# Fucking PS2



## Naren (Jul 29, 2007)

I've owned my PS2 for about 2 years now and I've never had any problems with it. I was just playing a game now and I went to save and right when I went to save, the screen froze. That's never happened to me before. I pushed a bunch of buttons on the controller, but it was really frozen. So I pushed the reset button and the Sony PS2 screen comes up, but the sound starts crackling after a second and suddenly this weird synthesized melody (doo doooooooo) is playing over it. After that, the screen is just black. I can hear the PS2 trying to read the game DVD, but after waiting a minute, the screen stayed black. So I took the DVD out and pressed reset. I got the crackling this time too, but none o the weird synthesized melody. It went to the screen where I can select "browser" or "system settings." I went to "system settings" and it's operating fine, but the graphics are a little screwed up. I went to "browser" and clicked on my memory card and it loads the memory card and then freezes (I tried this several times, always with the same result). I tried loading 3 different games, all with the same results.

I'm assuming this is a software problem, but I don't know how it got that way. I was just playing a game and then it suddenly froze for no reason. I assume the only way I can get this fixed is by taking it a shop/sending it to Sony to get fixed...  But if anyone has any advice or has encountered this problem before, let me know. Damn... I was really enjoying myself, playing this game and then this fucking shit...


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## Alpo (Jul 29, 2007)

Sounds like it pulled a 360. 

That sucks.  My PS2 has been working great for almost 6 years now.


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## Naren (Jul 29, 2007)

I opened up my PS2, but since, like I said, it seems to be a software problem, I don't think I can fix it this way, but it's worth trying. 

I found the "Sony PS2 repair" form and it said that repairs cost from 3,150 yen to 15,750 yen and that if it costs under 9,500 yen, they will fix it without asking you whether it's okay to fix it or not. And since a NEW PS2 right now costs from 14,000 to 16,000 yen (depending on where you buy it), it could cost MORE to get my current PS2 fixed than to buy a new one (but there's no way I'm gonna buy a new PS2. I'd buy a PS3 if I'm gonna get a new one -- but I'm assuming I can't use my PS2 memory card on a PS3, which would TOTALLY suck since I have lots of great saved games for 60-70 hour RPGs and I have a game in progress that I'm 30 hours into and if I can't get my PS2 fixed and my PS3 can't use my memory card, I'd have to start over from the beginning).

This really really really sucks. And it was so sudden too. I was just playing my game. Never had a problem with it before and then bam! It freezes and all these problems start.


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## Alpo (Jul 29, 2007)

Actually, I believe you just need an adapter to transfer the saves from your PS2 memory card to the PS3 hard drive.


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## TomAwesome (Jul 29, 2007)

That sucks. PS2 systems are usually pretty stable. But yeah, like Alpo said, there's an inexpensive adapter you can use to transfer your PS2 data to a virtual PS2 memory card on the PS3 hard drive. That's what I did, but the only problem is that I'm currently unaware of any way to save that data back to the card. There might be a way, but I haven't bothered since I've really just used it to play Shadow of the Colossus a bit.


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## Naren (Jul 29, 2007)

TomAwesome said:


> That sucks. PS2 systems are usually pretty stable. But yeah, like Alpo said, there's an inexpensive adapter you can use to transfer your PS2 data to a virtual PS2 memory card on the PS3 hard drive. That's what I did, but the only problem is that I'm currently unaware of any way to save that data back to the card. There might be a way, but I haven't bothered since I've really just used it to play Shadow of the Colossus a bit.



Well, that's a relief. That means if I can't get this PS2 fixed, I can buy a PS3 and continue playing my PS2 games from my last save point.

I like how the PS3 is compatible with PS1 and PS2 games, but I was really worried about the saved games thing since the PS3 saves all the games to the harddrive.

Does that adaptor require you to use your PS2? Because, if so, I'll be in trouble since my PS2 freezes up every time I try to look at the memory card in the "browser." I guess I could use my PS2 at work for that, but I don't know if my company would like me doing that.

So, I had opened up the PS2, looked around, tightened some screws and tried some stuff out, but nothing seemed to work (like I said, probably a software problem). So, I put the thing back together, but then I noticed that when I pushed the reset button nothing happened. Or more accurately, I COULDN'T push the reset button. So, I opened the thing back up and it seems that when I was putting the top back on, the internal reset button had broken off. "Oh, great" I thought, but I noticed that the button works as long as it's squarely in between the nodes and is pushed. So I tried a lot of different things and eventually put some of a glue stick on it, stuck it inbetween the nodes, let it dry when I went out for dinner, came back and put the PS2 back together and now it works fine... The button, at least. The PS2 is still as fucked as ever.

I think I might call that Sony number tomorrow and tell them about the problem. I'm expecting they'll probably say, "We'll have to see it to give an actual estimate, but from your explanation, it sounds like a pretty serious software problem. It'd probably be cheaper to just buy a new PS2." 

Yeah, I'm not very happy right now... but there's nothing I can do. If it was a PC, I could fix it... but a PS2...


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## TomAwesome (Jul 29, 2007)

Nah, you just put the memory card directly into the adapter, and it connects to the PS3 via USB.

You're right, that's probably one of the most troublesome things about consoles, especially newer ones: the software isn't nearly as accessible as that of a PC. I worry a bit because there are frequent PS3 updates (just updated to version 1.9 a few hours ago), and I've heard that if the PS3 gets shut off in the middle of the update (like if the power were to go off or something), the PS3 is then essentially fucked. Hopefully I'm just getting it confused with the PSP, though. There's no reformatting a console (or defragging, which is another concern of mine).


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## DDDorian (Jul 29, 2007)

There could very well be an issue with a corrupt save file for whichever game you were playing at the time. Just turning on the PS2 without the memory card plugged in might be a good first step. If thiat is the case, however, then your memory card is probably doomed. 

If it is a BIOS thing then you really are better off just buying a new PS2 (or PS3) as the PS2 BIOS is read-only, therefore if it's fatally flawed, there's no real means of fixing it. Also, is it one of the original versions or the newer slimmed-down one?

I can't speak for certain about the Japanese PS3s, but I know the PS1/2 emulation on the Australian PS3 isn't as reliable as it should be, so you might wanna check the web to make sure the older games you plan to play are actually supported. They release patches that improve compatability, but still...


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## Naren (Jul 29, 2007)

DDDorian said:


> There could very well be an issue with a corrupt save file for whichever game you were playing at the time. Just turning on the PS2 without the memory card plugged in might be a good first step. If thiat is the case, however, then your memory card is probably doomed.
> 
> If it is a BIOS thing then you really are better off just buying a new PS2 (or PS3) as the PS2 BIOS is read-only, therefore if it's fatally flawed, there's no real means of fixing it. Also, is it one of the original versions or the newer slimmed-down one?
> 
> I can't speak for certain about the Japanese PS3s, but I know the PS1/2 emulation on the Australian PS3 isn't as reliable as it should be, so you might wanna check the web to make sure the older games you plan to play are actually supported. They release patches that improve compatability, but still...



No, I'm sure the problem has NOTHING to do with the memory card/saved game. When I was messing around with the PS2, I had the memory card unhooked half of the time. There was one time where I actually could access the memory card and I looked at all the content. It's clearly a problem with the software in the PS2.

It's the newer slimmed-down PS2. 

True, the PS3's PS1 emulation has a few flaws and there are some PS2 games that don't run well (or at all), but they keep releasing patches (which I've read the details on) which make more games compatible. Obviously PS2 is much more of a priority for them than PS1, but still.


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## JJ Rodriguez (Jul 29, 2007)

Can't you just buy a cheap, used PS2? I'll be waiting like 5 years to get a PS3, that way the system will be cheap, and there won't be any shortage of games for it.


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## D-EJ915 (Jul 29, 2007)

Note that all PS3s now being produced emulate PS and PS2 and do NOT have the PS2 chip inside them so you might as well just use a computer emulator as there are no good PS3 games...>__>


It does, however, sound like your PS2 has gone from us Naren, so sorry for your loss.


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## 220BX (Jul 29, 2007)

i never had a problem like this, but had countless others.. get a PS3 instead(provided you really are into gaming and willing to spend the extara bucks). there are some really nice games coming this fall which might interest you!

for eg
killzone 2 , MGS4 , RE5 and countless other action games and since you seem to like RPG's there's always oblivion, white kniht story etc...


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## Naren (Jul 29, 2007)

D-EJ915 said:


> Note that all PS3s now being produced emulate PS and PS2 and do NOT have the PS2 chip inside them so you might as well just use a computer emulator as there are no good PS3 games...>__>
> 
> 
> It does, however, sound like your PS2 has gone from us Naren, so sorry for your loss.



My current PC is wayyyyyyyyyyyyy too slow to emulate PS2 games. It used to be fast enough to emulate PS1 games, but it's gotten slower and slower over the years (I bought it about 4 years ago) and now even PS1 games are really choppy when I try to run them through an emulator. I don't think I could play any of the PS2 games I own on my computer at even 1/10th the speed I can on my PS2. Besides, I can transfer my PS2 saved games from my memory card to a PS3, but I can't transfer them onto my computer. I've been saving up to buy a new computer (but bought my RG7EXFX2 instead, delaying when I could buy my computer, but then started saving up again after buying that guitar), but it seems that I'll probably buy a PS3 before I buy a new computer (which I had NOT been planning on doing) and make the buying of my new PC even FURTHER into the future... because it feels so wasteful spending so much money on a system that I've owned for about 2 years when I could spend twice as much and get a next generation console that can play PS1 and PS2 games as well as PS3 games. And, also seeing as I'll eventually be buying a PS3 anyway (since there are a bunch of games planned for release on PS3 that I'm excited about)...

I wouldn't say there are no good PS3 games. There are a lot of fun-looking and cool games on the PS3, but there are none that I'm ecstatic about enough to buy a PS3 just for them (well, actually there is one, but I already own that game for PC). There are about 4 PS3 games that I'm excited about, but none of them have been released yet. I'd been waiting for them to get released before buying a PS3 (since I'd been planning on eventually buying a PS3 from the beginning), but since my fucking PS2 just broke... 

I appreciate your condolences, but no one can give me back my beloved PS2.


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## Alpo (Jul 30, 2007)

D-EJ915 said:


> Note that all PS3s now being produced emulate PS and PS2 and do NOT have the PS2 chip inside them so you might as well just use a computer emulator as there are no good PS3 games...>__>



Hey! There are a lot of good games out for the PS3! There's Ninja Gaiden Sigma, and... uhhh... yeah... wellll... I guess there's "Generic Sci-Fi Shooter #153." 

Just kidding. There's only one game that I'm interested in out now for the PS3 (Ninja Gaiden Sigma) but there are more games coming out sometime in the future. I'm definitely gettin a PS3 next year. Meanwhile, I'm really happy with my Wii, there's a lot of great games coming out soon.



220BX said:


> i never had a problem like this, but had countless others.. get a PS3 instead(provided you really are into gaming and willing to spend the extara bucks). there are some really nice games coming this fall which might interest you!
> 
> for eg
> killzone 2 , MGS4 , RE5 and countless other action games and since you seem to like RPG's there's always oblivion, white kniht story etc...



MGS4 is coming out next year, RE5 is a 2009 release, I believe, and Killzone 2 looks boring. I just wish I could play RE5 with Wii controls. RE4 Wii Edition plays so good, I don't want to go back to aiming with an analog stick.


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## TomAwesome (Jul 30, 2007)

I'm mainly looking forward to Unreal Tournament 3. I still play 2k4 regularly. I despise playing shooters with controllers, but if it'll work with a mouse and keyboard (since the PS3 has support for both), then the PS3 is being moved to my PC table, at least until I get around to getting Vista and a DX10 compatible video card or two. I just downloaded the demo for Heavenly Sword yesterday, and it's pretty neat. Assassin's Creed also looks like it'll own.


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## Naren (Jul 30, 2007)

I went around after lunch and checked the prices on PS3s and used PS2s. The cheapest used PS2 I could find was 12,000 yen, which is ridiculous considering that a new PS2 costs about 16,000 yen. So I definitely won't be buying another PS2. I was thinking that if I could get a used one for under 6,000 yen, I'd consider getting it. 



TomAwesome said:


> I'm mainly looking forward to Unreal Tournament 3. I still play 2k4 regularly. I despise playing shooters with controllers, but if it'll work with a mouse and keyboard (since the PS3 has support for both), then the PS3 is being moved to my PC table, at least until I get around to getting Vista and a DX10 compatible video card or two. I just downloaded the demo for Heavenly Sword yesterday, and it's pretty neat. Assassin's Creed also looks like it'll own.



Yeah. Unreal Tournament (the one from 1999) is my favorite first person shooter ever. I really really was disappointed by Unreal Tournament 2004 which completely failed in almost every way possible in my opinion. I kept it for about 4 months and then gave it to my brother. I think he ended up giving it to one of his friends. I still play Unreal Tournament every now and then. Amazing game.


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## Azyiu (Jul 30, 2007)

Naren said:


> I wouldn't say there are no good PS3 games. There are a lot of fun-looking and cool games on the PS3, but there are none that I'm ecstatic about enough to buy a PS3 just for them (well, actually there is one, but I already own that game for PC). There are about 4 PS3 games that I'm excited about, but none of them have been released yet. I'd been waiting for them to get released before buying a PS3 (since I'd been planning on eventually buying a PS3 from the beginning



My thought exactly. I won't buy the PS3 until at least GTA IV and NBA 2K8 are released. Then I will be eyeing Resident Evil 5 (aka BioHazard 5 in your hood).


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## Naren (Jul 30, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> My thought exactly. I won't buy the PS3 until at least GTA IV and NBA 2K8 are released. Then I will be eyeing Resident Evil 5 (aka BioHazard 5 in your hood).



Resident Evil 5 isn't coming out until 2009, though. 

I'll probably be buying a PS3 next month or the month after, more for my PS2 games than for any particular current PS3 games (although I have like 4 PS3 games on my long-term wanted list, including FF13 for one).


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## Azyiu (Jul 30, 2007)

Naren said:


> Resident Evil 5 isn't coming out until 2009, though.
> 
> I'll probably be buying a PS3 next month or the month after, more for my PS2 games than for any particular current PS3 games (although I have like 4 PS3 games on my long-term wanted list, including FF13 for one).



