video game system.
You NEED Tony Hawk. the graphics on the DC version kick playstation's ass and its the perfect game to waste hours of time and lots of beers and to destroy your friend's ego.
posted by sikk
on Jun 6, 2000 -
11 comments
The Playstation 2, just like the G4 is considered a Supercomputer too. It's nice to know that hostile nations won't rip apart the system after they get gunned down in Metal Gear Solid.
posted by Cavatica
on Mar 9, 2000 -
0 comments
Sony web site mobbed... The number of nline orders for the PSX2 at the Sony web site forced Sony to close down the page temporarily as they were getting 100K hits in one minute yesterday.
The PSX2 is projected to be released on March 4th. =)
posted by hobbes
on Feb 19, 2000 -
3 comments
