The Spam Thread!

[huckleberrypie]

And then there's these wild rumours and what-ifs regarding the possibility of a Nintendo smartphone. They did reportedly play around with such a concept back in 2001, but it never materialised.

[RAMChYLD]

The thing is tho, it's their IPs that are selling their platform, not third party properties. How many kids saved up for a 2DS or 3DS XL just for Pokemon Alpha/Omega and Pokemon X/Y? How many high-schoolers and hipsters like me bought a 3DS for Animal Crossing New Leaf? How many college-goers and young adults bought a 3DS just for Smash Bros? Heck, it seems that this new 3DS' main target demographic are the Smash Bros players, given the Amiibo NFC, faster CPU, more RAM and extra buttons.

Yeah. The only way this would change is if the world would stop caring for these IPs. As long as Smash, Mario, Zelda, AC, Metroid and Pokemon sells, their console will sell. Sega only had one stable IP at the time of collapse that was Sonic, and had also been porting their games to the PC for a while by then. Nintendo's strategy is pretty straightforward: platform exclusives. Want Pokemon? It's 3DS or bust. There will be no Pokemon for the Vita, Android, iOS, Blackberry or Windows Phone. And then they brainwash people into buying their products by merch overflow and advertising sensory bombardment (read: Saturday morning cartoons).

As for world multi adapters, it's not really feasible. As mentioned before, there are no less than a dozen socket types and each country picking their own. For example, Indonesia, being a former Dutch colony, uses Europlug, a rounded two pin plug standard. Malaysia on the other hand, is a former British colony and uses BS1363, a three-pin plug format. And then The Philippines, being a Former U.S. base, uses the NEMA flathead two pin format. Unless Nintendo makes like Apple and the head of the charger is interchangeable (which requires the owner to buy a separate head each time s/he is going overseas), even having the charger accept 100-240v, 50-60Hz isn't going to be enough.

[cpd2009]

The thing is tho, it's their IPs that are selling their platform, not third party properties. How many kids saved up for a 2DS or 3DS XL just for Pokemon Alpha/Omega and Pokemon X/Y? How many high-schoolers and hipsters like me bought a 3DS for Animal Crossing New Leaf? How many college-goers and young adults bought a 3DS just for Smash Bros? Heck, it seems that this new 3DS' main target demographic are the Smash Bros players, given the Amiibo NFC, faster CPU, more RAM and extra buttons.

The 3DS might be doing well, but the Wii U is in third place behind the PS4 and Xbone. EA wanted to make games for the Wii U, but they wanted to use their "Origin" online system. Nintendo wouldn't let them, so EA doesn't develop for the Wii U anymore. EA isn't the best developer these days, but for a console to truly succeed, they need to embrace the third party support like MS and Sony do with their systems. I don't mean bring all those CoD clones to the Wii U, but bring in third parties that develop unique, fun games. They also need to embrace indie developers too, and while there are some indie games on the eShop, you can't find games like Minecraft for the Wii U. Minecraft could have came to the Wii or Wii U, but Mojang was purchased by MS, so it's hightly doubtful that Minecraft will ever come to a Nintendo system now. Nintendo really passed up a big opportunity here.

It's no doubt Nintendo's reliance on their IP's works well for the 3DS, but not so much for the Wii U. If Nintendo didn't chase away third party support early on, and maybe had better marketing for the Wii U (such as a different name altogether), the Wii U could be in a tight race with the other two consoles. It would probably make the 3DS even more successful then it is now. Third party support is key for any console to succeed. Many consoles like the Sega Saturn (in the US and Europe that is) and the Tiger GameCom failed because lack of third party support was a contributing factor amongst other issues those systems had.

There are other issues with the Wii U that are also hindering success, such as sticking to PowerPC instead of going to x86-64 like the others. That in itself is another big reason third party developers flock to the PS4 and Xbone. Rumors abound that Nintendo's successor to the Wii U might be x86-64, but it's way too early to know for sure.

