Connecting my PS2 via component cables

I love my PS2, but it just doesn't look good on HDTVs with composite video. Well, component fixes that problem.

OK, so I'm a BIG old school gamer, and probably even bigger PS2 gamer. I love the PS2. What Sony did with it is just amazing. Right now I'm working on getting a complete collection of North American PS2 games. But I run into this one issue, the PS2 and other old school videogame consoles look terrible on HDTVs. Old school videogame consoles were designed for old school CRT tube TVs and output either with f-jack coaxial cable or yellow white red composite cable. These are great for old TVs that only accept composite or f-jack, but they look terrible on HDTVs. This is because new HDTVs (which use 720i-1080p) upscale this content so that it can at least be visible on the display. I don't know all the specifics about how standard def content is upscaled to "high def" with TVs and why it looks so bad, but it does. It just does. When I have my PS2 or any old school game console connected to an HDTV, the edges are jagged, the colors suck, there's small vertical lines, and it just looks horrible. It makes me want to just play it on an old CRT TV, which I do most of the time. I have an oldschool set-up with a 27 inch CRT and an HD set-up.

However, I'm currently at college and all I have with me is an HDTV. I don't have the space to enjoy the luxury of a CRT (didn't think you'd hear anyone say that now did you.) I have one of my PS2s and it would get the job done, but I just couldn't overlook the upscaling artifacts. I've been considering buying a component cable for my PS2, and I've just been waiting to get enough swagbucks for the amazon gift cards, and after months of searching and wining, I earned enough to buy a component cable.

Today the cable arrived in the mail. After opening up the package and pulling out the cable, I disconnected the crappy composite cable from the TV and PS2 and connected the component cable. I have a feeling this is aftermarket because it fits more snugly in the port than the official Sony composite cable, but whatever. I've had good experiences with aftermarket cables before. Back home I have my other PS2 and gamecube connected with an aftermarket universal cable, and before I had an HDTV, my xbox360 as well. It worked so long as you didn't try to run 2 consoles at a time. So if this worked, I was happy. Well, it didn't work. I was a bit confused. I tried disconnecting and reconnecting the cable thinking something wasn't connecting properly. I checked to make sure everything was plugged into the right port, and they were. I thought, "maybe the cable and it's snug fit broke the connections," so I reconnected the composite and it worked fine. I wasn't sure if there was something wrong with my fat PS2 and it didn't want to output component, if there was something wrong with my TV since it does get a little weird when it comes to recognizing video inputs, or if my cable was just bad.

Well after a minute of swagbucks searches, I found out that I had to change the video settings in my PS2 through the systems boot menu. To do this, turn on your PS2 without a game in it and go to "systems configuration," then scroll down to "component video out," and change from "RGB" to "Y Cb/Pb Cr/Pr." The official PS2 help forum says that Y Cb/Pb Cr/Pr is the default, but mime was set to RGB. Whatever, if yours is set to RGB, connect your PS2 to your TV via composite, go into the system settings and follow the steps to change to component. After that, turn off your PS2, connect via component cable, and enjoy glorious component video output.

Here is where I would do a comparison between composite and component, but I'm going to save this for when I do a full episode with this. But here's the thing, it's night and day. Before with composite, there was horrible upscaling artifacts. The easiest way to see it was with "strait lines" with letters. I use quotes because those lines were more zig-zags in the shape of letters. It was pretty bad. When I connected it via component, it was gone. The edges are crisp. The colors are vibrant. There is no upscaling because it's already outputting in sub-HD. It's not in standard def upscaling. I don't know the exact video resolution, but I'm going to guess it's like 720i or 480p, but it's not the 360i or 480i standard def that is output with composite.

Now before I end this, this will not magically make the graphics of your PS2 on par with the PS3. You can still count the polygons in many games. The frame rate is still 30 FPS or whatever it is. The PS2 only has so much computing power. However, it will significantly improve the video quality. The PS2 can natively output video in sub-HD component video quality. It's just that the video is downgraded in the PS2 to output in composite standard def and then that is either native in you standard def TV or upscaled in your HDTV. By outputing through component, you're removing the downgrading and upscaling and getting the best possible video output from your PS2. It's like if you take a 10 megapixel picture, compress it to a 5 megapixel picture to send it via email, and then enlarge it to the dimensions of a 10 megapixel picture. At 5 megapixel dimensions, the picture looks fine, but when you enlarge it, it doesn't. However, if you just send the 10 megapixel picture, it doesn't suffer any of the compression artifacts. This is essentially what is happening with the PS2. The PS2 takes a 10 megapixel picture, and can either display it in it's 10 megapixel natural state, or it can compress it to 5 megapixels through composite, then the TV either takes it as natural in the case of CRT or upscales it with HDTVs. Well that's enough rambling for now. This has been Happy Gamer, signing off, and don't settle for composite when you can have component.

Kinect Bundles are Still a Thing? Well not Anymore on Amazon

I've not been a supporter of the kinect. You can read about it twice here and here. Anyways, Microsoft released a kinectless xbox one bundle about 4 months ago. I gotta say, I don't think anyone missed it. No games were really developed for kinect. No games were showcased with kinect features. After releasing the kinectless xbox one, there were some commercials that still showcased kinect, but those lasted a couple weeks and then were forgotten. In fact, until I read this article, I essentially forgot kinect 2.0 existed. And you know what, that's a good thing.

First, I want to talk about what this means for the kinect. You're dead. No one wants you. Amazon doesn't think you're worth their warehouse space, and they stock some stupid things. You'll be sitting alone in a corner along with the unsold kinect 1.0, and playstation eyes and move. Accept your fate and die in the ditch.

OK so now that I've rightfully added insult to injury, what does it mean that I, the most obsessive videogame collector and trivia aficionado I know, say I forgot the kinect bundles existed? I, a gamer who said "I will not buy an xbox one so long as I need to buy a kinect," forgot that the kinect is a thing. Well, it means Microsoft is doing something right. They really alienated consumers with the launch debacle; always online DRM, no used games, and mandatory kinect purchase and use. Well, that's blown over. Now instead of being points of distaste and not buying it, it's a memory of "boy you screwed up." Not being required to have gold to do everything except buy things and play offline is good as well, making it more competitive. I know some people are upset that Microsoft didn't stick to their guns, like Adam Sessler, but it was a goose egg, and best to just get rid of it. So...yeah, Microsoft, good job at making us forget about how you screwed up. It'll be a while before you get my money, but only because you haven't given me any system seller games. Sure, fanboys will continue to bring up the launch failure, I'm sure BlackBusterCritic is still bring it up, but fanboys will be fanboys.