Man, it sucks... Capcom keeps delaying the release...

About your upcoming purchase, I just wanted to ask are you buying the Japanese Regional Code 2 version? Or are you buying a US Regional Code 1 version? And do you have mostly Japanese PS2 games or US version PS2 games?


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## Naren (Jul 30, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Man, it sucks... Capcom keeps delaying the release...
> 
> About your upcoming purchase, I just wanted to ask are you buying the Japanese Regional Code 2 version? Or are you buying a US Regional Code 1 version? And do you have mostly Japanese PS2 games or US version PS2 games?



All of my PS2 games are in Japanese. I own one PS2 game that's American but it's been localized into Japanese. My PS2 can only play Japanese games, so it would be really pointless for me to own any American games, since I can't play them.

I would be buying the Japanese PS3. It would be really stupid to buy an American one since 100% of the PS3 games sold in stores here are Japanese and I would have to wait a year for the localized version to be sold in stores when I COULD HAVE just bought the original Japanese version much earlier and enjoyed it (like I've done with a lot of my PS2 games which were released in Japan anywhere from 6 months to a year before the English American version). Also, I refuse to play Japanese games in English. I always play games in their original language (unless it is a language I don't understand, which is rare, since most games are made in English or Japanese). The one time I've broken my rule is when I bought "God of War" for my PS2 which is an American game localized into Japanese. I thought that since it's an action game, it'd be okay if I bought it in Japanese. It's actually localized into Japanese really well, though. So it feels like it was originally made in Japanese.

As for Capcom, they originally had been planning on 2006, then it immediately got pushed all the way back to 2009...  It's CRAZY!


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## Azyiu (Jul 30, 2007)

^ For me though, ALL my games are US versions. So it wouldn't make too much sense for me to buy a brand new Asian version PS3 that can only play a few games, and not even able to play my dvds collection! Oh well, I am kind of screwed in that sense...


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## Naren (Jul 30, 2007)

Yeah. It's not a very good business idea to localize games into Chinese considering the insanely huge piracy industry in China. Some gaming companies have actually tried localizing games into Chinese and lost HUGE amounts of money in the progress because of piracy. The only games that it might be a good idea to localize into Chinese would be online games.


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## Azyiu (Jul 30, 2007)

Yeah, piracy in mainland China is bad, very bad. In Hong "Commies Infested" Kong, however, the situation is somewhat under control. Actually, it is no longer as easy to find pirated console games as say, 2 years ago these days. 

The only real problem I have about gaming in HK is that, I got a US version PS2 and GameCube, but game stores here sell mostly Japanese version games. So buying on-line is pretty much my only way to go, you know? 

About playing Japanese version games, maybe it is just me, most gamers in HK don't speak a word of Japanese, and I think guessing what the game is saying takes away more than half the fun for me. I personally know a few gamers who literally guess what the in-game options are when playing. I hate that, and I'd rather play an English version and know what is really going on.


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## Naren (Jul 31, 2007)

Well, if you don't understand Japanese OR English  - don't you think most Chinese would find written Japanese easier to _guess_ what they're talking about 30-40% of the time? 

I think that action games in Japanese would probably be okay for most Chinese, especially since most action games write buttons in either English or Japanese with all kanji or mostly kanji. For example

START
&#12475;&#12540;&#12502;&#12466;&#12540;&#12512;
&#12458;&#12503;&#12471;&#12519;&#12531;

&#26032;&#35215;&#12466;&#12540;&#12512;
&#12525;&#12540;&#12489;
&#21205;&#30011;

&#12525;&#12464;&#12452;&#12531;
&#35373;&#23450;&#22793;&#26356;
&#30331;&#37682;&#12398;&#21066;&#38500;
&#25147;&#12427;

Actually, the load screens do have quite a bit more kana than I thought now that I think about it...

But you lived in the US for several years, Azyiu, and you speak and understand English fluently at a very high level and, although a lot of Hong Kong people do as well, 99% of the country of China does not. And even if piracy in Hong Kong isn't too bad, piraters from mainland China will buy a Chinese-translated game in Hong Kong and made tons of copies and sell it all over China. Even if the spoken languages are different, Chinese is written the same everywhere. And game companies cannot make money off of selling games in JUST Hong Kong.


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## HighGain510 (Jul 31, 2007)

Not sure if you tried this or not but do you have any friends with a PS2 Eric? If so, bring your disc and your memory card over there and see if it works on their system. If it doesn't, you know 100% it's your system and not the memory card or disc. Just a suggestion.


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## Naren (Jul 31, 2007)

HighGain510 said:


> Not sure if you tried this or not but do you have any friends with a PS2 Eric? If so, bring your disc and your memory card over there and see if it works on their system. If it doesn't, you know 100% it's your system and not the memory card or disc. Just a suggestion.



It's not the memory card or the disc. The problem first starts when I push the reset button on the Sony PS2 screen where it says "Sony Computer Entertainment" with all the flying boxes. This screen appears before the PS2 even starts reading the disc, so its obviously not the disc. And I also tried 4 different game discs (because I'm paranoid and like to try everything), so it's not a problem with any of the discs. This screen also loads before the memory card is read by the PS2, so it's not the memory card. I also tried fixing the PS2, most of the time with no disc in the console, no memory card, and no controller -- and the same problem continued. 

So, yes, I am 100% sure it's my system and not the memory card or disc.

...  It's such a waste of a system... I can't even give it away to someone since it's useless now...


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## Azyiu (Jul 31, 2007)

Naren said:


> Well, if you don't understand Japanese OR English  - don't you think most Chinese would find written Japanese easier to _guess_ what they're talking about 30-40% of the time? .
> 
> 
> I think that action games in Japanese would probably be okay for most Chinese, especially since most action games write buttons in either English or Japanese with all kanji or mostly kanji. For example
> ...



See, at least half the stuff in games or their menus are in Kana, and they really don't make a whole lot of sense for someone who never studied Japanese. So no, most of my gamer friends do *GUESS*  Besides, we do have words like &#25147; or &#30331;&#37682; in the Chinese language, but they either don't make any sense in Chinese or they mean something totally different in Chinese... Oh well...



Naren said:


> you lived in the US for several years, Azyiu, and you speak and understand English fluently at a very high level



Thanks for your kind words!


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## Naren (Aug 1, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> See, at least half the stuff in games or their menus are in Kana, and they really don't make a whole lot of sense for someone who never studied Japanese. So no, most of my gamer friends do *GUESS*  Besides, we do have words like &#25147; or &#30331;&#37682; in the Chinese language, but they either don't make any sense in Chinese or they mean something totally different in Chinese... Oh well...



&#30331;&#37682; - registration
&#25147;&#12427; - "back", return

Well, on the main screen, maybe. I'd say that half of the games now use "YES" and "NO" for options and the other half uses &#12399;&#12356; and &#12356;&#12356;&#12360;.

Well, Japanese does use a lot of kana. It's one of the things that prevents Japanese from requiring tens of thousands of characters like Chinese does. It also is required for conjugating verbs, conjugating adjectives, conjugating nouns (yeah, you can't conjugate adjectives or nouns in English), writing words originating in foreign languages, made up words, and so on.

But, yeah, there's no way they could understand what it means. Just like when I'm watching a Japanese movie with Chinese subtitles, I'm doing nothing but guessing. "So in Chinese, they use that symbol for 'yes'? How weird!" "So, 'thank you' is written with that symbol twice? How different..." and so on. I'm doing nothing but guessing. Even though I can read almost all of the Chinese symbols I see in JAPANESE, they are being used completely different in Chinese.


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## Azyiu (Aug 1, 2007)

^ that's the beauty about learning a different language, dude. 

So now what? Are you buying a new PS3 now or are you still going to wait? It sounds like your PS2 is completely fried and there is no point in buying a new PS2....


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## Naren (Aug 1, 2007)

Exactly. There is no hope for my current PS2 unless I dish out the cash it would cost to buy a new one, which would be a waste of money in my opinion. And, like you said, there is no point in buying a new PS2. I'm thinking of maybe buying a new PS3 next week, getting Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Call of Duty 3, and maybe Enchant Arm. I'll also need a converter for getting my PS2 saved files onto my PS3 so that I can continue playing the PS2 games I was playing when the system committed suicide.


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## Azyiu (Aug 1, 2007)

Naren said:


> I'll also need a converter for getting my PS2 saved files onto my PS3 so that I can continue playing the PS2 games I was playing when the system committed suicide.



See, this is the little thing about the PS3 that turns me OFF a bit. Let's face it, most of us here would probably only need and use that said stupid converter a grand total of ONE time. Would that really hurt SONY that much more to include that in the package for free?


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## Naren (Aug 1, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> See, this is the little thing about the PS3 that turns me OFF a bit. Let's face it, most of us here would probably only need and use that said stupid converter a grand total of ONE time. Would that really hurt SONY that much more to include that in the package for free?



Agreed. I have no idea how much it costs or where I can buy it, but if I don't have it, for RPGs I've been playing, that's 30-50 hours out the window.


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## OzzyC (Aug 1, 2007)

Naren said:


> Agreed. I have no idea how much it costs or where I can buy it, but if I don't have it, for RPGs I've been playing, that's 30-50 hours out the window.





I lost my memory card at one point, having several finished games on it, over 150 hours spent getting those, probably. I went back and beat all of them in half the time.


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## Naren (Aug 1, 2007)

OzzyC said:


> I lost my memory card at one point, having several finished games on it, over 150 hours spent getting those, probably. I went back and beat all of them in half the time.



Both of the games I'm currently playing through on my PS2 are the second time through. I don't want to start over from the beginning AGAIN. One of them I guess I could start over from the beginning if I had to, but the other one is so far into the game that there is no way I'd start over from the beginning again.


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## Azyiu (Aug 1, 2007)

Naren said:


> Agreed. I have no idea how much it costs or where I can buy it, but if I don't have it, for RPGs I've been playing, that's 30-50 hours out the window.



Totally feel your pain there, man. If I am not mistaken, that stupid converter runs about USD $15 or so. Still, it is $15 bucks I could've used for something else.  You should be able to buy it at any game shop, I bet.


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## Naren (Aug 1, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Totally feel your pain there, man. If I am not mistaken, that stupid converter runs about USD $15 or so. Still, it is $15 bucks I could've used for something else.  You should be able to buy it at any game shop, I bet.



Well... it is better than just not being able to convert the games at all... I always try to look on the bright side of things... and I've been having the shittiest week ever... first my PS2 breaks, then I get problems with my back which seems my spine is bent, then my computer starts getting problems, and today the biggest most annoying problem of all crops up (don't want to say anything about it until I can be sure of all the horrific details) and I'm getting depressed...


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## Azyiu (Aug 1, 2007)

Naren said:


> Well... it is better than just not being able to convert the games at all... I always try to look on the bright side of things... and I've been having the shittiest week ever... first my PS2 breaks, then I get problems with my back which seems my spine is bent, then my computer starts getting problems, and today the biggest most annoying problem of all crops up (don't want to say anything about it until I can be sure of all the horrific details) and I'm getting depressed...



Dude, sorry to hear about all of it... my week hasn't been the greatest either. As you may or may not know, I do photography on the side for fun... anyway, my computer must have been infested by some kind of virus, and I lost all my photo files from late March onward along with my entire iTunes files! Sure, I got backups to the latter, but those photos from March onward I got NO backups!!!  

Either way, hope you feel better the soonest, man.


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## Naren (Aug 1, 2007)

I hope so too. Maybe my girlfriend can make me feel better. She's coming over tonight...


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## Alpo (Aug 1, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> See, this is the little thing about the PS3 that turns me OFF a bit. Let's face it, most of us here would probably only need and use that said stupid converter a grand total of ONE time. Would that really hurt SONY that much more to include that in the package for free?



I think it's much worse that you only get a composite cable with the PS3. All that talk about the amazing graphical capabilities and 1080P support and all that, and the system comes with a fucking composite cable!  Out of the box you're limited to 480i/576i and you have to pay 20$ extra on top of the 600$ to actually get any kind of HD output.


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## Azyiu (Aug 1, 2007)

Alpo said:


> I think it's much worse that you only get a composite cable with the PS3.



Oh, totally!  

So how have you been Alpo? Got any more cool clips to show us?


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## Alpo (Aug 1, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Oh, totally!
> 
> So how have you been Alpo? Got any more cool clips to show us?



Would it kill Sony to throw in a component cable? Even Microsoft does it! 

I'll probably post some new clips today.


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## Naren (Aug 1, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Dude, sorry to hear about all of it... my week hasn't been the greatest either. As you may or may not know, I do photography on the side for fun... anyway, my computer must have been infested by some kind of virus, and I lost all my photo files from late March onward along with my entire iTunes files! Sure, I got backups to the latter, but those photos from March onward I got NO backups!!!
> 
> Either way, hope you feel better the soonest, man.



Eh... I just got the e-mail. My drummer's going to quit the band after the next gig and he's asked the bass player to join him in his new "hard rock" band and it looks like the bass player is probably going to join him. His reason for quitting is that the music is too heavy and he wants to do a more melodic softer hard rock band instead of the death metal/thrash/black metal/rock combination my band has been doing which is way too heavy for his tastes. 

Yeah, pretty crappy. Makes this week even better.


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## Azyiu (Aug 1, 2007)

Naren said:


> Eh... I just got the e-mail. My drummer's going to quit the band after the next gig and he's asked the bass player to join him in his new "hard rock" band and it looks like the bass player is probably going to join him. His reason for quitting is that the music is too heavy and he wants to do a more melodic softer hard rock band instead of the death metal/thrash/black metal/rock combination my band has been doing which is way too heavy for his tastes.



Oh crap! That truly sucks!  Then again, why get upset? IMO it is better to know your drummer wants to quit sooner rather than later. I don't know what went on behind the scene, but him asking your bassist to quit with him is truly a baaaaaad move, what a dick! 



Alpo said:


> Would it kill Sony to throw in a component cable? Even Microsoft does it!



Yeah, there are several small minor things about the PS3 that truly turn me off a bit... for starters, why make the surface of the console a virtual finger prints magnet? It looks cool and all, but it is NOT practical!