As for world multi adapters, it's not really feasible. As mentioned before, there are no less than a dozen socket types and each country picking their own. For example, Indonesia, being a former Dutch colony, uses Europlug, a rounded two pin plug standard. Malaysia on the other hand, is a former British colony and uses BS1363, a three-pin plug format. And then The Philippines, being a Former U.S. base, uses the NEMA flathead two pin format. Unless Nintendo makes like Apple and the head of the charger is interchangeable (which requires the owner to buy a separate head each time s/he is going overseas), even having the charger accept 100-240v, 50-60Hz isn't going to be enough.

That is where cheap inexpensive plug converters come in. I have many AC adapters with the flat two pin US plugs that are capable of handling 100 to 240v at 50/60hz. Those plugs cannot be changed either. If I were to use one of these adapters in the UK, I would have to acquire an inexpensive plug converter that allows me to convert the two pin US plug to 3-pin BS1363. I'm sure many electronics stores down there sell these plug converters for use with world-multi AC adapters, and they probably sell one for every type of plug you mentioned. You just need to make sure the AC adapter you are using can handle 240v 50hz before using a plug converter.

[huckleberrypie]

And they didn't make them chargers auto-voltage for nothing either. Also to note is that while we do use NEMA-style prongs for plugs/sockets, voltages here run on 220-240v compared to 110-120 in the states.

[RAMChYLD]

There are other issues with the Wii U that are also hindering success, such as sticking to PowerPC instead of going to x86-64 like the others. That in itself is another big reason third party developers flock to the PS4 and Xbone. Rumors abound that Nintendo's successor to the Wii U might be x86-64, but it's way too early to know for sure.

Honestly, I take offense to that. I am a proponent of Power CPUs and believe that AMD CPUs are only second to it. I think consoles have lost their identity when they switched to x64 and are no difference from PCs now, just like how Apple Macintoshes lost theirs when they switched to Intel- and I have other reasons to hate Intel. This is why I'm not interested in the PS4 or XBone- if I want to play games on an x64 machine, I have PCs to do so. I don't need consoles. Exclusives? Give it time- someone would come up with methods to create a HaxBox One or a HackStation 4, just like the Hackintosh.

That is where cheap inexpensive plug converters come in. I have many AC adapters with the flat two pin US plugs that are capable of handling 100 to 240v at 50/60hz. Those plugs cannot be changed either. If I were to use one of these adapters in the UK, I would have to acquire an inexpensive plug converter that allows me to convert the two pin US plug to 3-pin BS1363. I'm sure many electronics stores down there sell these plug converters for use with world-multi AC adapters, and they probably sell one for every type of plug you mentioned. You just need to make sure the AC adapter you are using can handle 240v 50hz before using a plug converter.

Idk. I sometimes find plug converters bothersome. They might as well follow in Apple and Creative's footsteps and make the plug-top interchangeable, but iirc that patent is held by Belkin and requires Nintendo to pay a royalty (which they obviously don't want to).

[cpd2009]

There are other issues with the Wii U that are also hindering success, such as sticking to PowerPC instead of going to x86-64 like the others. That in itself is another big reason third party developers flock to the PS4 and Xbone. Rumors abound that Nintendo's successor to the Wii U might be x86-64, but it's way too early to know for sure.

Honestly, I take offense to that. I am a proponent of Power CPUs and believe that AMD CPUs are only second to it. I think consoles have lost their identity when they switched to x64 and are no difference from PCs now, just like how Apple Macintoshes lost theirs when they switched to Intel- and I have other reasons to hate Intel. This is why I'm not interested in the PS4 or XBone- if I want to play games on an x64 machine, I have PCs to do so. I don't need consoles. Exclusives? Give it time- someone would come up with methods to create a HaxBox One or a HackStation 4, just like the Hackintosh.

Well, I think Nintendo may be forced to go to x86-64 if they want to keep up with the others. The PS3 also used PPC code for their Cell Processor, but companies who made Xbox 360 games complained about the difficulty porting their game to the PS3 because of the code difference, and also in utilizing the Cell processor. In the end, the PS3 became a solid system with great titles, but Sony needed to go to x86-64 to stay competitive. If Nintendo does indeed make their system x86-64 based, I am sure they will find ways to make it unique, and find a way to prevent people from installing Linux or Windows on it. But again, it's too early to say for sure. They could even go to ARM if they wanted to since the 3DS uses ARM. These are rumors, and should be treated as such until Nintendo officially announces their next console.