I know it was short, but honestly I don't have much else to say, and I'm pretty tired. Well this has been happy gamer signing off, and if you make a goose egg, get rid of it and pretend it didn't happen, because we'll forget.

Nintendo's history with DLC

Alright, so it's no secret that Nintendo hasn't been to friendly to modern gaming practices, namely online support and DLC. Lots of people complain about online support for good reasons, and it's been mixed with the DLC. Some people applaud Nintendo for not being DLC happy in the 7th gen, others complain about how it drove away 3rd parties. I'm not here to review DLC on Nintendo consoles and handhelds, but rather to give you a history that most people kind of forget, along with a little theory.

OK, so back in the days of the Wii, PS3, and 360, with the advent of internet connected consoles and digital game stores for consoles, there was this thing called Downloadable Content, or DLC for short. This was extra content for a game that was already released, and would extend the life of that game. Things such as new multi-player maps, new characters, new levels, new stories, new other things that weren't included with the original release because it wasn't made at the time, or because the developers wanted more money. Why DLC exists is the topic for another rambling though. Anyways, the PS3 and 360 embraced the concept of DLC. They added sections to their online stores specifically for DLC. However, Nintendo didn't allow DLC on their Wii. With Nintendo games, you couldn't download the extra content, you either had to have it on the game disc or release a second edition. Again, people were mixed about that decision. Well, here's my theory as to why Nintendo didn't do DLC on the Wii.

Many people may think that the first time DLC was really implemented was with the 7th generation of gaming (PS360Wii). While that is when it was really breaking through, Nintendo actually did a form of DLC on the 6th generation, the gamecube and GameBoy Advance. "What? Really? They had DLC on 2 non-internet connected devices?" In a matter of speaking. They did a sort of DLC with the e-reader add-on for the GBA. With certain games, users could connect a GBA with an e-reader to the other game via a link cable, scan special e-reader cards that they bought, and use them to unlock content. Granted, it's not EXACTLY DLC, but the concept of expanding a game through a secondary purchase and downloading the expansion into the game was present in the 6th generation.

"So what does that have to do with Nintendo not having DLC on the Wii?" Well here's the thing, while rather revolutionary, it didn't go over very well. For starters, the e-reader kind of sucked. I have one and I get read error after read error. It's a very finicky device. The next aspect is that it was kind of expensive. I don't remember how expensive the actual e-reader was, but it definitely cost some money. Plus, if you were doing it for GBA e-reader support, you had to have a second GBA, something not everyone had. The other thing is that it wasn't widely adapted. I know I didn't have an e-reader until after the life of the GBA that I found at a garage sale. I didn't know anyone that had an e-reader. It just wasn't well received. There also wasn't a lot of games that supported e-reader. The most notable one is Animal Crossing. Some other games had it, but not many. The somewaht commercial failure of the e-reader and it's "DLC" I think put a bad taste in Nintendo's mouth. But it's only a theory.

Man, I should do a review of the e-reader some day. But not today. Well this has been Happy Gamer signing off, and Nintendo had DLC before the others.

Shut-up About Specs/Price and Just Play Games

We all know the old talking points; "PC master race with my 60 fps at 1080p," and "yeah but that's because you dropped $2000 on a gaming rig that will last a year, whereas my $400 console will last me 8 years." "But you got little resolution, mine looks superior." "But yours costs so much more." "Well I have Steam sales." "Well I have used games." Back and forth back and forth. SHUT UP!!!!!!

Really, I am sick and tired of people battling over specs and price when it comes to PC and console gaming. As I said it before and I'll say it again, EVERY PLATFORM HAS IT'S POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES! (except steam machine :P, that sucks and everyone knows it). So yeah, I'm sick and tired of the constant battle between PC master racers and console gamers who argue with them. PC gaming is expensive, get over it. I have a $600 laptop that can't do gaming well, and it's cheaper than the consoles on the market. I could mess with the settings, or I could build a budget rig, but I have better things to do with my time then try to make my games work. If I wanted to get the convenience of a console, I would have to buy some super expensive per-built rig. I don't care if you enjoy building PCs, I don't and many console gamers don't either, that's why they're console gamers. PC gaming is also almost exclusively digital, and I don't care if digital is the future and physical media is a thing of the past, I like my wall of games not my hard drive of games, PC or console.

Console also has it's draw backs as well. We don't have steam sales, which are nice if you like digital games. We don't have as large of an indi scene, except for maybe on the Wii U from what I've heard. We aren't running at the best technology has to offer. We don't have the options of mouse and keyboard or controller. We have our drawbacks and you have yours. But when you compare PC gaming to console gaming, you're comparing apples and oranges. PC gaming and console gaming are inherently different. All this bickering over PC vs console is an apple saying "I'm better than the orange because I'm sweet and you're sour," then the orange saying "I'm better than the apple because I'm sour and you're sweet." They're both fruit but they are inherently different and one should base the comparison of the 2 based on the inherent differences.

So what should we base our bickering on smart guy? Duh, who has the better games. One of the best things about Nintendo is that they have great exclusives. Whenever I see a flame war between PC and console gamers over specs and price, there's always 1 or 2 Nintendo gamers that are like "I have Mario, I have Smash Bros, I have fun games." That's what I like about Nintendo consoles. You don't see anyone going "he he, Wii U underpowered, I'm so much better than you." Well you did at the beginning when Nintendo was dropping the ball on the 3rd party releases, but now with all the exclusives, people can still be "well Wii U is underpowered my PS4/XBOX ONE/PC is so superior," but all the Nintendo gamer has to do is hold up a copy of Smash Bros and say "no, this is why I'm better than you." There are exclusives out there on PS4, XBOX ONE, and PC (well I think there are some on PS4 and XBOX ONE, not sure yet really). But yeah, how about instead of fighting over specs, we fight over who has the best games. I mean, Yoshi Story 2 and Kirby's Canvas Curse 2 are the reason I bought my Wii U, and I'll probably buy Donkey Kong Tropic Freeze, Mario 3D World, and a bunch of the other exclusives on Wii U, because that's why I bought my Wii U, the games. I don't play graphics, I play games. I'll take Conker's Bad Fur Day played on a fuzzy CRT over some uber realistic war shooter at 4K 60FPS at max settings any day. Well this has been Happy Gamer, signing off, and fight over games, not graphics.

