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The Facts, plain and simple.

When I'm going through the forum, a lot of times I see people who are misinformed about gaming. I'm not talking about opinions here, but facts. Usually, this comes about from a combination of ignorace and fanbratism, but we can ignore that. For this threads job is not to change your ways of prefering your console (or game) above your life, but to have you more informed about it, know it better. For the record, I own all Nintendo systems, yet, if you read on, Nintendo ain't always in the lead. Remember that before you accuse me of being a fanbrat. Anyways, as I find more people to post wrong info, I'll post more. Or, if you have a topic you'd like settled, just pm me, and I'll add it. And please do. As you can tell, it's kinda sparse right now... Now, on to the truth!

Section one: Console Facts
Section two: Handheld Facts
Section three: Portable Facts
Section Four: Other Video Game Facts
Section Five: Genres and their games


I need help. As you people can see, this thread is still kinda sparse. It was just posted a day ago, but still. Any Facts you wanna know, I'll do my best to find an answer. Find something wrong with my facts? Give me a link, and I'll change it. The truth is in your hands. Don't drop it.

Portable Facts
DS and PSP:
The PSP is more powerful that it's current Competitor, the DS. It can do more, graphics-wise than the DS can. It's UMD can hold more than the DS cartrige, allowing for bigger and more graphically complex games. However, both feature a Wireless ability (so you can hook up and play with friends). Using this, the PSP can currently hook up and play through the net, an ability the DS will soon be able to do. However, due to it's complexity and power, the PSP eats up battery power, with the average lasting around 4 hours, depending on settings and the game being played. The DS is more consistent with it's power, lasting an average of 10 hours.
A feature that the DS has that the PSP doesn't is it's touch screen ability. This can lead to many more gameplay options than the PSP, and make other current genre more acessible on the DS, such as Real Time Strategy games. Another feature is it's Backward Compatibility with the GBA. In short, the PSP is between a PS1 and PS2, while the DS is a little more powerful than the N64, (With an added in Game Boy Advance)

Relevent Articles:
Handheld Gaming stats
PSP Battery Life
DS Overview
PSP - Overview

Japanese PSP Defects:
As we all know, the Japanese PSP lauch was plauged by defects. You could hardly take a walk down the street without being killed by a flying UMD. Square buttons wouldn't work, and the PSP would just fall apart before even being taken out of the box! Or so we were told. In truth, these usually occured in about .6 percent of the 510,000 PSPs launched in 2004. And, they were fixed for all the Units sold in 2005, and in the US. So, don't fear about accidently killing your friend with a rouge UMD. Unless of course, you imported yours. ninja

Sony admits PSP problem, offers free fix

Other Video Game Facts:
ESRB Ratings, percetage-wise:

All of us know about the ESRB, and it's rating system. However, most of us have a flawed view on the number of games that come out this each rating. While the only article I could find for this is a bit dated, I'm sure that the percentages haven't changed much recently.




2005 Numbers:





How the ESRB works:

Aeris Esper

So I dunno if this thread is still being updated with new information, but I think a useful addition would be clarification on how ESRB works.

ESRB doesn't play the games they rate. These people don't have the 50+ hours it takes to beat many modern games. So instead, developers prepare a video containing footage of the game. They try to pack all the most questionable content the game has to offer in this video. If the game has violence, language, nudity, or whatever, they make sure the footage they send has that in it. So ESRB watches the video and makes note of its content, then forms a rating based on that.

Here's a link that explains this all in much greater detail:
How the ESRB works, and how it was started.

How Light Guns work:

Common, who hasn't played Duck Hunt? Or House of the Dead? Or any of the Arcade Jurassic Park games? Okay, so light guns aren't that common anymore. Especially with Arcades slowly fading away ( crying Why gaming gods, why? ) But, for those of us who've been around long enough to have played them, I'm betting more than a few of us have no clue how they work. Well, it's not the complicated, really. Inside the barrel of the gun is a light sensor. When you pull the trigger, the screen blanks except for the Target (AKA the Ducks in DH). The light sensor reacts, and if it see white, it counts a hit, if not, it counts a miss. Pretty simple, ne? That's a basic describtion. For something more in depth, here's an article for you to read:

How does the light gun for a video game work?

Edit: Though I sometimes act like I know everything.... I don't. There is something misleading about what I said up there, but luckily I have people like Mishimisa to help me out:


Emulators and Roms:

I'm sure quite a few of us use them, to play classics like games on the NES, Gensis, SNES, ect... But you know what? We aren't legally allowed to. Well, play the game anyways. Emulators, themselves, are legal. They don't enfringe on any copywrite laws, as far as anyone can tell. But, all you can do with them is have them on the computer (to look pretty) or play homebrewed game. Cause ROMs (the game data itself) is not legal. They violate Copywrite laws. Although it used to be that you could have the ROM if you owned the game, and ripped it from the cartrige yourself, to use as a back-up copy. However, I'm pretty sure this has changed recently, as in some of my more recent games say so. 3nodding Another thing. On many sites where you can download ROMs, they say if you don't own the game you have to delete it in 24 hours, or else it becomes illegal. This is bullshit. You don't own the rights to play the game, so as soon as you download it it becomes illegal. In short, don't download ROMs. Cause that'll make you a dirty thief. (guilty, but now clean)

Article to come soon...

Resevered.

Is the title don't "Don't post in here yet!", or did I misspell it? xp

Awww, thanks, but I gots plans for this thread. 3nodding

nice one. this should become a sticky just because of all the info, but yet people are still going to argue. you just cant stop them.