There will be HaxBoxes and HackStations, but none have materialized yet to my knowledge. And I don't think I would be interested in making one due to such a concept causing conflicts with my own moral compass. I wonder... has anyone installed Windows on a PS4 or Xbone yet?

As for Intel... well, it doesn't really matter what brand of processor I have to use. Things like Secure Boot and TPM don't matter much to me personally, but I do know others don't like them. A processor just has to be fast and powerful enough for me to get my computer jobs done, regardless of brand.

[huckleberrypie]

It's less than likely for a HackStation 4 or HackBox One to be made. For sure, Apple did make use of safeguards to prevent unauthorised use of OS X on non-Apple hardware, but it's nothing compared to the security system used on the x86-64 consoles.

[RAMChYLD]

Another thing is, of course, with the switch to x86-64, exclusives are now the main selling point of the console. If I'm not interested in your exclusive, no sale. and well, I'd let my morality compass do it's own mathemagics and tactologies. Whether hacking the console OS to run on a PC or even just a compatibility layer like Wine and DarLin on a Linux box. Right now, I already paid for a game legally, so I should be able to run it on whatever the hell I want. And I don't want a "poser PC" ie a XBone or PS4 just to play he game.

Am I wrong to believe that it's possible to modify Wine to support XBone games?

As for running Windows, Secure boot will make sure it's not possible to put Window$ on the PS4 (XBone already run windows). And yes, I'm angry as secure boot. Iirc The EFF has voiced out against it and how M$ can use it as a bargaining chip for locking a system down, in the near future don't be surprised if M$ strong arms various PC manufacturers to make it so secure boot can't be disabled by forcing them to "go windows exclusive or be charged more for each copy of the OS". So if you stupidly buy a cheap PC and then find that You can't turn secure boot off because "Micro$oft sponsored the machine", yeah.

Unlike Linux (which has both Ubuntu and Red Hat ponying up money on a regular basis to make M$ authorise a boot SHIM that can be used to boot Grub with Secure Boot), BSD and Hurd has no such luxuries. Basically, the Linux companies are paying a ransom to allow their OS to boot with secure boot- something that should not be happening. This is why Ubuntu gained those advertising lens- they need to find money to pay M$ or risk their OS cease working on secure boot enabled PCs.

I see secure boot as a move to remove even more power from the consumers. If a person buy a PC, it's theirs and they have the right to do what they want with it, including dumping Window$ for an alternative OS. And my definition is that a PS4 and XBone are PCs because they use x64. Just like how a Mac is but a fancy overpriced PC.

[cpd2009]

Full disclosure... I did have a much larger wall of text here earlier, but I have since revised it to only address the topic at hand.

I will now share my thoughts on secure boot, and remember, this is just my opinion... how I personally feel about these issues.

I highly doubt MS or the UEFI forum will ever remove the ability to turn it off on a traditional desktop PC. I believe they know the FOSS community will rage if they ever do. However, I will admit they made a mistake with Secure Boot on ARM, as the user is unable to turn it off there. ARM devices are mostly tablets, but connect a USB flash drive or DVD drive and you could possibly install Linux or Android on it, hence the need for the ability to turn Secure Boot off on ARM. If the FOSS community wants to ensure Secure Boot is fair for all, they should instead place their efforts on having users disable it on ARM devices.

I have issues with the EFF as an organization, but if I were to go into those, this post would get far too long and political, so I will avoid that for now.

In the end, I believe there is FUD going around about Secure Boot on PCs, and if they could just make ARM devices the same way, then perhaps Secure Boot wouldn't be so divisive.

[cpd2009]

I know this post will go up after yours David, but to clear things up, the reason why I edited my post is that I didn't want to include topics you didn't talk about originally, and wanted to get to the topic you did address. It makes me look sketchy, but perhaps I should write these up in Notepad before posting.

EDIT: and it hasn't. I think I will go ahead and type replies in Notepad from now on, and only post them when they are truly ready.

I apologize, David, if you saw my original long winded post before I trimmed it down. I just didn't want to go on and on about things and was ultimately trying to prevent a heated argument. I stand by my opinion in the original reply, but I guess it's a bit too late now.