Oh and before I go, I'm not a PC gamer, but my brother is. He plays his steam games on his laptop that's about as good as mine when it comes to gaming. He's fidgeted with it to make the games work on his laptop. Like any brother, I like to have a little light hearten fun at his expense, and he the same for me. Nothing serious, just like the story I'm about to share. One day I'm looking over his shoulder as he's playing some real time strategy brawler and the settings are rather crap. I throw the PC master race talking points at him since they aren't being fulfilled. I'm like "Oh so this is what glorious PC gaming looks like, is this 1080p 60fps? My our PS3 looks better than that. Why are you wasting your time if you can't get an experience that's better than a last gen console?" I'm just being a smart ass and trying to get some kind of response. He's just like "Dude shut up, I PC game because I don't have a TV at school, all my friends are on steam, and there's a bunch of games on here I can't get on console (like the one I'm playing at the moment)." Now why can't we all have reasons like that?

Emulation is NOT "console game disc playable on your PC."

OK, so I saw this on Did You Know Gaming yesterday.




"The disc has a windows .EXE file that can be play on a computer." By the language of the image, it sounds like you'd be able to pop the disc into your PC and play Pikmin, or something, on your PC. Well, as a fan of gaming, I decided to try it out. I have computers that have disc trays that can hold mini-discs. I have a Vista computer and a Windows 7 computer. Given the time the game was released and how technology advances, I figured that one or the other would work.

So I dig out my copy of Pikmin and plop it into my Windows 7 computer. My computer had some trouble reading the disc, as is to be expected, but then it didn't recognize it as "being there" and said "please insert a disc." Well, my computer was running a little hot since it was on for a while, so I decided I'll try it the next day when it cooled down.

I try it again today, it didn't work. "Please insert disc." I thought, "OK, maybe 7 is to advanced, I'll try Vista." I turn on the Vista computer and put the Pikmin disc into the disc tray. I opened up my computer, and same thing, "Please insert a disc." I'm thinking, "what gives, do I need to use XP? Well the XP computer is so screwed up we use it as a night stand, it can't even run Solitare let alone an actual game like Pikmin."

So I looked into the source of the DYKG post. Read it for yourself and see what you make of it.
"Source" that tell you about it.
"Notes" that give the how to.

Now I'm not going to act like I know everything there is to know about game programing, computers, and emulation, but reading how to do it sounds a lot like running the rom in an emulator. OK, it's not an emulator by traditional definitions, but you basically need to take the data from the disc, get a program to run the data, and then make some changes to the data so you can run it. To me, that sounds an awful lot like an emulator. This is not what I took away from the post; I interpreted it to mean "pop your copy of Pikmin into your computer and run the debug menu," not "rip the data for a copy of Pikmin, get a program that will play the data, and then make some changes to the data." Ug.

Well this has been Happy Gamer signing off, and DYKG, if you're reading this, do not include rom hacks of a game rom that needs an emulator as a bit of gaming trivia. The .EXE file thing might be good bit of trivia, but don't word it in a way that sounds like "put the disc in a computer and it'll run." Phase it like "if you look into the Pikmin rom, you'll find a windows .EXE file of a  debug mode."

XBOX Changes, XBOX ONE kinect free bundle and Gold is only needed for multiplayer

"I will never buy an XBOX ONE so long as I have to buy a Kinect." I don't know if I've ever said that here on this particular blog, but I know I've said it in the comment section on countless articles and videos about the XBOX ONE. This was not an idle threat, I hate the idea of being required to buy something I will never use and the potential will never be fully utilized except in maybe 1 game. Like before, not sure if I ever did my comparison of the Wii and the kinect on this particular blog, but I know I've said it whenever someone said "the technology in Kinect 2.0 is so much more advanced than the original kinect and it opens up the doors to so much." Yeah, the wii remote also had loads of potential, but all we got from that was 3 games that actually utilized the motion controls while the rest was shovelware or tacked on. The same exact thing was going to happen with the kinect. But back to me never buying xbox with kinect. I saw some amazing exclusives at E3. I saw some amazing exclusives on TV and in demo stations. I thought to myself "that sure looks like it'd be grand fun, to bad I'll never buy an XBOX ONE so long as kinect is a required purchase." Now praise the lord that the kinect is no longer mandatory. With that gone, I'm now considering the XBOX ONE as my next console.

On a less publicized note, Microsoft is now unlocking all the streaming media apps and other features from behind the XBOX Gold payment wall. Yeah, you heard right, you will not longer need XBOX Gold to use streaming apps like netflix, hulu plus, crackle, youtube, internet explorer, MLB, NFL, vevo, amazon instant video; the list goes on and on. What do I have to say to that, well thank-you for wising up Microsoft. Absolutely no other device, at least to my EXTENSIVE knowledge, required you to pay a payment wall to access services that are completely free elsewhere or only require you to pay the subscription for the single service. My PS3, all I have to do is pay my hulu plus subscription, buy the episodes or movies through Amazon instant video, or watch some commercials on Crackle. I don't need playstation plus to access these services. The same goes for the Wii, Wii U, Roku, any cell phone or tablet, apple TV, 3DS, PC, and EVERY OTHER DEVICE! When I heard that, I thought "hmm, looks like I'll be able to finally use my XBOX360 for something other than offline gaming." I only had gold for that 1 free month you get for creating an xbox live account. Never had it since. Never needed it. I don't like online multiplayer and they didn't have all the streaming apps I cared about before I got my PS3. Good on you Microsoft, you're giving us options. They're also reworking games with gold where you get free games for having gold, so now it's more like playstion plus, which is a plus. If I ever get the time to actually play videogames again, maybe, just maybe, I might want to get gold for the first time

Now for something that really irks me, when I read articles about people complaining about the kinect news. They're all sad that now we aren't forced to buy a kinect. The make it sound like Microsoft is completely dropping kinect support. News flash, it's still available, but now we don't have to buy it if we don't want to. "But without the known install base developers can't confidently develop for the kinect." Yeah and how well did that work with the Wii? All 3 of the games I played that actually utilized the motion controls were first party nintendo games. All the others were tacked on motion controls or shovelware. The same exact thing was going to happen to the kinect. And you know what, if a developer has an amazing idea for kinect integration or a kinect game, they're going to make it. Really, no developer is going to say "I have this amazing idea for a game that utilizes kinect and would be a system seller, and people would buy a kinect just to play this game, but I won't do it because there's not enough of an install base." If a serious developer went to Microsoft with that pitch, Microsoft would probably give them kinect royalties. But who am I kidding, no one is taking the kinect seriously except for Microsoft and a couple of crazy reporters and fanboys.