Alpo said:


> I'll probably post some new clips today.



Can wait to hear, dude. Right on!


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## Alpo (Aug 1, 2007)

Naren said:


> Eh... I just got the e-mail. My drummer's going to quit the band after the next gig and he's asked the bass player to join him in his new "hard rock" band and it looks like the bass player is probably going to join him. His reason for quitting is that the music is too heavy and he wants to do a more melodic softer hard rock band instead of the death metal/thrash/black metal/rock combination my band has been doing which is way too heavy for his tastes.
> 
> Yeah, pretty crappy. Makes this week even better.



That sucks. I hope you'll find someone to replace them. 



Azyiu said:


> Yeah, there are several small minor things about the PS3 that truly turn me off a bit... for starters, why make the surface of the console a virtual finger prints magnet? It looks cool and all, but it is NOT practical!



Same with the Wii. It's this shiny white plastic that gets all smudgy if you put your fingers anywhere near it. It looks great, but I'm afraid to touch it.





> Can wait to hear, dude. Right on!



There'll be some on/off TS7 action and probably a short song clip.


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## Naren (Aug 1, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Oh crap! That truly sucks!  Then again, why get upset? IMO it is better to know your drummer wants to quit sooner rather than later. I don't know what went on behind the scene, but him asking your bassist to quit with him is truly a baaaaaad move, what a dick!



Yeah... You're telling me. Geez.  Me and the other guitarist are pretty depressed. This is our life and we had found 2 very skilled musicians who fit into the band really well, but then they just quit. I'm glad that they quit now instead of later, but this really really sucks. Because of their reasons, we're gonna look for some super crazy heavy metal freaks who are insane and... crazy... and stuff... hopefully they won't complain about our 2 "soft" songs... 

I'll start looking today.


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## Azyiu (Aug 1, 2007)

Skillz doesn't mean much if you guys don't gel or see things the same way. Sometimes it is actually better to be jamming with someone not as skilled who shares your exact ideas. Seriously, no need to get too upset, man. Take a break for now and/or concentrate in writing some more stuff before you find someone new.


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## Naren (Aug 1, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Skillz doesn't mean much if you guys don't gel or see things the same way. Sometimes it is actually better to be jamming with someone not as skilled who shares your exact ideas.



Yeah, I know. But we seemed to gel. The other guitarist and I have the exact same vision and taste in music, which is great. The other 2 members' taste in music was different, but all the stuff they played really really fit well.



Azyiu said:


> Take a break for now and/or concentrate in writing some more stuff before you find someone new.



No way. I already have 5 songs on the backburner. If I take break and concentrate on writing before I look for someone new, we'll have 2 whole albums of songs without one album released. With the current band, we have a total of 8-9 finished songs and about 3-4 in-progress songs, and then a bunch of songs that I've been working on myself but haven't introduced to the band.


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## Azyiu (Aug 1, 2007)

Naren said:


> I've been working on myself but haven't introduced to the band.



Instead of the songs, introduce a bat to the face of your departing drummer and bassist!


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## Naren (Aug 1, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Instead of the songs, introduce a bat to the face of your departing drummer and bassist!



Yeah... I don't really feel any animosity towards them to be honest. I just wish they would have either quit a long time ago, so we could have found some members who are dedicated and won't quit. If they'd rather not be doing super heavy kill-everyone-and-massacre-entire-countries death metally thrashy evil, then I understand... I just don't like the way they went about doing it... And I don't like the fact that I had an awesome band with a full lineup and now I only have half of the lineup (well, after our next gig at least. They'll still be in the band until that's over). Luckily me and the other guitarist wrote all the songs, which means we don't have to throw away any of our songs or parts of songs with their departure.

I wouldn't wish any physical harm on either of them unless they attacked me, which I seriously doubt either of them would ever do.


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## Azyiu (Aug 1, 2007)

Naren said:


> I wouldn't wish any physical harm on either of them .



Well, mental tortures are very effective!  Seriously, wish you and your band luck all the way.


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## Naren (Aug 1, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Well, mental tortures are very effective!  Seriously, wish you and your band luck all the way.



I just put out 2 ads on a site and this time we really emphasized the "unique super heavy music" angle, hopefully to attract some good guys who are into heavy music. 

Thanks for the goodwishes. I hope that after the next gig, we can quickly find some competetant skilled musicians who are really into the same kind of music as me and the other guitarist, are passionate about playing, and can learn to play lots of songs really fast so that it won't take several months to start gigging again.


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## Azyiu (Aug 15, 2007)

Hey Eric, don't say I didn't try, man.

I went to several game stores in town, and did a little research on-line about games comparability on the PS3. Long story short, since PS3 games run in Blu-ray format, and since all PS3 consoles from any region read and play almost all Blu-ray dvds; your future region 2 PS3 console *WILL* play almost all of your future PS3 games, regardless they are meant for the Japanese or the US/Canadian market.

Meanwhile, regarding playing old PSOne and PS2 games, as well as dvd movies, your future region 2 console will only play those are meant for the Japanese market.

Hope this piece of info is helpful, and good luck.


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## Naren (Aug 15, 2007)

Yeah, I bought my PS3 a few weeks ago and I've been mainly just playing "Ninja Gaiden Sigma" on it. I just got to the end of chapter 18, the last level, today and I'll probably beat the end of the game tomorrow. 

I tried playing all of my PS2 games on it and they all played exactly the same as they did on my PS2, except the load times are about 1/3-1/5 the length they were on the PS2. It's kind of funny because it feels like I'm playing it on the PS2, but I'll load something and it'll show the load screen for maybe 1 second and then I'm already loaded.

Yeah, I assumed it would only play Japanese PS1 and PS2 games, as well as movies, so that's not a disappointment, but if I can play American PS3 games as well, that's pretty sweet news. Even though I already own "The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion" for PC, I'd love to buy it for my PS3 just because it would run faster, smoother, and would probably look better on my PS3 (and, although in the US, Oblivion is available on PC, Xbox 360, and PS3, in Japan, it is only available on Xbox 360. No PC or PS3 version, which I find very strange, considering that the Elder Scrolls games are all basically PC games).

So far, I'm very pleased with my PS3. I only own 2 PS3 games, but the other game I own I only played for 1 hour when I first got it and then got hooked on Ninja Gaiden Sigma and decided I'd play the other game once I beat NGS.


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## Azyiu (Aug 15, 2007)

Great, it sounds like things are finally working out for you.  

As for me, I "might" get mine as early as this Christmas, and have someone ship me one from the US. Man, those I could find in HK does NO good to me.


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## Alpo (Aug 16, 2007)

I already started saving for another console. I'll most likely be getting a PS3 next year, I hope. I was considering an XBox 360, but it's not looking like a very good option right now. I just hope I'll have some money left after the flood of great Wii-games coming out soon.


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## Azyiu (Aug 16, 2007)

Alpo said:


> I just hope I'll have some money left after the flood of great Wii-games coming out soon.



Speaking of Wii, it *IS* a fun party machine for sure, but I don't see myself actually buying it. Originally the *Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles* looks promising or at least somewhat interesting. Then the more I found out about it, the less I wanted to buy the Wii just for it. I already bought the GameCube JUST for the Resident Evil Remake and Resident Evil Zero years ago, and I am not likely to do it again.


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## Alpo (Aug 16, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Speaking of Wii, it *IS* a fun party machine for sure, but I don't see myself actually buying it.



I think it's an awesome system. I mainly bought it for the Nintendo games. There will probably be some great 3rd party games, too, when the developers get the hang of making games for it. Resident Evil 4 works amazingly well with the Wii controls, so I think there'll be more third person action games coming out. It just sucks that I'll have to play RE5 with a standard pad.  I've tried playing RE4 with a GC controller and it felt really awkward compared to the sweet Wii controls.


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## Azyiu (Aug 16, 2007)

Alpo said:


> Resident Evil 4 works amazingly well with the Wii controls



If anything at all, Resident Evil 4 would be the only reason for me to buy the Wii as of this moment. I already have the GameCube version, and I LOVE it very much; but the Wii one got all the extras from both the PS2 and GC versions.

Speaking of Resident Evil 5, did you check out the two trailers? Well, maybe it is just me, but I have mixed feeling after watching them. For one thing, while the graphics look good and all, the game plays seem to be almost exactly like Resident Evil 4. In a way I expected more from the PS3!


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## Alpo (Aug 16, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Speaking of Resident Evil 5, did you check out the two trailers? Well, maybe it is just me, but I have mixed feeling after watching them. For one thing, while the graphics look good and all, the game plays seem to be almost exactly like Resident Evil 4. In a way I expected more from the PS3!



What more can they really do? The gameplay is close to perfect for the style of game (especially on Wii) that there's really no room for improvement.


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## Naren (Aug 16, 2007)

Alpo said:


> What more can they really do? The gameplay is close to perfect for the style of game (especially on Wii) that there's really no room for improvement.



Exactly. Resident Evil 4 has been rated the best RE so far and people have said that it has the best gameplay in the entire series (which seems to be an accumulation of experience), so, like Alpo said, there really isn't much room for improvement. If you drastically changed the gameplay, you'd probably end up making a weaker game.


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## Azyiu (Aug 16, 2007)

Well, not necessarily an entirely new gameplay or what not, I think I simply wanted more freedom, an even more non-linear kind of experience. Or at the very least, being able to do things you were never allowed to do in a RE game, like driving a vehicle and roam around an area.


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## Alpo (Aug 16, 2007)

RE 4 is very linear, and I don't have a problem with that. Not every game needs to be non-linear or free-roaming or whatever.


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## Naren (Aug 16, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Well, not necessarily an entirely new gameplay or what not, I think I simply wanted more freedom, an even more non-linear kind of experience. Or at the very least, being able to do things you were never allowed to do in a RE game, like driving a vehicle and roam around an area.



The Resident Evil series is one of the most linear game series out there. I can't think of many games more linear than RE. It would become a completely different kind of game if they just suddenly decided to give the player tons of freedom to go whereever they want, do whatever they want, and roam freely around. 

I agree that they could do _some_ new things, but it sounds to me like you're wanting Resident Evil 5 to not be a Resident Evil game but be something completely different. I personally love games with tons of freedom like the Elder Scrolls games or the Fallout games, but I also love extremely linear games as well like the Resident Evil games or the God of War games (and such similar action games). They're good as they are. Those are just the type of games they are.


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## Azyiu (Aug 16, 2007)

Don't get me wrong guys, I *LOVE* the Resident Evil series since it came out in 1996. I merely suggested adding new elements into future games is possible and could be a good idea. I would still enjoy it just as much if the next one is as linear as ever.


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## Alpo (Aug 17, 2007)

Of course they should do some new things, but please no driving sequences or free-roaming! Vehicle-sequences like the bulldozer-part in RE4 are fine, maybe they could do something more fast paced and cinematic with the more powerful hardware.


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## Azyiu (Aug 23, 2007)

Hey Eric, I know this is old news, but in case you still need the info, check this out BluRay Region Coding Announced - Japan & US Same Region Code

Basically it tells us there are new regional codes for Blu-ray discs. And Region 1 is for mainly the US and Japanese market. That is why you have no problem watching a US Blu-ray disc on your Japanese PS3 console. Meanwhile, as I mentioned before, there is no regional restrictions on PS3games.


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## Naren (Aug 23, 2007)

Yeah, actually it's funny that you just posted this because my friend recommended that I buy "The Darkness" and I checked it out and the game looks absolutely awesome, but it hasn't been released in Japan, so I read up on that stuff and it seems that there are no region codes for PS3 games. So a Japanese PS3 can play American, European, and Japanese PS3 games, but is region-locked for PS1 and PS2 games. It said that regions are imposed by game publishers and not by the console developers. Sony said that none of their games have region codes and that they recommend that other game publishers also do not use region codes. Technically you COULD impose a region code, but I don't think any PS3 games right now do.

So, hearing that awesome news, I had a colleague I work with order the PS3 versions of "The Darkness" and "Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" (I already own this for PC and have beaten the game, but I really want it for my PS3 since my PC doesn't have very high specs and couldn't run the game very smoothly).


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## DDDorian (Aug 23, 2007)

Naren said:


> Yeah, actually it's funny that you just posted this because my friend recommended that I buy "The Darkness" and I checked it out and the game looks absolutely awesome, but it hasn't been released in Japan, so I read up on that stuff and it seems that there are no region codes for PS3 games. So a Japanese PS3 can play American, European, and Japanese PS3 games, but is region-locked for PS1 and PS2 games. It said that regions are imposed by game publishers and not by the console developers. Sony said that none of their games have region codes and that they recommend that other game publishers also do not use region codes. Technically you COULD impose a region code, but I don't think any PS3 games right now do.



Really? That seems to contradict Sony's actions against Lik Sang and the like. I'm not disputing your info, that just seems odd.


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## Naren (Aug 23, 2007)

DDDorian said:


> Really? That seems to contradict Sony's actions against Lik Sang and the like. I'm not disputing your info, that just seems odd.



Lik Sang? What's that? Is that some Korean or Chinese company?

Well, for example, my PS3 can only play Japanese PS1 and PS2 games because those are still region-locked, but it can play all PS3 games.


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## DDDorian (Aug 23, 2007)

Naren said:


> Lik Sang? What's that? Is that some Korean or Chinese company?
> 
> Well, for example, my PS3 can only play Japanese PS1 and PS2 games because those are still region-locked, but it can play all PS3 games.



Lik Sang was a distributor in Hong Kong that Sony sued out of existence (they literally sent guys in black suits at one point) for selling Asian PSPs to the UK, citing a bunch of trademark and copyright laws. They're both current consoles so it seems odd that Sony would be promoting region-free PS3 games, yet still locking out the older systems.


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## Azyiu (Aug 23, 2007)

DDDorian said:


> Lik Sang was a distributor in Hong Kong that Sony sued out of existence (they literally sent guys in black suits at one point) for selling Asian PSPs to the UK, citing a bunch of trademark and copyright laws. They're both current consoles so it seems odd that Sony would be promoting region-free PS3 games, yet still locking out the older systems.



Do you have a link to this info? As far as I know there is NO regional restrictions on the PSP. So when you said about these guys selling "Asian" PSPs does sound odd to me.


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## Naren (Aug 23, 2007)

DDDorian said:


> Lik Sang was a distributor in Hong Kong that Sony sued out of existence (they literally sent guys in black suits at one point) for selling Asian PSPs to the UK, citing a bunch of trademark and copyright laws. They're both current consoles so it seems odd that Sony would be promoting region-free PS3 games, yet still locking out the older systems.



That's not possible. PSPs are all region-free. I know because I used to own a PSP and when I was looking for information on PS3s being region-free, I found a lot of sites talking about PSPs also being region-free by default.

Systems like the PS1 and PS2 were originally made to have regions, which is why all new games made for the PS2 still have region codes. The PSP and PS3 are two Sony systems that do not have regions, however.



Azyiu said:


> Do you have a link to this info? As far as I know there is NO regional restrictions on the PSP. So when you said about these guys selling "Asian" PSPs does sound odd to me.


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## Azyiu (Aug 23, 2007)

Ok, Eric, this is what I found Lik-Sang.com Out of Business due to Multiple Sony Lawsuits I will try to find out more when I get home.

EDIT: Here is more Lik Sang - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## Naren (Aug 23, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Ok, Eric, this is what I found Lik-Sang.com Out of Business due to Multiple Sony Lawsuits I will try to find out more when I get home.
> 
> EDIT: Here is more Lik Sang - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Interesting. I'm not defending Sony because they've been known to do stupid (and mean) things, but that article didn't say anything about region codes -- seeing as PSPs are region-free.

The Sony representative said, "Ultimately, we're trying to protect consumers from being sold hardware that does not conform to strict EU or UK consumer safety standards, due to voltage supply differences et cetera; is not - in PS3's case - backwards compatible with either PS1 or PS2 software; will not play European Blu-Ray movies or DVDs; and will not be covered by warranty."

Personally I think those are valid complaints. If you bought a Japanese PS3 and brought it back to the US, even if it broke the very next day, it would not be covered by warranty because warranties only apply in the country of the hardware. The PS3 is region-free for PS3 games but Chinese PS3s would not play European PS1 or PS2 games and you would not be able to watch European DVD or Blu-Ray movies on a Chinese PS3.


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## DDDorian (Aug 23, 2007)

Ostensibly, the lawsuit was because the release date for the UK PSP was tied to a lot of trademark/licensing deals that would be jeopardised if there was a sudden influx of imports. From what I'm led to believe, though, the initial PSP units from Japan/Pacific Asia featured very rudimentary firmware that could be easily and even accidentally exploited which Sony didn't want spreading to Europe, which is why an official PSP release for most of the world was nine months behind the Japanese release. PSPs are still regionalised to this day, mainly because content authorisation exploits change as the data on regionalised games is rearranged/removed due to different translation, censored content and stuff like that.

I think it's fair enough that Sony wouldn't want their products to be hacked in such a way, but it serves them right for not coming up with decent software in the first place. The stuff about "voiding warranties" is just Sony trying to justify their thuggery as far as I'm concerned; as for PS3 backward-compatability, it took them a year to release the PS3 in Australia and it only had a 60% backwards-compatability due to Sony cutting costs and removing most of that "Emotion Engine" thing. I'm trying to be objective, but Sony have made so many shady or just plain stupid calls that I don't really trust them anymore.


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## Naren (Aug 23, 2007)

DDDorian said:


> The stuff about "voiding warranties" is just Sony trying to justify their thuggery as far as I'm concerned;



It's not "voiding" it. Your PS3 or PSP or whatever is still under warranty IN THE COUNTRY YOU BOUGHT IT. I mean, let's say some American in 1999 bought a PS2 in Japan and brought it back to the US, it broke, and he sent it with its warranty to Sony USA. The warranty is written in 100% Japanese, the PS2 console is completely in Japanese, and the registery of all the information regarding these is in Japan and not in the US.

I mean, you get the warranty and it says: &#12477;&#12491;&#12540;&#35069;&#21697;&#20445;&#35388;&#26360; where in English it would have said "Sony Warranty" or something like that and all the rest of the text is in Japanese.

I mean, seriously. I can't think of a single company that would honor a warranty from another country. For one, Nintendo wouldn't do it. All of their software is region-locked and they would probably insult anyone in the US who bought a Japanese Wii or Japanese Gamecube or whatever and tried to redeem the warranty in the US.


----------



## Azyiu (Aug 23, 2007)

DDDorian said:


> The stuff about "voiding warranties" is just Sony trying to justify their thuggery as far as I'm concerned



I totally agreed!  



DDDorian said:


> I'm trying to be objective, but Sony have made so many shady or just plain stupid calls that I don't really trust them anymore.



Agreed again!  Case in point, I got this cd by Misato Watanabe (one of my fav Japanese singers), and SONY has this stupid anti-piracy thing in the cd. Thus I *MUST* download their useless media player (MagicQlip 2)before I could even play it on my PC. Better yet, since I do not live in Japan nor I have a Japanese IP address, I cannot "varify" the cd is a legit copy (WTF?  ) so I cannot load it to my iPod or my HD. Hell, didn't I pay real money for that damn cd that I can't play normally?  Well, at least I don't own a Mac, or I would've been screwed even more. It says clearly the cd will *NOT* play on ANY Mac computer! Nice work, SONY!  




Naren said:


> I mean, seriously. I can't think of a single company that would honor a warranty from another country.



Err... at the very least, Canon does honor warranties from all over the world, as long as you show them your International Warranty card. My older D-SLR (which I bought in the US) got some problems after I returned to Hong "Commies Infested" Kong, and their HK office gladly repair it for me for free.


----------



## Naren (Aug 23, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Agreed again!  Case in point, I got this cd by Misato Watanabe (one of my fav Japanese singers), and SONY has this stupid anti-piracy thing in the cd. Thus I *MUST* download their useless media player (MagicQlip 2)before I could even play it on my PC. Better yet, since I do not live in Japan nor I have a Japanese IP address, I cannot "varify" the cd is a legit copy (WTF?  ) so I cannot load it to my iPod or my HD. Hell, didn't I pay real money for that damn cd that I can't play normally?  Well, at least I don't own a Mac, or I would've been screwed even more. It says clearly the cd will *NOT* play on ANY Mac computer! Nice work, SONY!



That is really annoying. I bought the remaster of "Rust In Peace" by Megadeth which has this anti-piracy thing on it, so I couldn't copy the songs to my computer. So you know what I did? I went on bittorrent and downloaded the album because I NEVER listen to CDs. I always just buy CDs, turn them into MP3s, and then listen to them on my computer and iPod.

I've ended up buying 3-4 CDs that had that annoying "feature" on them and each time, I've downloaded the CD off the internet so that I could listen to the CD I just BOUGHT.

As for warranties, yeah, some of those companies that use the same product worldwide and are pretty huge companies, use international warranties. But that is actually quite rare. If I bought a Dell in the US, moved to Japan, and it broke, I could not use that warranty in Japan. Dell has a bunch of offices in Japan, but they can only honor warranties from computers bought in Japan. And the same is true vice versa. Companies like Canon are the exception and not the rule.


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## Azyiu (Aug 24, 2007)

Naren said:


> That is really annoying. I bought the remaster of "Rust In Peace" by Megadeth which has this anti-piracy thing on it, so I couldn't copy the songs to my computer. So you know what I did? I went on bittorrent and downloaded the album because I NEVER listen to CDs. I always just buy CDs, turn them into MP3s, and then listen to them on my computer and iPod.
> 
> I've ended up buying 3-4 CDs that had that annoying "feature" on them and each time, I've downloaded the CD off the internet so that I could listen to the CD I just BOUGHT.



Same here, and you can relate just HOW frustrated I feel, man.  Stupid companies like SONY get so damn paranold these days, and IMO, sometimes they end up hurting their own businesses. If I see another SONY labelled cd with such feature, I rather choose not to buy it at all.


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## Alpo (Aug 24, 2007)

Naren said:


> That is really annoying. I bought the remaster of "Rust In Peace" by Megadeth which has this anti-piracy thing on it, so I couldn't copy the songs to my computer. So you know what I did? I went on bittorrent and downloaded the album because I NEVER listen to CDs. I always just buy CDs, turn them into MP3s, and then listen to them on my computer and iPod.



I have the RiP remaster with copy protection, too. I had no trouble copying it to my PC. I just put the disc in, and used WMP to copy it. No problems. It might have had one of those players that say something like: "This CD can only be played with this software." But I just closed that.


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## Azyiu (Aug 24, 2007)

Alpo said:


> I have the RiP remaster with copy protection, too. I had no trouble copying it to my PC. I just put the disc in, and used WMP to copy it. No problems. It might have had one of those players that say something like: "This CD can only be played with this software." But I just closed that.



Good for you. But if Eric has got the Japanese version like mine, then other media players like iTunes / WMP won't even recognize the cd at all.  For Japanese version, at least in my case, I must have that SONY made MagicQlip2 player before I can even play it on my PC.


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## Alpo (Aug 24, 2007)

Wow, that sucks. I wonder why the Euro-version is different...


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## Metal Ken (Aug 24, 2007)

Alpo said:


> I have the RiP remaster with copy protection, too. I had no trouble copying it to my PC. I just put the disc in, and used WMP to copy it. No problems. It might have had one of those players that say something like: "This CD can only be played with this software." But I just closed that.



Huh, the american ones dont even have copy protections.


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## DDDorian (Aug 24, 2007)

Naren said:


> It's not "voiding" it. Your PS3 or PSP or whatever is still under warranty IN THE COUNTRY YOU BOUGHT IT. I mean, let's say some American in 1999 bought a PS2 in Japan and brought it back to the US, it broke, and he sent it with its warranty to Sony USA. The warranty is written in 100% Japanese, the PS2 console is completely in Japanese, and the registery of all the information regarding these is in Japan and not in the US.
> 
> I mean, you get the warranty and it says: &#12477;&#12491;&#12540;&#35069;&#21697;&#20445;&#35388;&#26360; where in English it would have said "Sony Warranty" or something like that and all the rest of the text is in Japanese.
> 
> I mean, seriously. I can't think of a single company that would honor a warranty from another country. For one, Nintendo wouldn't do it. All of their software is region-locked and they would probably insult anyone in the US who bought a Japanese Wii or Japanese Gamecube or whatever and tried to redeem the warranty in the US.



My point was that, however valid the reasoning behind warranties might be, it was only a secondary concern to Sony and that their primary concern seems to have been to stop the spread of the PSP's substandard firmware. You're right, buying such a PSP wouldn't technically "void" a warranty, but if I was forced to buy a PSP from Hong Kong because Sony didn't have the good sense to test their products before shifitng them then I'd place the blame squarely on them; for all intents and purposes, it'd be as good as voided, in my opinion.



Azyiu said:


> Agreed again!  Case in point, I got this cd by Misato Watanabe (one of my fav Japanese singers), and SONY has this stupid anti-piracy thing in the cd. Thus I *MUST* download their useless media player (MagicQlip 2)before I could even play it on my PC. Better yet, since I do not live in Japan nor I have a Japanese IP address, I cannot "varify" the cd is a legit copy (WTF?  ) so I cannot load it to my iPod or my HD. Hell, didn't I pay real money for that damn cd that I can't play normally?  Well, at least I don't own a Mac, or I would've been screwed even more. It says clearly the cd will *NOT* play on ANY Mac computer! Nice work, SONY!



I bought my sister an mp3 Walkman for Xmas a year or two ago which came with the most worthless software known to man. It would only let you transfer mp3s that the program didn't identify as "illegaly distributed" (which ended up being pretty much every mp3 I tried) and once they were on the player it would alter them so that they could only be transferred from the player once and only to other Sony devices. On top of that, it was a major memory hog, it would crash if you tried to transfer more than 30 songs at a time, it filled the PC with programs that were basically spyware, telling advertisers and Sony distributors your playback/transfer records, and could even irrepairably damage the Walkman itself if there were too many character names. It took a hell of a lot of complaining to get someone from Sony to listen to me and their response was to mail me a new software CD and then charge me for it I ended up just taking it back to the store and bitching until they exchanged for an Ipod. I guess the moral of this story is, Xmas blows 

As for those copy-protected CDs, I owned one when they were first being introduced and all you had to do was hold Shift as the CD started up and it would totally bypass the copy-protection software. No idea if it still works though.



Metal Ken said:


> Huh, the american ones dont even have copy protections.



They have Mustaine's god-awful remaster job which is mor than enough to ensure no-one will ever copy a single track (but that's a discussion for another thread, I guess)


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## Azyiu (Aug 24, 2007)

DDDorian said:


> I guess the moral of this story is, Xmas blows



I guess we ALL agreed to that statement!   

Man, luckily I never even bothered to consider getting a SONY MP3 player. I am very very happy with my G5 60Gb iPod!


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## Metal Ken (Aug 24, 2007)

DDDorian said:


> They have Mustaine's god-awful remaster job which is mor than enough to ensure no-one will ever copy a single track (but that's a discussion for another thread, I guess)



I copied it to my ipod 
I've never actually heard the original version of it from the 80s though. 
I didnt copy any of those crappy quality demos though, they're cool to listen to once.. or... yeah. Once.


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## Naren (Aug 24, 2007)

Metal Ken said:


> I copied it to my ipod
> I've never actually heard the original version of it from the 80s though.
> I didnt copy any of those crappy quality demos though, they're cool to listen to once.. or... yeah. Once.



Exactly. I own the remaster CD, but the ones on my iPod are actually from the original album (because I downloaded them off the internet when I found I couldn't copy them to the computer). The demo versions are interesting, as are the Dave Mustaine comments in the booklet, but I don't think I'll ever listen to the demos again. The vocals on them were pretty crappy, Poland's solos sucked compared to Friedman's (in my opinion), and they were just in general much lower quality. I wouldn't want those demos on my iPod or computer to be honest.


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## Azyiu (Sep 10, 2007)

Hey, Eric, so it's been over a month since you upgraded to the PS3. Mind sharing your thought on playing PS2 games on it with us? I heard some people are having display problems with some PS2 titles, or the game just freezes after loading etc. What about any old old PSOne games?