Well, that's enough rambling for this topic. This has been Happy Gamer signing off, and remember, you can't please all the people all the time, but you can please almost all of the people by removing crap.

The legend is true, E.T. games really were burried in a New Mexican Landfill

Urban legends are fun, but most of the times, they're so far fetched that there's no way they are real. However, there's always that grain of "this could actually happen." Well, here's one that is real.

Greetings, and welcome to happy gamer rambles. A blog where I ramble about my thoughts on videogame news and trends. A little over a week ago, I heard about the E.T. landfill dig that will tell us once and for all if millions of Atari E.T. games are buried in a New Mexican Landfill. Well, it happened this weekend and what is probably the best news ever happened, there REALLY WAS MILLIONS OF E.T. GAMES BURIED IN THE LANDFILL!

No really, Atari actually dumped it's excess E.T. games in a landfill. Check out the Kotaku and Yahoo Games articles on it. I'm sure that by the time you're reading this there will be way more articles on it. But it's real. The legend is real. And as a testament to the durability of cartridge games, someone plugged one into an Atari and it worked.

So what do I have to say on this, I'm ecstatic. This is such great news. I loved the legend. I loved telling people about the legend. I just loved the idea of the company responsible for the worst game ever made burying their leftover inventory in a New Mexican landfill that doesn't allow garbage picking just so the public won't be able to get their hands on easy game copies. When I told people about this dig event, I actually had to tell a fair amount of people about the legend and the game. Looks like my original "everyone has heard of Atari E.T." statement was a little inaccurate, but that just meant that I got to tell people the legend and the history of Atari E.T. It was always a fun story to tell, but I always had to preface with "the legend says" or "according to popular theory" or some other "I can't say this is fact but this is what many people say happened." Now I know it's true. Now when I tell the legend, I can say "this actually happened, on April 26th 2014, almost 30 years after the games were buried, a dig crew got permission to dig the landfill and found thousands, maybe millions of E.T. cartridges." I only wish I was there to see it personally and dig up my own landfill Atari E.T. I want one really bad. Hopefully I can buy one for a reasonable price on eBay. That way, I would have a "to play" copy and a "landfill display" copy.

Well this has been happy gamer signing out. And remember, even if an urban legend seems a little far fetched, it just may end up being true.

E.T. Landfill Dig

E.T. for the Atari 2600 is considered the worst videogame of all time, and rightfully so. It's so bad, it even killed Pokematic once. Don't know what I'm talking about, check out our review of Atari E.T. here. It's also so bad, it didn't sell very well, but millions of copies were made. So what happened to the millions that didn't sell? Well urban legend says they were buried in a landfill in New Mexico. I say "urban legend" because Atari has neither confirmed nor denied that, and there's a landfill in New Mexico that doesn't allow for trash picking and it would be just about the right size to hold millions of Atari cartridges. Well, that is until April 26th 2014.

Yeah, that's right, after 20+ years of secrecy and "no one gets to dig here," archiologists and gamers alike are finally going to be able to see if there really is a landfill full of millions of Atari E.T. carts. Here's the IGN article.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/04/10/et-video-game-dig-gets-the-green-light

So what are my thoughts on this historic event. I'm psyched. I mean, this is the worst game of all time. This game almost single handedly destroyed videogames as we know it. I, the Happy Gamer, would not exist if this game was successful in destroying video games. Sure, Catholiccontriversy and Pokematic would still be here, but I wouldn't. But here's the thing, I have a deep appreciation for E.T. It is a testament to how terrible a game can be. I have an actual copy of it, and I'm proud to have such a terrible game in my collection. As a collector, I like my games to have history. I like the history behind the action 52. I like the history behind Conkers Bad Fur Day. But the history behind E.T., that just takes the cake. There are some really terrible games out there, and many people wouldn't know they exist if it wasn't for people like AVGN and Irate Gamer. Those games were just so forgettable. However, E.T. lives in infamy. It is a game that is so monumentally bad, you can't forget about it. We as gamers will never forget about it. I can talk to people who only play modern games, and they will know about E.T. I can talk to people who don't even fully know what an Atari is, but they will know E.T. It's just that powerful.

So why should we care if millions of copies were disposed of in a landfill? I'm sure many that were bought are in landfills as well. And while that may be true, that was consumer choice and those are scattered around the world amongst egg shells, wrapping paper, and other garbage. However, this was Atari dumping millions at once in one spot. These E.T. cartridges are amongst millions of other cartridges, and there isn't an egg shell or wrapping paper within miles. As the legend goes, this was a land fill that was basically made for E.T. And if it wasn't made for it, the landfill was the only one that was remote enough and didn't allow for garbage picking. This is the perfect place to unload millions of dollars worth of game cartridges.

Where will I be when this happens? Unfortunately I will be back home unpacking and sorting my college stuff. If I had the money and the time, I would be out there in the New Mexican dessert with my shovel in hand, hoping to get a landfill copy of E.T. If I didn't get a copy, I would just be happy being part of the history. And that's why people care about it, it's history. We're going to put to rest the urban legend of millions of Atari E.T. games just getting dumped in a New Mexican landfill. This is history in the making. Aside from the spectators uploading cell phone videos of the event, apparently there's going to be actual documentary filmmakers shooting a documentary on it. Really, this is history in the making. I'll keep you posted when we actually get details on it. Well, this has been Happy Gamer, signing off, and remember, if you dispose of your terrible game in a landfill hoping people will forget about it, 20 years later, they'll still remember, and will want to dig it up.

Happy Gamer Rambles, the Kinect 2.0 is the root of all XBOX ONE failures

OK, so I've tackled the always online and used game DRM and how micosoft just botched how they handled that. Here is my theory why they botched it; they put all their confidence in the selling power of the Kinect. Here's the problem, the Kinect was Dead On Arrival. Just by definition the Kinect is a failure. Before I get ahead of myself, let me talk about how they handled the Kinect.

OK, first a little history for the guys reading this 10 years from now. Back in the last couple of years of the XBOX360, Microsoft made a nifty little camera thing that plugs into your XBOX360 and you could do motion controls without any controllers, unlike Nintendo and Sony. I tried it, and it was kind of cool. The games were lame, like the Wii tech demo games, but it was still nifty. Well Microsoft really shoehorned it at the end of the 360 with most of the 360 exclusive games being Kinect games. Well, no one really cared about the Kinect. I give them credit for trying something different, but people really didn't care. Fast forward a couple of years, Nintendo reveled the Wii U, a console that didn't rely on motion controls, and it looked like we were just going to get back to simple gaming. Uhhh, wrong. At the revile of the XBOX ONE, Microsoft showcased the Kinect 2.0, a new and improved Kinect that can read people's faces, recognize extremities as small as fingers, automatically sign in whomever is holding the controller, and loads of voice commands. OK whatever, Microsoft made an even more nifty motion control camera. It'll be a nice little accessory I'll likely pick up on sale at the end of the console life. WRONG! Turns out, every XBOX ONE console will be bundled with it, and not only that, the XBOX ONE won't work if the Kinect isn't connected. You have absolutely no choice if you want this or not. We're doing this so developers can confidently develop for the Kinect because it has an install base. Oh yeah, and because of it, our console is $100 more than the PS4, but Sony makes you buy their motion control camera for $60, we're giving you ours for free*.

*$100 higher price is the result of an add on you don't even want.

Oh yeah, 10% of the hardware is reserved for the Kinect. Even if your game doesn't use Kinect features, you won't be able to use all the hardware.

OK, lets break this down:
1. We're forcing you to buy an add on if you buy our console
2. This add on is why we are $100 more expensive than the competition.
3. We want to make sure developers know there's an install base for it so they feel confident developing for it.
4. You have to use it otherwise your console won't work.

OK Microsoft, let me tell you about another console that shoehorned motion controls. When Nintendo made the Wii, it was pretty revolutionary. Home motion controls. Who could beat it? Wiis were flying off the shelf. Everyone was out of stock. Why were people buying it? Because it was a cool gimmick. What happened though is not pretty. No one really bought any games for it. The attach rate was around 1 to 1 (an average of 1 game per console.) People bought it for Wii Sports. The top selling game, Wii Play, only sold that many copies because it was the only way to get a second remote for the longest time. Most of the games that utilized the motion controls were shovelware. The semi-decent games botched the use of motion controls. There were only 2 really good games that fully utilized the motion controls. Everything else was lame or didn't utilize the motion controls. All those average Joe people stopped playing their Wiis after 2 years and left them to collect dust. The "hardcore gamer" didn't buy the Wii for the motion controls, they bought it for Mario and Zelda games. Nintendo realized the mistake with the motion controls and dropped them in favor of a second screen on their next console. On the 360 Kinect, shovelware. Kinect 2.0, only shovelware. People don't care about motion controls or voice commands.

OK so Kinect is a flop. How could that be the root of all their problems? Simple. They put all their eggs in the Kinect basket. Instead of trying to explain why consumers need always online or used game DRM, and explaining how that family sharing thing worked, they focused all their efforts on why you need a Kinect. All this "we built the XBOX ONE with the Kinect in mind. Everything about XBOX ONE is Kinect. We want to make sure that you get the full XBOX ONE experience and the only way to do that is by forcing the Kinect." When compared to 360 Kinect, "no that was an after thought. We built the XBOX ONE with Kinect in mind. You need Kinect." People don't care about motion controls. "That's because it's never been done right with great technology. We have super advanced tracking capabilities that make the Kinect integral to the XBOX ONE experience." What if my Kinect gets damaged? I have a cat that will chew through the cable. "Well, make sure it's safe. It would be a shame if you weren't able to enjoy the Kinect, and that's why we're forcing it." And on and on and on. They wanted the Kinect to succeed so badly.

Fast forward a couple of months,they realize that maybe requiring Kinect for the XBOX to function was a bad idea. Naturally, they make a day 1 patch that will allow you to not have the Kinect plugged in. However, they are not budging on the bundling.
"You made it so I don't need it, so why not just sell me a console without a Kinect for $100 less?"
"No no no, we only did this in case of catastrophic loss of Kinect. This way, if there's some error, you will still be able to use your XBOX. However, the Kinect is still an integral part of the XBOX ONE experience and we want to make sure developers can confidently develop with Kinect in mind."

The Kinect is the problem. If Microsoft didn't waste all of it's lipstick on the pig that is Kinect, maybe, just maybe, they could have found a way to successfully market the always online and used game DRM. As I stated before, always online could have been marketed as a positive. Used game DRM could have been worked out to find a happy medium, and we would have known how family share works. But no, focus all efforts on this stupid peripheral that no one wants and no one cares about. Want to know a funny thing? Once people got their XBOX ONE, they tried the Kinect. They say it is stupid, doesn't work properly, and would rather have their $100. The only reason they have it plugged in is because they have it so why not use it. You put so much focus on the Kinect. You felt that this was the most important thing to try to market. You thought this was more important than always online and used game DRM, that you were going to focus all your efforts on it and not try to explain why the other aspects were good for the consumer. No one bought the "this is integral to the experience" load because they knew that they would not buy games that focus heavily on Kinect. You even had the audacity to not want to include a headset "because you can just use the Kinect, it does the same thing as a headset and so much more," ignoring the fact that people don't want their conversations coming out of the TV and don't want the muffledness of yelling at a microphone that's on the other side of the room as opposed to a headset mic that's right next to their mouth. If you didn't focus heavily on the Kinect and just cut your losses on the most useless aspect of the XBOX ONE, then maybe you wouldn't have had to do all those reversals. There are people who say "I could forgive the always online and used game DRM, but the Kinect is unforgivable and I will not buy an XBOX ONE so long as it's forced into every XBOX ONE purchase."

Now as with everything else, I am not the norm. However, this time, it's a little different. Most people don't want the Kinect at all. However, there's a part of me that does want the Kinect, but not for gaming purposes. The only reason I want a Kinect is for collectors purposes. I have a PS2 EYE, I got it for $1. I want a PS3 camera, and I'm willing to pay $10 maximum for it. I want an XBOX360 kinect, and I'm willing to pay a maximum of $15 for it with the Kinect sports adventure game. I just want them for collectors purposes, and will only pay a little for it. I don't want to spend $100 on something I won't use because I don't care about it.