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## Naren (Sep 10, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Hey, Eric, so it's been over a month since you upgraded to the PS3. Mind sharing your thought on playing PS2 games on it with us? I heard some people are having display problems with some PS2 titles, or the game just freezes after loading etc. What about any old old PSOne games?



Really? I haven't heard anything about that. In fact, I went into this store and they had 3 different posters for the PS3, each advertising a different aspect. One poster was advertising solely PS1 and PS2 games. It showed two screens. On the left, it said, "PS2 games on a PS2" and it should a regular screenshot from a PS2 game and then had a part of the screen magnified and it was pretty pixelated. Then on the right it said, "PS2 games on a PS3" and it showed the same screenshot, except it was a lot clearer and the magnified part was not pixelated at all, but was really smooth and clean. It said, "Play PS2 games on a PS3 with smoother clearer graphics, faster load times, and a more vibrant experience."

And, to be honest, that's what I've been experiencing. I beat my 5 PS3 games, so I've been playing a bunch of my PS2 games and the load times are 5 to 10 times faster than they were on the PS2, the graphics do look nicer, and everything else seems to go fine.

I haven't had anything freeze up, no display problems, or anything else.

So far, I've been really pleased with my PS3. I've thoroughly enjoyed every game I've bought so far, especially Resistance: Fall Of Man (that game totally rocks). I've made lists of PS2 and PS3 games I want, both released and unreleased. Such as these upcoming releases: Assassin's Creed, Unreal Tournament 3, Final Fantasy XIII, Metal Gear Solid 5, Grand Theft Auto 5, Resident Evil 5 (Biohazard 5), Fallout 3, etc.

I should be buying the Game of The Year Edition of Oblivion in a few weeks. Looking forward to that. Thinking of buying "Biohazard 4" (RE4) in a few weeks as well.


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## Azyiu (Sep 10, 2007)

Naren said:


> Grand Theft Auto 5



  GTA IV have not even been released, or is it another GTA game that is titled differently in the Japanese market?


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## Naren (Sep 10, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> GTA IV have not even been released, or is it another GTA game that is titled differently in the Japanese market?



 You know what I meant. GTA4. Coming out March 3rd if I remember correctly. Looking for that one. I will be buying the American one online.


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## FoxZero (Sep 16, 2007)

haha Resistance is the only game I got right now for the PS3 (I got mine way back in April at a store that had been robbed a week earlier lol), but I'll be getting Oblivion this week now that I have some cash. I rented it for about three weeks earlier this summer and I totally love it (which is weird cause I am an RPG hater). I rented the Darkness and the single player was awesome, actually it was ok but the plot by far made up for it ten times over lol.

I mainly got my PS3 cause my PS2 was dying. It had stopped playing DVD movies years ago and right before I got rid of it it stopped playing any recent games (like Burnout Revenge). So half my games didn't work and it was pretty much just collecting dust. Luckily I got $100USD off the PS3 for trading it in when I bought it.

lol I hope you got your saves back. A few years ago I got this cool demo in the mail with a ton of games I was planing on buying. Well after I enjoyed it for a few hours I popped GT3 in my PS2 and it asked me in the beginning if I wanted to make a new save game, and I was like what? I immediately tensed up. I went back to the PS2 menu and checked my memory card. It was blank. Over fifty game saves with at least 20 hours each and PS1 games like GT1 and 2 were gone. I checked the case of the demo. Apparently Sony had a tiny warning on the inside. To sum it up it said make sure to take out your memory card before playing the Veautiful Joe demo because it will erase it. You could imagine how crashed I was. Saves I had keep for years from the PS1 were on there, including GT2 that had way over 100 hours (I was close to beating it). The next day I took the fucker outside and blew it to pieces with my air rifle, I was lucky my dad didn't own his shotgun at the time or things would have gotten real messy.

Oh yeah, Sony Music is the devil, but I love their music players sorry. I love em and hate em, but either way they sure make my wallet thinner.


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## Azyiu (Sep 18, 2007)

@ Eric (aka Naren), or anyone else.

Hey dude, chances are I am getting my PS3 right before X'mas (my buddy in Phoenix is going to UPS me one  ). So I have a few questions for you before I make the purchase.

Should I get the remote as well? Is that even necessary? What about the memory transfer thingy (from PSOne / PS2 ---> PS3 HD)? Or anything else I haven't thought of? Ok, I am going to get the HDMI cable here in Hong "Commies Infested" Kong, but feel free to suggest me anything. Thanks in advance.


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## TomAwesome (Sep 18, 2007)

^ If you're going to use either the remote or the memory card thing, then go for it. Whether or not it's worth it depends on whether or not you'll get good use out of it, which isn't really something someone else can tell you. Neither are necessary, of course.


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## Naren (Sep 18, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> @ Eric (aka Naren), or anyone else.
> 
> Hey dude, chances are I am getting my PS3 right before X'mas (my buddy in Phoenix is going to UPS me one  ). So I have a few questions for you before I make the purchase.
> 
> Should I get the remote as well? Is that even necessary? What about the memory transfer thingy (from PSOne / PS2 ---> PS3 HD)? Or anything else I haven't thought of? Ok, I am going to get the HDMI cable here in Hong "Commies Infested" Kong, but feel free to suggest me anything. Thanks in advance.



Uh, I wouldn't know about the remote. I didn't buy one. For one thing, I've never used the remote on my TV.  I have batteries in my TV remote, but I've never touched a button on it. So obviously I wouldn't want the PS3 remote. I'd recommend asking someone who owns it, but, like Tom said, it COMPLETELY depends on whether YOU'll use it or not.

For me, the memory transfer thing was an absolute necessity. Here in Japan, it cost me about $7 or $8, which wasn't too bad. I converted all of my saved games for all of my PS2 games onto my PS3. If you have a lot of PS2 games and saves, then I seriously recommend getting it. If you don't have any PS2 games or you only have like one or two PS2 games and you don't plan on playing the saves much, then I don't recommend it. However, since you're considering buying one, I assume you own several PS2 games that you want to play on the PS3. If that's the case, I totally recommend getting it.

Since I last posted in this thread, I actually bought 2 more PS3 games and beat both of them. Right now I'm considering buying a particular PS2 game I want and 3 PS3 games that I want.  It's funny because when I first bought my PS2, I was playing a lot of games, then after about a year, my game playing really died down to maybe once a week or sometimes even once every two weeks. But, since I bought my PS3, I've been playing about twice as much as I played my PS2 when I first got it and I've bought a hell of a lot more games. I even made a list of PS3 games to buy on my computer (currently there are like 10-13 games on the list, most of which haven't come out yet such as GTA4). 

I WOULD get a HDMI cable if I had a good TV, but I have normal-style 15" TV in my tiny tiny apartment. It's perfectly adequate for what I do, but I wish I could play games with the visuals at the maximum possible level and with the crazy sound capabilities as well. Some of the games I own are breathtakingly amazing and that's on my old-fashioned 15 inch.


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## Azyiu (Sep 18, 2007)

Hey, thanks Tom and Eric for your insights. Yeah, I think the remote controller is not necessary at this point. After all, I can always get one here and it should work on a Region 1 console. About the file converter, I definitely need to have it. I have saves as old as from 1996!!! And I have unlocked absolutely everything there is to unlock in some of those older games, like the original RE, RE2, RE3 and Code Veronica, as well as Silent Hill 1,2 and 3.  I definitely do NOT want to lose those saves!!!


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## Naren (Sep 18, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Hey, thanks Tom and Eric for your insights. Yeah, I think the remote controller is not necessary at this point. After all, I can always get one here and it should work on a Region 1 console. About the file converter, I definitely need to have it. I have saves as old as from 1996!!! And I have unlocked absolutely everything there is to unlock in some of those older games, like the original RE, RE2, RE3 and Code Veronica, as well as Silent Hill 1,2 and 3.  I definitely do NOT want to lose those saves!!!



Then why did you even ask me?  It should have been a no-brainer that you'd need it. I got mine because I have a ton of saves from Final Fantasy 10, Final Fantasy 12, Silent Hill 2, God Of War, and a bunch of PS2 RPGs.


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## Azyiu (Sep 18, 2007)

Naren said:


> Then why did you even ask me?



Hey, shut up, I gave you an eRep already!   Just kidding... I knew I need it, but I was just asking for the sake of it.  So without the remote, it still plays dvds and all like the PS2, correct?


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## Naren (Sep 19, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Hey, shut up, I gave you an eRep already!   Just kidding... I knew I need it, but I was just asking for the sake of it.  So without the remote, it still plays dvds and all like the PS2, correct?



 Of course.

The wireless controller is like a remote. I could be in the other room with the wireless controller and just push the PS button on it, then suddenly the Playstation 3 turns on and the controller turns on and I'm ready to go. If I'm watching a DVD, I can use the wireless controller to pause, fast forward, or whatever, just like you could with a PS2 controller... except that this one is wireless.


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## Azyiu (Sep 19, 2007)

^ Nice... I am in no hurry to get it, and am still thinking whether to get it now or wait til early to mid Nov to get it. The *ONLY* game I wanted that will be in the market before X'mas is NBA 2K8, and everything else (like GTA IV) will not be released until at least March 2008.


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## Naren (Sep 19, 2007)

Oh, there are a tons of sweet games already out on the PS3 like: The Darkness, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Resistance: Fall Of Man, AND MUCH MORE.

I went to lunch with a colleague and he hadn't known that I bought a PS3. When he found out that and that I've been playing it through a 15" television, he was like, "Dude, the first thing you need to do is get yourself a television with a bigger screen that can do high-definition." So he took me to Yodobashi and just showed me all the TVs there, but the cheapest one was around $1300 and the ones he was really recommending were around $3500-5000. And I was like "Yeah, no way I'm gonna be able to afford that." So later he sent me a link for a 21" wide screen-compatible computer screen with 1680×1050 dot display (WSXGA = 16,200,000 colors) and a liquid crystal screen (the one right below plasma) that costs about $250 or so. I'm thinking I'm gonna actually buy it sometime after my payday and use it instead of my 15" TV. What do you think?

Here's the link he sent me: iiyamaA&#381;À&#8221;&#8222;29,800&#8240;~&#8218;Ì20.1&#338;^&#402;&#402;C&#402;hWSXGA+&#8240;t»

It's Japanese, but Chinese uses kanji too... so maybe you can guess.


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## TomAwesome (Sep 19, 2007)

21"? That's really not half bad! I'd go for it, too, Eric.


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## Naren (Sep 19, 2007)

TomAwesome said:


> 21"? That's really not half bad! I'd go for it, too, Eric.



Yeah. It's funny. My TV is 15" and is an absolutely normally TV which does absolutely NO justice to the insane capabilities of my PS3. I went to a gaming store a few days ago and they had a game on display that I own and beat and it looked 1000x better than I ever remembered it looking on my TV, so that's when I thought I should really get a screen capable of high-definition.

So, my TV is 15", my laptop screen is 17", and if I get that new monitor, it'll be 21" and much better than any screen I've ever owned before. The 21" screen's size isn't amazing, but I think all the other capabilities it has are pretty impressive.


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## Azyiu (Sep 19, 2007)

Yeah, Eric, you really NEED to upgrade your monitor. Unfortunately I bet you are on a budget, but that said monitor looks good enough to me, dude.

As for me, I just got a brand new 42" plasma to go with the BOSE LifeStyle 18 system, all I really need is the damn PS3 and HDMI connection.


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## Naren (Sep 19, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Yeah, Eric, you really NEED to upgrade your monitor. Unfortunately I bet you are on a budget, but that said monitor looks good enough to me, dude.
> 
> As for me, I just got a brand new 42" plasma to go with the BOSE LifeStyle 18 system, all I really need is the damn PS3 and HDMI connection.



Yeah, I would love to buy a 52" plasma television and 16 speaker surround sound system to go with it, but I don't have $6000 to blow on a home entertainment system. And, even if I did have the money for it, I don't have the room for a 35" or 52" television in my tiny tiny tiny apartment, not to mention having ZERO room for a speaker system.

And the cheapest TVs there with the graphical capabilities I'm looking for were like $1300, so a computer monitor for $250 is a great price and it has all the super high-definition stuff I want at a pretty decent screen size.

I think that monitor my co-worker sent me the link for looks pretty good.


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## Azyiu (Sep 19, 2007)

Naren said:


> I think that monitor my co-worker sent me the link for looks pretty good.



Yes, for around $250, it is not too bad. Hell, although you might not need it, but at least it has this 15-pin D-sub input (in case you have a GameCube and want to use its digital output  ). That's something not even my 42" plasma can offer.  Everything else looks pretty damn standard for a LCD monitor. It should be pretty good.

EDIT: BTW, all of a sudden another buddy of mine in Phoenix offered to bring me a PS3 via his girlfriend next month, as his girlfriend is returning to Hong "Commies Infested" Kong for vacation. I think I might just take that offer up, man.


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## Naren (Sep 19, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Yes, for around $250, it is not too bad. Hell, although you might not need it, but at least it has this 15-pin D-sub input (in case you have a GameCube and want to use its digital output  ). That's something not even my 42" plasma can offer.  Everything else looks pretty damn standard for a LCD monitor. It should be pretty good.
> 
> EDIT: BTW, all of a sudden another buddy of mine in Phoenix offered to bring me a PS3 via his girlfriend next month, as his girlfriend is returning to Hong "Commies Infested" Kong for vacation. I think I might just take that offer up, man.



Yeah. It's just that none of the monitors I've owned up until now have had that high level of graphical/visual capabilities. The 15-pin D-sub input looked pretty interesting, but the GameCube is actually in the US right now, so I doubt I'll use it. 

That PS3 deal sounds pretty good. I would recommend also getting her to bring a few games while you're at it. My personal PS3 recommendations would be the ones I already mentioned: Resistance: Fall Of Man, The Darkness, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (the normal version has been out on PS3 since March and the Game Of the Year Edition for PS3 is coming out October 16th or 17th I believe), and Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Those are all really awesome games. I'd recommend maybe checking some reviews of them on GameSpot: Video Games|PC|PlayStation 2|GameCube|PSP|DS|GBA|PS2|PS3|Xbox 360|PlayStation 3|Wii or someplace like that and seeing if you're interested in any of them.