Alright, I made my peace with the XBOX ONE original concept. As of right now, the XBOX 180 is much better than the XBOX ONE original idea. Until I can buy one without Kinect though, I still won't buy it. Once people start selling their XBOX ONE's to GameStop, I guarantee you that GameStop will offer to resell them without the Kinect. Well this has been Happy Gamer, and don't put all your eggs into the motion control basket, because it will break them.

Hapy Gamer Rambles, a look at XBOX ONE's used game DRM

OK, so welcome to part 2 of the XBOX ONE original design look. Last time I talked about the always online aspect. Today I'll talk about the used game DRM. Next time, I'll talk about the kinect. Now with the used game DRM, I believe Microsoft was trying to accomplish 2 things, control over the market and no more used games, and make the XBOX ONE an all digital machine.

Now like always online, you can't sell me on only digital and no used games. I'm a collector, I like my physical copies for display reasons. I also hate digital only since I've missed some digital only releases and now I can't get them anywhere. There have been launch titles that are no longer produced, and if not for used physical copies, I would be out of luck. Not only that, with physical I don't have to worry about my console running out of space. I'm only limited to how much shelf space I have. Also, as a collector, I refuse to sell games. Even if the game is utter crap, it is now part of my collection and I will not sell it. Again, I'm not the norm, but this time there are more people who would agree with me. There are a lot of people that like physical copies.

So, where did Microsoft go wrong? Well here's how they treated physical copies. "If you buy the game physically, the game is then installed onto your hard drive and is locked to your account. With this, you don't need to have the disc in the tray and you've got family share. You can't sell it unless at a specified retailer. You can only loan the game to 1 friend, and now the game is tied to their account forever. Basically, you can't simply sell or loan your games." So what's the problem here? Well Microsoft basically missed the entire point why people buy physical copies. You don't buy a physical copy to have it treated exactly like a digital copy. If you buy a physical copy, you buy it so you could easily trade with with friends, easily sell it, and play the game off the disc. If you wanted disc-less play, no way to sell your game, and no way to trade your game, you buy it digitally. Whether you wanted to control used game sales or wanted to go all digital, this was not the way to do it.

So, controlling used game sales. I can see where they come from, developers don't get money from used sales, they need to keep the servers running, and they might not have gone under if more people bought it new. Here's one thing though that I think developers forget; used games are far different than pirated games. With pirated games, one once legal license can be used entertain an infinite amount of people. With a used game however, only one person can enjoy it, and the original owner forfeits all rights to enjoying it later. With used games, people do experience seller's remorse, because now they can't enjoy that game ever again unless they buy another copy. I will save the details on my explanation of why people sell their games and how to avoid that for a later date, but here's the gist; people sell their games because they're board with them and don't want them anymore and would rather have some money. If you don't want people to sell their game, make a game they won't want to sell. Xenoblade Chronicle was going for $70 used, because that's the price it took to get people away from it. Bear in mind, new it cost $40. It was so good, people considered it worth more than the new price. If those developers released more copies at $40, they would have sold so many more. In fact, GameStop got into some trouble because they got some new copies and they opened them and called them used because it would make more money due to used costing $30 more. If you don't want people to sell your game, make a game they won't want to sell.

So I addressed preventing used games, what about going all digital. Well that's a very simple answer that developers don't seem to grasp; pass the savings in shipping and production onto the customer. When a game is physical, there's far more costs than just digital; shipping, packaging, printing, disc writing, the middle mans cut, and things like that. All in all, the developer and Microsoft might only get like $45 together after all the other costs of doing physical. So without all these added costs, how much do digital games cost? Exactly the same as if you bought it physically. Sure, developers now make more per game and financially it's the same for the consumer, but then that means that the consumer has to deal with all the draw backs to digital, aka, no flexibility on sharing or selling and hard drive space. Sure they get the perks of disc-less play, but that doesn't necessarily make up for the drawbacks. If you want people to buy digitally, make it financially advantageous. "OK physical copy costs $60, if you're going to buy digitally, we'll subtract the cost of printing the disc, making the packaging, shipping the game to the retailer, the retailer's cut, let's round that down to the nearest dollar, so now your final price is $45." That's 25% off physical. Do you know why Steam can do all those sales? It's because it's an all digital platform without any middle men or production costs, and they pass the savings onto the consumer. They did do some physical releases, but they made it better financially to buy it digitally. You make digital cheaper than physical, people will then buy digital, and you can naturally phase out physical. I fear the day when that happens, but that's how you do it.

So, when Microsoft got rid of the DRM, they got rid of the "features" like disc-less play and family share. I already addressed disc-less play and if people want that feature they'll just buy it digitally, but what about family share? Well, we really don't know what we lost with that one. The details were kind of hazy as to what that would actually do. There was something about being able to share your entire game collection with 10 people in your family, and those 10 people could use the same license. An example they gave was a dad and his 2 college sons playing CoD together off the same license with the dad at home and the sons off at their respective colleges. The way it sounds is that you could have shared your entire game collection with 10 "family members," aka friends. How would this have worked, we don't know. Would there have been 10 permanent people you call family that could use it? Would that mean you could be logged onto 10 different consoles? Would it have meant that you could call 10 consoles your "console" and everyone on that console had access to your games? No one really knows. Microsoft did try to advertize the DRM as a good thing, and to that I must give them some credit, but it ultimately failed because people still hated it and DRM is almost never the way to go. People expect a certain level of DRM with digital games. If you want to get rid of physical games, you need to make digital more appealing than physical, not destroy the whole reason people buy physical in the first place.

OK, that's enough for today. Next time, the kinect. Well this has been happy gamer, and if you want to get rid of physical copies and used games, DRM is not the way to go.

XBOX ONE always online, a second look

Hey there, I've read a couple of articles about the lack of major cloud computing on the XBOX ONE, a feature that they apparently had to drop with the offline patch. OK, so lets objectively look at idea and possibilities of always online.