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## Alpo (Sep 19, 2007)

Naren, I couldn't find anything about that monitor in english, so maybe you could tell me what inputs it has? I doubt it has HDMI at that price, but does it have component in?


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## Naren (Sep 19, 2007)

Alpo said:


> Naren, I couldn't find anything about that monitor in english, so maybe you could tell me what inputs it has? I doubt it has HDMI at that price, but does it have component in?



I don't think it has HDMI. I was talking to the friend who sent me the link and asked him if it would be a good idea to get HDMI cables for it and he said that HDMI cables don't really make practically any difference unless you're using a 30" screen or larger. 

Here are all the specs on that monitor: iiyama

I'm really not familiar with these kinds of things, so when I was looking at the video inputs, I really didn't have any idea what the hell it means. I had never even heard of 15-pin D-sub before looking at the description.


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## HighGain510 (Sep 19, 2007)

That's not too bad Naren.  I would definitely grab it... playing a system with that much horsepower behind it on your current viewing setup is doing a great disservice to both yourself and the system!  I highly suggest grabbing it or something similar when you can afford to do so. I ended up grabbing a special on buy.com for a 37" 1080i LCD HDTV that has component and HDMI inputs (I only use the HD component connections though, however it is nice to have the option I guess ) and it was only $699 shipped. I thought it was too good to be true but my buddy bought one as well and after seeing his I grabbed one of the last ones they had. If I see more of them pop up again someday I might grab a second one and use it as an uber-monitor!  The tv upgrade will definitely make the gaming experience more enjoyable. Comparing my current gaming setup to what I was using on my old Xbox back home (19" CRT tv), I can't believe how much more I love playing my 360 now in HD!


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## Alpo (Sep 19, 2007)

From what I understand, all it has is a D-Sub(VGA) connector, so you'd have to get a component-to-VGA adapter to plug your PS3 in. Unless of course there is a VGA cable available for the PS3 in Japan.


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## Naren (Sep 19, 2007)

Alpo said:


> From what I understand, all it has is a D-Sub(VGA) connector, so you'd have to get a component-to-VGA adapter to plug your PS3 in. Unless of course there is a VGA cable available for the PS3 in Japan.



That may be so, but getting a component-to-VGA adapter for $10 or however much that costs and getting that monitor for $250 is a lot better than buying a monitor with a component connector for $1500 or a TV for $1300-2500. I actually stopped inside a computer shop on the way home for work and the cheapest computer monitor of the same type as the one I'm planning on buying that they had was about $700 (it was a liquid crystal 22" screen). 

I'm really not familiar with that kind of stuff, though. I've always been into games and gaming systems, but I've never really been into home theater systems or anything like that. So I really don't know if it has component inputs or not.

I know that, according to my PS3 manual, there are like 5 or 6 different ways to hook up your PS3, depending on the various different cables you use. I used the regular red, white, yellow cables that came with it because they plug directly into the inputs in the front of my TV, but there were 4-5 other input explanations in there (such as HDMI). I don't know whether VGA/D-sub was one of them or not, though.


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## Alpo (Sep 19, 2007)

Naren said:


> That may be so, but getting a component-to-VGA adapter for $10 or however much that costs and getting that monitor for $250 is a lot better than buying a monitor with a component connector for $1500 or a TV for $1300-2500. I actually stopped inside a computer shop on the way home for work and the cheapest computer monitor of the same type as the one I'm planning on buying that they had was about $700 (it was a liquid crystal 22" screen).
> 
> I'm really not familiar with that kind of stuff, though. I've always been into games and gaming systems, but I've never really been into home theater systems or anything like that. So I really don't know if it has component inputs or not.
> 
> I know that, according to my PS3 manual, there are like 5 or 6 different ways to hook up your PS3, depending on the various different cables you use. I used the regular red, white, yellow cables that came with it because they plug directly into the inputs in the front of my TV, but there were 4-5 other input explanations in there (such as HDMI). I don't know whether VGA/D-sub was one of them or not, though.




Expect a HUGE improvement when you switch to component or other high quality cables.  Colours are much better, the picture is sharper, you'll get HD etc... I use my Samsung 21" widescreen monitor (has all the standard inputs: composite, S-Video, component, VGA, DVI, and the same resolution as the one you posted. It cost about twice as much, though.) with my Wii, PS2 and PC, and it works great. Only problem is that the screen ratio is 16:10, and game consoles output a 16:9 image, so it stretches the picture a bit. It's barely noticeable, though. For some reason it can scale a 4:3 image into 16:10 flawlessly, but it doesn't scale the 16:9 image.  I can't wait to plug my future PS3 into it.


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## Naren (Sep 19, 2007)

I whipped out my PS3 manual and went to the setup page. There are a total of 6 ways listed here. The first one listed is HDMI cable. The second one is D-pin cable (which has D1-D5 each listed with different capabilities, D1 only capable of 480i with D5 capable of 480i, 480p, 1080i, 720p, and 1080p). The question is: on that monitor I'm thinking of buying, which would it be? D1, 2, 3, 4, or 5? If it's D3, D4, or D5, then I'd be satisfied. I would not, however, be satisfied with D1 (480i) or D2 (480i and 480p). Some of the other input methods listed and explained are: component AV cable, Multimedia AV cable, S-pin cable, and AV cable (the one I'm using right now on my TV, which is only capable of 480i).


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## Alpo (Sep 19, 2007)

Naren said:


> I whipped out my PS3 manual and went to the setup page. There are a total of 6 ways listed here. The first one listed is HDMI cable. The second one is D-pin cable (which has D1-D5 each listed with different capabilities, D1 only capable of 480i with D5 capable of 480i, 480p, 1080i, 720p, and 1080p). The question is: on that monitor I'm thinking of buying, which would it be? D1, 2, 3, 4, or 5? If it's D3, D4, or D5, then I'd be satisfied. I would not, however, be satisfied with D1 (480i) or D2 (480i and 480p). Some of the other input methods listed and explained are: component AV cable, Multimedia AV cable, S-pin cable, and AV cable (the one I'm using right now on my TV, which is only capable of 480i).



The one you're using now is composite, which is probably the second worst cable you can use (right after our old friend from the NES days, the RF-cable (radio frequency))

The D-terminal cables are only used in Japan, I think, so naturally I have zero experience with them. This is what I got from Wikipedia's "Playstation 3 accessories" page:

* D-Terminal (&#65316;&#31471;&#23376 cable (SCPH-10510) Japanese market

D5: 1080p (HD), 1080i (HD), 720p (HD), 480p (ED NTSC)/480i (SD NTSC)
D4: 1080i (HD), 720p (HD), 480p (ED NTSC)/480i (SD NTSC)
D3: 1080i (HD), 480p (ED NTSC)/480i (SD NTSC)
D2: 480p (ED NTSC)/480i (SD NTSC)
D1: 480i (SD NTSC) 

And here's a pic of a D-terminal PS3 cable:





I'll have to do some more digging to find out if you can use them with the monitor.

Okay, looks like it carries the same signal as a component cable. You might be able to get a D-terminal-to-vga adapter. But you might as well go with a component cable and a component-VGA adapter, since the signal is identical.


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## Naren (Sep 19, 2007)

Alpo said:


> I'll have to do some more digging to find out if you can use them with the monitor.
> 
> Okay, looks like it carries the same signal as a component cable. You might be able to get a D-terminal-to-vga adapter. But you might as well go with a component cable and a component-VGA adapter, since the signal is identical.



How do I do that?  If the PS3 side is the AV cable, I need that AV on the one side. And if the monitor side is a "D-terminal" (I assumed D&#31471;&#23376; would be D-pin in English since "terminal" doesn't seem to make much sense), then how could you convert the D-terminal to component? Don't component cables hook into the TV? If it was a D-termal-to-vga-adapter, you would have to hook the D-terminal side into the monitor and the VGA side into the PS3. And if it was component cables, you'd have to plug the component cables into the PS3, but there are no multiple component cable "outlets" on the PS3.

I don't think your idea would work.


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## Alpo (Sep 19, 2007)

Naren said:


> How do I do that?  If the PS3 side is the AV cable, I need that AV on the one side. And if the monitor side is a "D-terminal" (I assumed D&#31471;&#23376; would be D-pin in English since "terminal" doesn't seem to make much sense), then how could you convert the D-terminal to component? Don't component cables hook into the TV? If it was a D-termal-to-vga-adapter, you would have to hook the D-terminal side into the monitor and the VGA side into the PS3. And if it was component cables, you'd have to plug the component cables into the PS3, but there are no multiple component cable "outlets" on the PS3.
> 
> I don't think your idea would work.



No, the D-pin looks like a VGA (D-sub) cable, but it has very different connectors. You couldn't plug that into the monitor without hammmering it in. And call me crazy, but I don't think you should do that.  You would need a D-pin-to-VGA adapter to plug the cable into the monitor, if you were to use the D-pin cable. Unless of course monitors in Japan come with a D-pin input, which would require manufacturers to make videocards with a D-pin out for the Japanese market. You'll need an adapter if you want to plug your PS3 into the monitor.


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## Naren (Sep 19, 2007)

Alpo said:


> No, the D-pin looks like a VGA (D-sub) cable, but it has very different connectors. You couldn't plug that into the monitor without hammmering it in. And call me crazy, but I don't think you should do that.  You would need a D-pin-to-VGA adapter to plug the cable into the monitor, if you were to use the D-pin cable. Unless of course monitors in Japan come with a D-pin input, which would require manufacturers to make videocards with a D-pin out for the Japanese market. You'll need an adapter if you want to plug your PS3 into the monitor.



Yeah, I figured that out a few minutes ago. I looked up that D-pin thing on the Japanese wikipedia then looked up D-subminiature and the 15-pin one took me to this page: VGAç«¯å­ - Wikipedia which means that you are right: it is a "VGA" cable.

Hm, that makes things a lot more difficult... After lunch, before going back to work, I'll stop by Bic Camera (which has an entire floor for computers and an entire floor for televisions) and check out the prices there. I found another monitor online that was 24" and had HDMI cable inputs and even higher resolution capabilities than the one I linked. It wasn't nearly as cheap, though. The one I linked was about $250, while this one I just saw was $600. Of course, I went to a Japanese forum where a guy was looking for a $600 24" HDMI-compatible screen and there were 3 screens linked at about that price (by BenQ and LG), but some jackass said "The price may be a little out of your range, but this fits all your requirements" and linked a $1600 monitor. 

So, I'll look into that. Your new info isn't making that VGA monitor look as practical as I'd thought.  I'll see what I can do with my limited budget. Maybe I can starve myself for a month.


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## Alpo (Sep 19, 2007)

Naren said:


> So, I'll look into that. Your new info isn't making that VGA monitor look as practical as I'd thought.  I'll see what I can do with my limited budget. Maybe I can starve myself for a month.



Yeah, I definitely recommend going with a monitor with component/HDMI. You might want to check out the Samsung 215TW (the one I have). I'm not sure if it's available in Japan or what it might cost there, but it's a great monitor with a really good panel. And, at least here, it's a good 200-300 cheaper than similar 24" monitors.

By the way, if you're thinking of going with HDMI, make absolutely sure the monitor has an audio out. If it doesn't, you won't be getting any sound.


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## Naren (Sep 20, 2007)

Alpo said:


> Yeah, I definitely recommend going with a monitor with component/HDMI. You might want to check out the Samsung 215TW (the one I have). I'm not sure if it's available in Japan or what it might cost there, but it's a great monitor with a really good panel. And, at least here, it's a good 200-300&#8364; cheaper than similar 24" monitors.
> 
> By the way, if you're thinking of going with HDMI, make absolutely sure the monitor has an audio out. If it doesn't, you won't be getting any sound.



Thanks for the info. Yeah, I looked up the Samsung 215TW on their Japanese website (&#402;T&#402;&#8364;&#402;X&#402;&#8220; &#402;f&#402;W&#402;^&#402;&#8249;&#402;[&#402;&#8249;&#402;h - »&#8226;iî&#8226;ñ | 215TW) and it says it has: D-sub 15 (VGA), DVI-D (digital), and component inputs.

I'll see if they have that at Bic Camera and see how much they're charging. Since I'm getting a new one, I want the monitor to at least be 20" and have high-definition component/HDMI capabilities.

According to a price listing website, the Samsung 215TW is about $550 here in Japan. That's better than the 24" $600 monitor I was looking at.

UPDATE: I just went to Bic Camera and looked at all their computer monitors and TVs. Most of the computer monitors were either too small (17" or so), too big (26" and 30" which made them expensive), too expensive (there was one there for around $1700), or didn't have the right inputs (most of them were D-sub or D-sub and DVI-D).

There were two televisions there that looked really really good and sounded amazing but didn't have component or HDMI cables listed. I was debating whether to ask the guy working there about it and I'm glad I did. I asked him if they had any HDMI or component-compatible TVs or monitors for under $600 and he showed me the two televisions that I had thought looked and sounded really good. He pointed to the smalled 20" one and said, "This one has component cable inputs, HDMI inputs, DVI-D inputs, analog inputs, and AV inputs" and he showed me the back (with more inputs than I've ever seen on a TV). The 32" TV next to it looked a lot lot crisper and vibrant, so I asked him why the 20" didn't look like that even though it used High-Vision (Japan's high-definition technology). He told me that they were running the same HD DVD, but that the 32" television was using an HDMI cable and, because of that, the 20" was using analog cables. He said that if you used HDMI cables on the 20", it would look exactly the same as the 32" but just with a smaller screen.

The TV just came out last week and it's selling for $450 (the list price was around $700) and it's made by Sony. I told him I'd come back within the next week to buy it and he told me that he wasn't confident it'd still be here. I'm glad I didn't just go by what I was researching on the internet... and I'm also glad I asked the clerk about the TV. Because neither HDMI nor component was listed on the TV's information sheet.

But with a thin flat-screen 20" HDMI/component-compatible TV, I can imagine my PS3 will look 10x better (and probably sound a lot better too, considering how much better the speakers on this TV was). And at $450, it's a bit more than I was planning on spending on the monitor on the previous page, but it's about $100 cheaper than the Samsung and it's only one inch smaller.