First some back story. If you're reading this years in the future, Microsoft majorly botched the XBOX ONE reveal. They showcased always online requirements, used game DRM, forced kinect, and a heavy focus on multi-media and little on games; things the gaming community were not happy about. Always online, even for single player? Used game DRM? Forced kinect? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM!? Yeah, it was bad. Sony even rubbed it in Microsoft's face during their PS4 reveal, showcasing games, offline play, allowing used games, and no mandatory PSeye. When pre-orders were in the toilet and no one wanted an XBOX ONE, well Microsoft reversed those things with a day one patch. Now you could play offline, no more used game DRM, and the kinect wasn't required for the console to run, even though they still bundled every XBOX ONE with one.

Now with these reversals, certain "features" were lost. With the used game DRM, you wouldn't need to have the disk in the tray in order to play the game. There was also some sort of family sharing feature where it sounds like you could essentially share your entire collection with 10 people and you could all play with the same license at the same time. However, details are sketchy since no one really cared about it and we never saw it, so I don't know what it was for sure. With the always online requirement, developers could take full advantage of the cloud computing, so now they have the power of 3 XBOX ONEs at their disposal. And with mandatory kinect...well we don't really know. Somehow yelling comands at my TV was going to enhance my experience and by having mandatory kinect use that was going guarantee my enhanced experience. I'll address the used game DRM and Kinect later. Long story short, "you want to curb used game sales, make games people won't want to sell," and "motion controls are stupid and will only bread shovelware." But today, I will talk about always online.

First off, you could never sell me on always online. I am a video game collector, I play my consoles decades after they were supported; I was not only worried about myself 15 years from now when the console isn't supported and all the servers are off line, but also for the collector like me who will buy an XBOX ONE at a garage sale 20 years from now. If it truly needed to be online and access the server and would be a brick if there wasn't a server to connect to, then I would be angry and would weep for the future collector like myself. I would only be fine if I could get a guarantee that I could get an offline patch once the next thing comes out and the servers would then stop running. But, I am not like most people. Most people just want their device to play games now and will not care about it 20 years from now unless they want to get nostalgic. So lets dissect how Microsoft screwed up the presentation of always online.

Here's the thing, Microsoft did a horrible job explaining why they needed the always online. When asked about always online, Microsoft reps essentially said "you need it because we say so," "you don't have stable internet, well you should get with the times and get stable internet," "you have a bandwidth cap, well sucks to be you, maybe you should get a different ISP," and lets not forget, "you want an offline console, we already have that for you, it's called the XBOX360." I'm paraphrasing here, but that's essentially how Microsoft explained the always online thing. Except for the last one, Major Neilson or some other big XBOX rep guy did in fact say "want an offline console, we already have that, it's called XBOX360." They did not market this well. "Always online, well of course you need to be online to play multiplayer silly. Single player? Oh well you're still updating the leaderboards and talking to your friends through kinect, silly willy, you're still online, we're just making it easier for you by requiring that you're always online." Again, paraphrasing, but that's essentially how they explained it. You need to be online to play online multiplayer, duh. When asked about online single player, essentially it was "well there's still lots of online stuff you do anyways." That's true, but there are gamers like me who just don't care about doing stuff online; leader boards, chat, party invites, etc. If you don't care about that, you can chose to not connect your console to the internet. In fact most of the cool online stuff requires gold, and a lot of people are cheap bastards like me and don't want XBL Gold. In those cases, online is essentially pointless outside of getting updates. Microsoft basically said "you're always online anyways, so we're going to make it mandatory." That there is assuming, and when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me. Eventually people started to conspire about what the always online really was for, basically a way to spy on you and take more of your money. Somewhat far fetched, but possible. The most probable theory was so it would cut down on piracy. Whatever the real reason was, it's over now.

Now, how could Microsoft have played this so people actually liked it? Simple; instead of talking down to the consumer like they're idiots and sounding like you're saying "this is only good for us," explain to the consumer how this is good for them. Right now, the XBOX ONE is doing rather terribly in the computing department. Multi-plats are inferior in terms of frame rate and resolution, exclusives leave people wondering "why is this at such a low resolution and frame rate," and generally speaking, it under-performs when compared to the competition. What happened to the cloud and the power of 3 XBOX ONEs? Well, now that the XBOX ONE has to allow offline, developers can't count on the cloud and have to rely on the hardware of the single unit. Now I don't know much about computing power and cloud computing, except reliance on the cloud scares the crap out of me from a basic concept level, but I do know that the cloud is an online thing, and you need to be online to access it. If Microsoft did explanations as to how the cloud would be used, did comparisons of native hardware VS. native plus cloud, and actually demonstrated how always online was a feature and not a control device, then XBOX ONE would likely still be always online.

Well this is the only thing that wasn't DOA and Microsoft just failed at marketing it. The other aspects that were dropped, I'll address later. Well this has been happy gamer signing off, and don't insult your customer.

The Steam Box is Destined to fail By Definition.

Hey everyone, I know it's kind of died down since CES, but lets talk about the Steam box, Steam machine, a home video game console that runs Steam, and why I think it's destined to fail. Now before you jump to conclusions about "oh you're just a PC gaming hater," or "you can't see beyond the big 3," or whatever. First off, I'm not a PC hater. I don't like PC elitist fanboys who ridicule console gaming and say that PC gaming is the only way to truly enjoy video games. I respect PC gaming for what it is; a way to play video games where one can make the game look and play as good as technologically possible during that month. From a hardware standpoint, it's also the most expensive if you want to have it look and play as good as technologically possible during that month. Anything beyond that, you need to either upgrade or compromise. Personally, I just prefer console gaming; no compatibility issues, no worries about being able to run the game with your current "rig," only need to upgrade once every 10 years, etc. As for me not looking beyond the big 3, I have an OUYA. I love my OUYA. It is exactly what I expect it to be; a cheap mini-console full of indi-games that can side load android apps. It doesn't have the big titles like CoD or Mass Effect or Skyrim or any of those. I accept it for what it is. I accept all video game consoles, including you PC, for what they are, and that's where I have trouble seeing how a steam console would be successful.