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## Alpo (Sep 20, 2007)

Awesome!  I'm assuming it's a 720p TV, so that'll work nicely with the PS3. Most games run in 720p natively, and use upscaling for 1080i/p. Trust me, the difference will be huge compared to your old 15" SDTV!  Just grab a decent quality HDMI cable and you'll be set.


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## Naren (Sep 20, 2007)

Alpo said:


> Awesome!  I'm assuming it's a 720p TV, so that'll work nicely with the PS3. Most games run in 720p natively, and use upscaling for 1080i/p. Trust me, the difference will be huge compared to your old 15" SDTV!  Just grab a decent quality HDMI cable and you'll be set.



Yeah. It probably is 720p and the 32" next to it was probably 1080i. I could really tell that the difference would be huge just from looking at those two TVs in the shop. Besides the 5 inch size difference, the crystal clear realistic picture will probably make the biggest difference. Like I mentioned earlier in this thread, on my TV at home, I thought some of my PS3 games looked really impressive, but even today, I went to the PS3 section and they had a 50" screen in full high-definition playing that same game I own and it seriously looked 100x better, almost like I had the original version from 2000 and this was the 2007 remake or something.

I'm tempted to go buy it today or tomorrow (I have the money, but I was just thinking of waiting until after my payday next Tuesday, but since this weekend is a 3-day holiday with no band practice, I'm really struggling to not just go out and get it).

One of the first things I noticed when I got my PS3 was that the text was harder to read and oftentimes seemed kind of pixelated. The reason for this was that PS2 games were made with analog in mind (heck, PS2 came out in 1999, right?) where the PS3 was made with higher-quality picture in mind, so a lot of PS3 games have smaller text and more detailed fonts, which on my 15" SDTV can be kind of hard to read. 

I had been thinking of eventually getting a good television for my PS3, but it was my co-worker/friend's admonishment yesterday that spurred me into actually doing it. 

Maybe I will go pick it up today... What am I gonna dooo?!


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## Azyiu (Sep 20, 2007)

Naren said:


> Maybe I will go pick it up today... What am I gonna dooo?!



Pick it up today, man. Like you said, you already have the cash, and payday is next Tuesday, why wait? As for myself, I am very likely going to tell my friend to bring me a PS3 from Phoenix too. Good times.


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## Alpo (Sep 20, 2007)

Naren said:


> One of the first things I noticed when I got my PS3 was that the text was harder to read and oftentimes seemed kind of pixelated. The reason for this was that PS2 games were made with analog in mind (heck, PS2 came out in 1999, right?) where the PS3 was made with higher-quality picture in mind, so a lot of PS3 games have smaller text and more detailed fonts, which on my 15" SDTV can be kind of hard to read.



Yeah, just imagine a pretty standard sized text on a PC, and downscaling that to 480i and trying to read it on a 15" SDTV.  



> Maybe I will go pick it up today... What am I gonna dooo?!



Just do it!  And don't skimp on the HDMI cable, get something midrange. 20-ish bucks should do it, you don't want to be buying new cables every six months. 

Because I was so helpful and awesome, I think I'm going to reward myself with Super Paper Mario. Then I'll start looking for work, so I can buy a PS3.


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## Naren (Sep 20, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Pick it up today, man. Like you said, you already have the cash, and payday is next Tuesday, why wait? As for myself, I am very likely going to tell my friend to bring me a PS3 from Phoenix too. Good times.



I'm thinking I will. I was surprised when I saw the price tag. It was on display and I was expecting something like $1000-1100 and yet it was $450. 

Hey, Azyiu, did you look at the game reviews? Just to make it easier for you, watch the video reviews of these games and consider which ones to get. You can't have a PS3 with no PS3 games!

Resistance: Fall of Man for PlayStation 3 Review - PlayStation 3 Resistance: Fall of Man Review
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for PlayStation 3 Review - PlayStation 3 The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Review
The Darkness for PlayStation 3 Review - PlayStation 3 The Darkness Review
Ninja Gaiden Sigma for PlayStation 3 Review - PlayStation 3 Ninja Gaiden Sigma Review

I highly recommend watching all those video reviews, because I think you'd probably want a few of those games, but you just don't know it - BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT THOSE GAMES! (I own all the games I just posted links to)



Alpo said:


> Just do it!  And don't skimp on the HDMI cable, get something midrange. 20-ish bucks should do it, you don't want to be buying new cables every six months.
> 
> Because I was so helpful and awesome, I think I'm going to reward myself with Super Paper Mario. Then I'll start looking for work, so I can buy a PS3.



I think I will buy it today... And I looked in the PS3 section. The PS3 cable-to-HDMI is about $24. So, there should be no need to buy new cables every six months.

And why don't you check out the video reviews for the PS3 games I posted? (except Oblivion, since I know you already own that for PC)


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## Alpo (Sep 20, 2007)

Naren said:


> I think I will buy it today... And I looked in the PS3 section. The PS3 cable-to-HDMI is about $24. So, there should be no need to buy new cables every six months.



Any standard HDMI cable will work. 



> And why don't you check out the video reviews for the PS3 games I posted? (except Oblivion, since I know you already own that for PC)



I'm quite familiar with all those games. If I end up getting a PS3 soon, the euro-bundle should still be available. It includes two controllers, Resistance and Motorstorm for the standard PS3 price.  I'm really looking forward to playing Ninja Gaiden. Heavenly Sword looks decent, too. I can't wait for God of War III, it's going to be pretty awesome! Lots of great games coming out on both PS3 and Wii, so I think I'll be spending lots of time with both.


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## Azyiu (Sep 20, 2007)

Naren said:


> Hey, Azyiu, did you look at the game reviews? Just to make it easier for you, watch the video reviews of these games and consider which ones to get. You can't have a PS3 with no PS3 games!



Hey, thanks, Eric, I am definitely going to look them up as soon as I get home from work tonight. You are the coolest! That said, I saw this Japan only Train sims on the PS3 (can't remember its name) seems very interesting too. Maybe you are not into that kind of game, but I might get that one also. Any flight sims on the PS3 would be cool too. I am a big fan of the Ace Combat series, but sadly AC6 won't be coming to the PS3...


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## Naren (Sep 20, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Hey, thanks, Eric, I am definitely going to look them up as soon as I get home from work tonight. You are the coolest! That said, I saw this Japan only Train sims on the PS3 (can't remember its name) seems very interesting too. Maybe you are not into that kind of game, but I might get that one also. Any flight sims on the PS3 would be cool too. I am a big fan of the Ace Combat series, but sadly AC6 won't be coming to the PS3...



Yeah, I've seen that game before. They have it in a lot of the game stores that I go to. Personally I've never been interested in those kinds of train simulation games, but if it's your bag. 



Alpo said:


> I'm quite familiar with all those games. If I end up getting a PS3 soon, the euro-bundle should still be available. It includes two controllers, Resistance and Motorstorm for the standard PS3 price.  I'm really looking forward to playing Ninja Gaiden. Heavenly Sword looks decent, too. I can't wait for God of War III, it's going to be pretty awesome! Lots of great games coming out on both PS3 and Wii, so I think I'll be spending lots of time with both.



Resistance is a really really fun game. I've been planning on buying Motorstorm. I was going to buy it a few weeks ago because a used game store near where I work had it for about $28-30, but when I went in to get it, someone had already bought it and new it's like $55. So I decided to try looking for a used version of it again in a few months.

I watched the video review for Heavenly Sword and it looked pretty sweet. Everything they said about it was really great, except the length. They said the game was too short. 

I haven't heard anything about God of War III. What is that? PS3/Xbox 360? or just Ps3?


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## Azyiu (Oct 30, 2007)

Hey Eric and everyone else, I got the PS3 at last, yay!!! 

I have it hooked up to my plasma via a HDMI, and I also hooked it up to my theater system via an optical cable. Now, here I "discovered" something, and maybe someone can show me the way. It seems the PS3 can only send out digital audio signals via either cable one at a time. Meaning, I need to pick either the HDMI or the optical, or there will be no sound on the other one. Which is not a major problem in itself, it is just not as convenience as the PS2, I think. Either way, @ 1080p, the video looks pretty sweet. About the up converting for PSOne games (video signals), is it just me or don't those games look crappy on the PS3?  Those pixels now look even more horrible than ever before, man.  

Another minor thing I find that bugs me a bit is the controller. I know they won't have the "dual shock" thing for the PS3 until mid Nov., but it feels like I suddenly don't know how to play certain games without it. I mean, the controller feels smooth and all, but somehow it is a touch too light and too smooth, IMO. And man, without the "shock" thingy, I have a bit of a hard time flying in Ace Combat 5.


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## Alpo (Oct 30, 2007)

Congrats, Azyiu! I decided not to get one until next year. I'm too busy with the Wii right now (Metroid Prime 3 ). And of course I spent all my money on Bare Knuckles and a Tremol-No. 



Naren said:


> I haven't heard anything about God of War III. What is that? PS3/Xbox 360? or just Ps3?



Old question, but I'll answer anyway. God of war is a Sony franchise, so there's no way it'll be on 360. Kinda the same deal as with Halo. Except the game is better.


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## Azyiu (Oct 30, 2007)

Ahhh... sounds like you are having fun with your Wii too, Alpo, that's cool!  

About the audio situation, I can't seem to find an answer online... oh well, like I said, it is not a big deal, just not convenience.


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## Alpo (Oct 30, 2007)

The PS3 can only send an audio signal through one of the outs (HDMI, optical, analog(multi-AV)). Sucks if you want to hook it up to several audio systems at once.


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## Naren (Oct 30, 2007)

I can't answer ya. I just have my PS3 hooked up to my sweet new high definition TV with the HDMI cable, but I assume that if you wanted to send video to your TV and audio to a seperate location, you'd have to use componant since HDMI is a single cable that carries both audio and video, whereas component consists of multiple cables. I wouldn't know though, since I've never sent audio and video to seperate locations in any of the consoles I've owned.

I've played 10 PS3 games already since I got my console (3 of those rented from my company's game library). 

And, no matter what, if you play a PS1 game after playing a PS3 game in 1080p, the PS1 is going to look pretty pixelly and crappy. It's just the nature of the beast. It's like watching a movie in BluRay or HD-DVD on a really high quality high definition TV and then watching a video cassette on the same TV.


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## Alpo (Oct 30, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Ahhh... sounds like you are having fun with your Wii too, Alpo, that's cool! .



The Gamecube was the only Nintendo home console I didn't have, and I really missed the Nintendo games.  With Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3 (just got it last week and it's amazing!) and Super Mario Galaxy out during the first year, I just had to have a Wii. I'm glad I got one, for me nothing compares to Nintendo. 2008 is looking really good for the PS3, so I think that's a good time to get one. 



Naren said:


> I can't answer ya. I just have my PS3 hooked up to my sweet new high definition TV with the HDMI cable, but I assume that if you wanted to send video to your TV and audio to a seperate location, you'd have to use componant since HDMI is a single cable that carries both audio and video, whereas component consists of multiple cables. I wouldn't know though, since I've never sent audio and video to seperate locations in any of the consoles I've owned.



You can use separate outs for video and audio. So you can hook it up with an HDMI cable to your TV, and take the audio cables from the composite cable to a reciever or whatever you're using. I'm going to hook up my future PS3 to the DVI in on my monitor with a HDMI-DVI cable, and hook up the analog audio cables to my mixer.


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## Azyiu (Oct 30, 2007)

Yeah, that's my unique situation, I guess. For the most part, I only need the audio to come out of the TV via HDMI. But when I feel like using the theater system (like when I am watching movies) via the optical, I will need to do some stuff in the setup menu first. Again, it is just a bit inconvenience. If it is the case, I just need to suck it up...


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## Naren (Oct 30, 2007)

Alpo said:


> You can use separate outs for video and audio. So you can hook it up with an HDMI cable to your TV, and take the audio cables from the composite cable to a reciever or whatever you're using. I'm going to hook up my future PS3 to the DVI in on my monitor with a HDMI-DVI cable, and hook up the analog audio cables to my mixer.



Hm. Didn't know that.

Yep. Quite a lot of good games coming out on the PS3 in 2008. My list of have-to-get games for 2008 is getting pretty long. Quite a few PS3 games to get from PS3 in the next 2 months, as well.

By the way, Azyiu, what games do you have for your PS3 already? My Oblivion: Game of the Year Edition for PS3 just came in the mail on Saturday and I've been playing a heck of a lot of that.


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## Azyiu (Oct 31, 2007)

Naren said:


> By the way, Azyiu, what games do you have for your PS3 already? My Oblivion: Game of the Year Edition for PS3 just came in the mail on Saturday and I've been playing a heck of a lot of that.



Well, I haven't really have a chance to go buy any new games yet, but I am quite interested in Resistance, and am definitely going to get the NBA 2K8 when I get a chance to go shop.

Yo, so have you experienced any freezing? I ran into that twice already, but I think both times I did something too fast for my own good. First time, I was messing around on the NBA 2K7 menu screen, and I knew I did things kind of fast, and suddenly the thing froze. Second time, I tried to turnoff the thing using the PS buttom, as I *JUST* returned to the game screen *RIGHT AFTER* I saved GTA: SA, and it froze. I heard about the PS3 tends to freeze sometimes, and I am not sure if I might have indirectly causing that to happen either, any idea? Other than that, everything runs very smoothly during game plays... so far.


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## Naren (Oct 31, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Well, I haven't really have a chance to go buy any new games yet, but I am quite interested in Resistance, and am definitely going to get the NBA 2K8 when I get a chance to go shop.
> 
> Yo, so have you experienced any freezing? I ran into that twice already, but I think both times I did something too fast for my own good. First time, I was messing around on the NBA 2K7 menu screen, and I knew I did things kind of fast, and suddenly the thing froze. Second time, I tried to turnoff the thing using the PS buttom, as I *JUST* returned to the game screen *RIGHT AFTER* I saved GTA: SA, and it froze. I heard about the PS3 tends to freeze sometimes, and I am not sure if I might have indirectly causing that to happen either, any idea? Other than that, everything runs very smoothly during game plays... so far.



I've never experienced any freezing in any PS3 games, but my PS3 froze once on the load screen for "God of War" (for PS2). So I unplugged the PS3, which just reset the controller so it wasn't locked up with the PS3 anymore, but then I tried it again and I never experienced another freezing.

I have heard that there are certain things you can do to cause a game to freeze, though, and PS2 games are much more likely to freeze than PS3 games.

Of course, on my PS2, I had games freeze a few times, as well. 

Freezing up in PS2 games on the PS3 improves drastically through system updates. Have you downloaded any? or can't you connect to the US server from Hong Kong?

Oh, and DEFINITELY get Resistance. That game is awesome: both in single player and multiplayer.

Some other games I recommended before: Ninja Gaiden Sigma, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Game Of The Year Edition would be a much better deal because you get the game plus the two expansion packs), The Darkness (pretty cool FPS), and so on. There are a ton of games I'm gonna be getting next month such as Call of Duty 4, Assassin's Creed, Clank and Ratchet Future: Tools of Destruction, and so on. I'm thinking of getting Heavenly Sword since the demo was pretty fun and all the reviews of it have been really good. In December, I'm gonna be getting the Orange Box (5 Half Life 2 games). If you like crazy psycho race games, MotorStorm is pretty fun as well. And I have a list of about 8-10 games to get in 2008 (Fallout 3, Metal Gear Solid 4, GTA4, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Devil May Cry 4, etc.).


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## Azyiu (Oct 31, 2007)

Naren said:


> I've never experienced any freezing in any PS3 games, but my PS3 froze once on the load screen for "God of War" (for PS2). So I unplugged the PS3, which just reset the controller so it wasn't locked up with the PS3 anymore, but then I tried it again and I never experienced another freezing.
> 
> Freezing up in PS2 games on the PS3 improves drastically through system updates. Have you downloaded any? or can't you connect to the US server from Hong Kong?



When you say "unplugged", do you mean you literally unplugged the power supply to the console, or do you mean just the controller? I am guessing you meant the former? But yeah, you are right, I need to update the damn firmware... I am too "busy" messing with my new toy and I need to move my lazy ass and do the update.  

And yes, I can download the latest US version update from Hong Kong. I only need to go directly to the SONY PS3 US website, that's all.



Naren said:


> Of course, on my PS2, I had games freeze a few times, as well.



Maybe I got lucky. No matter how I abuse my PS2, I never really experienced any freezing or major problems at all. * salute to my ever reliable PS2 *




Naren said:


> Oh, and DEFINITELY get Resistance. That game is awesome: both in single player and multiplayer.
> 
> Some other games I recommended before: Ninja Gaiden Sigma, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Game Of The Year Edition would be a much better deal because you get the game plus the two expansion packs), The Darkness (pretty cool FPS), and so on. There are a ton of games I'm gonna be getting next month such as Call of Duty 4, Assassin's Creed, Clank and Ratchet Future: Tools of Destruction, and so on. I'm thinking of getting Heavenly Sword since the demo was pretty fun and all the reviews of it have been really good. In December, I'm gonna be getting the Orange Box (5 Half Life 2 games). If you like crazy psycho race games, MotorStorm is pretty fun as well. And I have a list of about 8-10 games to get in 2008 (Fallout 3, Metal Gear Solid 4, GTA4, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Devil May Cry 4, etc.).



You know? GTA IV is the one game I am soooo looking forward to. But yeah, it seems like more and more cool titles are coming out in 2008 for the PS3, good times.   That said, two things I am a bit upset about are, Resident Evil 5 (aka BioHazard 5) won't be out until who knows when... and Ace Combat 6 isn't coming to the PS3...


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## Naren (Oct 31, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> When you say "unplugged", do you mean you literally unplugged the power supply to the console, or do you mean just the controller? I am guessing you meant the former? But yeah, you are right, I need to update the damn firmware... I am too "busy" messing with my new toy and I need to move my lazy ass and do the update.



I literally unplugged the power supply to the console. The controller is already unplugged 100% of the time (I occasionally plug it in when the battery is low). Haven't you realized that the PS3's controller is wireless?  If the console has frozen, then you CAN'T turn the controller off, no matter what you do. Well, technically there are two possiblities: you could leave the PS3 for 8 hours or so until the battery in the controller dies (which will still have no effect on the fact that the screen is frozen) or you could unplug the power supply to the console which turns off both the console and the controller. The only negative side effect of this is that the controller becomes unassociated with the PS3, so you have to push the "on" button on the PS3 to turn it on the first time (instead of doing it with the controller like usual). 

Doing the update should seriously improve PS2 compatibility and get rid of a lot of problems you may have.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to Resident Evil 5 (Biohazard 5 actually since I have no intention of buying the English version), but the release date on it has changed so many times. At one point, they were saying 2009, but now they're saying 2008 again, but they're not saying when.  They have got to be the slowest development team ever. The game looks like it'll be a hell of a lot of fun, though.


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## Azyiu (Oct 31, 2007)

Naren said:


> Doing the update should seriously improve PS2 compatibility and get rid of a lot of problems you may have.
> 
> Yeah, I'm looking forward to Resident Evil 5 (Biohazard 5 actually since I have no intention of buying the English version), but the release date on it has changed so many times. At one point, they were saying 2009, but now they're saying 2008 again, but they're not saying when.  They have got to be the slowest development team ever. The game looks like it'll be a hell of a lot of fun, though.



Thanks for your insight, dude.  

I used to be a huge fan of Resident Evil series. I mean, I still love it and all, but you are right, they keep delaying the release date only turning me off more and more. And let's face it, those few side-story games (like Gun Survivor) suck balls!!!  IMO, game plays and concept of Resident Evil 4 is GREAT! Maybe it is just me, I am sick and tired of the whole Umbrella thing, man. Please just put an end to Umbrella in RE5 and move on or something.


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## Naren (Oct 31, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Thanks for your insight, dude.
> 
> I used to be a huge fan of Resident Evil series. I mean, I still love it and all, but you are right, they keep delaying the release date only turning me off more and more. And let's face it, those few side-story games (like Gun Survivor) suck balls!!!  IMO, game plays and concept of Resident Evil 4 is GREAT! Maybe it is just me, I am sick and tired of the whole Umbrella thing, man. Please just put an end to Umbrella in RE5 and move on or something.



Definitely. I think most of the numbered RE games are cool, but the side story "gaiden" episodes aren't that great for the most part.

I'll be getting RE5 when it comes out, but I'm trying not to keep up with it, just so I don't get my hopes up - only to have them smashed.


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## Azyiu (Oct 31, 2007)

You know? I thought the RE series was great from the beginning thru RE3 (1999). Then things started to get really messed up. First they switched to Nintendo, but then kept releasing a few crappy side-games on the PS2... I was pretty fed up with that for the longest time. In fact, it might sound crazy to you, I bought RE4 the first day it came out; but I didn't even play it until over a year after I bought it. The main reasons were GTA:SA and I thought the game would suck!  Anyway, yeah, let's not keep our hopes up too high for 5.


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## Naren (Oct 31, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> You know? I thought the RE series was great from the beginning thru RE3 (1999). Then things started to get really messed up. First they switched to Nintendo, but then kept releasing a few crappy side-games on the PS2... I was pretty fed up with that for the longest time. In fact, it might sound crazy to you, I bought RE4 the first day it came out; but I didn't even play it until over a year after I bought it. The main reasons were GTA:SA and I thought the game would suck!  Anyway, yeah, let's not keep our hopes up too high for 5.



RE4 is actually the most highly rated game in the RE series up until now. 

GTA4 is coming out March 3rd. I'm already looking forward to it. 

Then there's Unreal Tournament 3 coming out February 1st. I've been looking forward to that for a while.


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## Alpo (Oct 31, 2007)

Am I the only one who liked Code Veronica?  I remember playing it for the first time on Dreamcast, the graphics were amazing. 

But RE4 (Wii Edition especially, pure perfection) is my favourite RE, and also one of the best action games I've ever played. I have high hopes for RE5, I just wish I could play it with the Wiimote.


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## Naren (Oct 31, 2007)

I don't like the Wiimote. I prefer Wii games that don't use it (or don't use it much).


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## Alpo (Oct 31, 2007)

Naren said:


> I don't like the Wiimote. I prefer Wii games that don't use it (or don't use it much).



Have you ever played RE4 Wii Edition? Aiming with the Wiimote works flawlessly. It makes aiming with an analog stick feel extremely clumsy.


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## Azyiu (Oct 31, 2007)

Code Veronica is ok, but the voice acting totally turns me off!  By the way, could someone tell me how they survive in t-shirt in Antarctica?  

Speaking of future games, Bourne Conspiracy seems to be very promising... or it could suck balls big time. I am kind of looking forward to it.


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## Naren (Oct 31, 2007)

Alpo said:


> Have you ever played RE4 Wii Edition? Aiming with the Wiimote works flawlessly. It makes aiming with an analog stick feel extremely clumsy.



No, I've only played RE4 for PS2.


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## Alpo (Oct 31, 2007)

Naren said:


> No, I've only played RE4 for PS2.



If you ever get a chance to try the Wii Edition, do so. It is the best version, the controls are so much better than with a traditional pad. You just point and shoot. It feels very natural. It makes the game even more enjoyable.


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## Azyiu (Oct 31, 2007)

I am happy to report I just successfully updated the firmware to 1.93, yay! 

Speaking of RE4, Alpo is correct, the Wii version seems to be the best one to get. It has ALL the extras that are available only for the PS2 or those that for only the GameCube. If I am buying the Wii at all tomorrow, RE4 is the only reason. Good call, Alpo.


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## Alpo (Oct 31, 2007)

Yeah, it has the graphics of the GC version (plus true widescreen and progressive scan) the extras of the PS2 version and the awesome Wii controls. And you can also play it with a GC pad or the classic controller, which basically turns it into the GC version, laser sight and all.


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## Azyiu (Nov 4, 2007)

Hey Eric or Alpo, I need your advice again, dude.

Ok, I know the PS3 console is supposed to play ALL PS3 games from any region, but why are there still regional code sign printed on the back of most games? I was at a game store yesterday and almost got a couple of used PS3 games. What stopped me was the regional code sign on the back, and they are in region 3 (both are in NTSC format). My console is from the US (region 1), so could my console play those games or not? I really want to know. Thanks in advance!!!


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## Naren (Nov 5, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Hey Eric or Alpo, I need your advice again, dude.
> 
> Ok, I know the PS3 console is supposed to play ALL PS3 games from any region, but why are there still regional code sign printed on the back of most games? I was at a game store yesterday and almost got a couple of used PS3 games. What stopped me was the regional code sign on the back, and they are in region 3 (both are in NTSC format). My console is from the US (region 1), so could my console play those games or not? I really want to know. Thanks in advance!!!



Dunno.  It's weird because all my American games have a region 1 code sign on the back and side and my Japanese games either have a region 2 code sign on the back and side or no region code sign written at all.

If it's region free, it's region free. I don't get what you're worrying about. So far, I have played 8 Japanese (Region 2) PS3 games on my Japanese (Region 2) PS3 and 3 American (Region 1) PS3 games on it with not a single problem. I buy my American games from Buy Video Games for Consoles and PC - From Japan, Korea and other Regions! - Play-Asia.com which is based in Hong Kong (I buy my Japanese games from regular stores around here) and they have Japanese, American, and "Asian" (I assume that means "Chinese") versions of games for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, etc. They write compatibility on each one. For Wii, every single game is region locked and will state what region it's locked too. For Xbox 360, most games are region free, but some games are region locked (the game publishers can decide to region-lock games or not and almost no American game publishers region-lock their games, but many of the Japanese game publishers do). For PS3, all games are region-free - whether American, Japanese, "Asian," or European. That's one of the huge benefits of the PS3. (But, you should remember that PS2 games are region-locked. In your case, you could only play American PS2 games. In my case, I can only play Japanese PS2 games). 

As for why they write the region? On most of my Japanese games, it says somewhere, "For sale in Japan only" and on my American game, it says something like "Sales restricted to North America." So, I guess it's just to let you know what region the game is from.


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## Azyiu (Nov 5, 2007)

Hey, Eric, thanks. I know supposedly all PS3 games can be played on any PS3 console, but when I saw the region code on the label, I just got confused. 

About that PlayAsia company, dude, their prices seem very high, man. If you need anything, I can get it for you here for cheaper! As for me, I either buy from Cduniverse.com, or I buy from stores here in town. Average price for a PS3 game here is around HKD $420 or less.


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## DDDorian (Nov 5, 2007)

A lot of Chinese-region consoles and games are built with Chinese character sets in mind, to the point where a Chinese-specific game may not work in anything other than a Chinese-specific console. From memory I don't think that's an issue with the PS3 though. I guess regions are more to do with licensing and exclusivity contracts more than anything else...


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## Azyiu (Nov 5, 2007)

DDDorian said:


> I guess regions are more to do with licensing and exclusivity contracts more than anything else...



Hope so, and thanks for making me feel better  Yeah, I am just a bit paranold...


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## Naren (Nov 5, 2007)

Azyiu said:


> Hey, Eric, thanks. I know supposedly all PS3 games can be played on any PS3 console, but when I saw the region code on the label, I just got confused.
> 
> About that PlayAsia company, dude, their prices seem very high, man. If you need anything, I can get it for you here for cheaper! As for me, I either buy from Cduniverse.com, or I buy from stores here in town. Average price for a PS3 game here is around HKD $420 or less.



Playasia is free shipping. Most of the other places I checked before had cheaper prices for games, but once I threw in shipping, they were quite a bit more expensive than Playasia.

There is only one place I know of in Tokyo that sometimes has American PS3 games and it never has the ones I'm looking for, so buying from stores here in town is not an option (for American games, at least).

If you could buy me PS3 games in Hong Kong and send them to me for free, I'll agree with you. 



DDDorian said:


> A lot of Chinese-region consoles and games are built with Chinese character sets in mind, to the point where a Chinese-specific game may not work in anything other than a Chinese-specific console. From memory I don't think that's an issue with the PS3 though. I guess regions are more to do with licensing and exclusivity contracts more than anything else...



Actually most modern game systems do not load languages off the console but off the disc. When I bought my PS3, I could have picked the system language from something like 50 languages, including English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and so on. I picked Japanese just because I would feel weird playing a Japanese console in any other language. 

But, either way, all PS3s theoretically would have Chinese language support, even outside of games (it's only a few megabytes for all the characters in Chinese).


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