OK, so lets give a little back story. As you probably know, there are PC gamers and console gamers. Many people play both PC and consoles, because they each have their trade offs.
On PC, you can have the most up to date hardware so you can play your games at 300 frames per second at 10k resolution. However, to do that, you need to pay through the nose to get the hardware capable of doing that. Steam from Valve has many sales to offset the cost, so a game that was $60 is now $10 and stuff like that, but there's a trade off to that too because now the game is essentially locked to your account for good. There are some ways around that like gifting, but at the time of writing this, you can't buy a used Steam game from gamestop. DRM, but people accept it due to the sales and the fact that an upgraded PC can still play the old games.
Now on consoles, things are essentially the opposite. On consoles, the hardware is the same hardware for however long the console generation is. However, that means that you don't need to upgrade the hardware to play the latest games, no comparability issues. The developers don't always drop their prices, but then there are used games, aka no DRM. Microsoft tried to do DRM with the XBOX ONE, and people hated it and it was looking so bad for them that they reversed their decision. Consoles aren't always reverse compatible, but the owner always has the option to just leave their last console connected or just sell it.
So the question is, do you want ultra high graphics and cheap games at the cost of expensive and quickly obsolete hardware and DRM, or do you want no DRM and 1 time investment hardware at the cost of relatively consistant graphics for 10 or so years.
Now some people might be wondering "where's the mention of keyboard and mouse vs controller?" No, not going there. That's just personal preference. Personally I find keyboard and mouse very awkward, others find it very precise and optimal. If I did non-point and click PC gaming, I would probably still use a controller.

OK so what does this have to do with the Steam machine? Well I can only see negatives of both without the necessary counter positives. PC gamers don't necessarily like console gaming due to the drawbacks, and console gamers don't necessarily like PC gaming due to the drawbacks. I'm going to go through all the possible combinations of ways to make a Steam machine I can think of, and why I think it will fail.

Model 1: "hardware just like consoles; you can't upgrade the hardware, it just plugs into your TV, and it plays your Steam library. Priced similar to a console."
OK, so this sounds very similar to a normal console. You can't upgrade the hardware, it's priced around the same as the others, and you're stuck with it until the next generation. Well that kind of fully defeats the purpose of PC gaming right there. PC gamers want to upgrade their hardware. They might like it for a month, but after that, they'll just go back to their PC with the most up to date hardware. But it play's your entire Steam library on your TV. Yeah until the hardware becomes obsolete and now you run into compatibility issues. You think the devs are going to make a "PC Steam" flavor and a "Console Steam" flavor, I highly doubt it. That could go one of 2 ways. When you buy the game you instantly get access to both flavors so 2 copies of the game for the price of 1, well that's a lot of extra work. Sure with the sales you get it for dirt cheap, but they've already been out for a while, they don't have to remake the game. Then there's the "you buy it again," and that's not going to go over well with the consumers.
Now at CES, there were talks about different companies making different models of a Steam Machine the same way different companies make different models of PCs, so hardware upgrading is possible with this, but that means buying a completely new $400 console every time you want to upgrade instead of the $50 ram card or $100 graphics card. Yeah, no. I've heard of people spending thousands of dollars upgrading their PCs for gaming, but this would mean spending tens of thousands of dollars upgrading. I just don't see it happening.

Model 2: "like model 1, but you can upgrade the hardware with proprietary parts."
OK, little less like a console, little more like a PC. You can now upgrade the hardware to get better performance but it's all proprietary like console add-ons. So what's the problem here? Well this means that you don't have the freedom of part selection like with PCs. If your PC has parts from brand X, but brand Y has better parts, you can change them and get better performance or whatever made them better. It's also got the free market in it's favor so if the performance between 2 brands is the same but one is cheaper, you can get the cheaper. However, if it's proprietary, you're screwed in terms of quality diversity and price diversity. With the PSP, I could use any brand of Memory Stick Pro Duo I wanted, and I have 3 different memory sticks each a different brand. However with the PS Vita, Sony went completely proprietary, so now instead of a $20 32-gig micro-SD card, it's $100 for a 16-gig proprietary memory card, and if those memory cards suck, well you're screwed. If the Steam machine used proprietary upgradable parts, I would expect similar price gouging like with the PSP/Vita example.

Model 3: "like models 1 and 2, but uses standard computer parts."
Soooo, a dedicated PC with HDMI out. With this one, it's almost exactly the same as the gamer's normal PC. They would essentially have 2 PCs, with the only difference being that one can't do all the other things that their PC can do, like word processing. If it could do the other things like word processing, then it's exactly the same as their PC, and unless they want to have 1 PC upstairs and 1 PC downstairs or something like that, then there's absolutely no reason to buy the Steam machine since it does everything that their PC does.

"But what about the console gamer? The steam machine would act like a gateway to the glorious PC master race." Ummm, no. Remember when I talked about the drawbacks of PC gaming, like DRM and high price for hardware. Console gamers don't want that. When the PS3 launched, the console gamers didn't want it because of the high price. Part of the reason the Vita is hurting is because of the proprietary memory cards. The main reason it's hurting is because Sony isn't marketing it well, but the proprietary memory cards are an issue. They also don't like the DRM. Remember the XBOX ONE reveal and the DRM on all games; I've heard it compared to Steam, Model 1 of the Steam machine was essentially the XBOX ONE's original concept minus the kinect. Console gamers don't accept DRM, they don't want to worry about hardware upgrades, especially proprietary ones. SegaCD and 32X anyone? Proprietary hardware upgrades that weren't all that great. They might buy a model 3, but at that point they're already crossing over to PC gaming and that will just be their first gaming PC. In order for a Steam machine to appeal to console gamers, it would need to not have DRM and have hardware that will last for an entire generation, and with that you revolutionize Steam to the point that console gaming in general becomes completely irrelevant because now you took away the drawbacks of PC gaming, essentially meaning that the Steam machine killed itself.

I just honestly don't see who a Steam machine would appeal to. You aren't going to get the console gamer because it doesn't have the benefits of console gaming. You aren't going to get the PC gamer because it doesn't have the benefits of PC gaming without getting ridiculous. It's not even in the same league as the OUYA. I doubt upon initial boot up the Steam machine will say "thank-you for buying us, we made it easy for you to open up and tinker with, doing so will not void the warranty," nor will it cost $100 and give you the ability to sideload android apps. I just can't imagine who would buy a Steam machine outside of collectors like me.
Yes, at some point I would probably buy a Steam machine, because I am a collector and I like consoles. I didn't buy my OUYA because I wanted an open source console or a digital distribution indi-game console, I wanted this will-be obscure piece of video game history while it's still cheap. Well this has been happy gamer, and remember, if you try to please everyone, you please no one.