Technically Speaking

We love video games (or computer games as they are known). Be they epic sprawling adventures such as Ed Federmeyer's Haunted Maze or pick up and play wonders such as World of Warcraft. The hardware developers sometimes go out of their way to enable us to play all our old favourites on the newest generation so we don't have to own all the previous generations in order to pwn some classics. OR do they? Let's take a look at how Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo regularly shaft gamers for more cash.

Sony
Sony is hard to keep track of, especially with the PS3 lies which, have been covered here and elsewhere. Nonetheless, here are some golden oldies...

PS1 Games- You can play all your PS1 games on the PS2, which is great but you do have to use your old Playstation1 Memory Cards in order to save games, which, are rapidly becoming an E-bay acquisition.

Multitaps. Sony stiffed everyone when the other two ports for controllers magically dissappeared from the PS2 a similar thing seems to be happening with the PS3. You cannot play playstation 2 multitap games on a slimline PS2, it is IMPOSSIBLE! LIES see update update. A number of times the staff at GAME reassure us that you can but alas you can't with the PS2 multitap it is too big. There were rumours of an adaptor or yet another multitap but I have never seen one. Also, to play playstation1 multiplayer games on a PS2 you have to have a PS1 multitap handy which, fortunately does work on a slimline PS2 but are getting increasingly hard to buy.

Light Guns. I'm not to sure on this but does the Predator Light Gun or the old G-Cons work on a PS2? Do the new G-cons work on old G-con games? Chuff_72 says yes sometimes but I'd like to know for sure.

Blue PS2 Discs- Don't work on some newer PS2s.

PS2. Quadbee has had 4 different PS2s, Dr.Wo.69 has gone through a couple. They are just fundamentally broken (or were). Has anyone heard of problems with the slimline?

Link Up games. Command and Conquer, Destruction Derby, Doom, Descent 2 and Timesplitters 2 were all link up games that would dominate whole weeks of play. BUT the newest playstation 2s (newer than original PS2 but older than slimline) lost the PS2 link cable port so to play 8 player TS2 you need two old playstation 2 (old non-slimline PS2) and a PS2 link cable. To play the PS1 link up games I think you need two playstation 1s and the PS1 link cable. Also it seemed that all game developers ditched link up play after a while. I haven't tried but I imagine finding a PS2 link cable now will be tricky.

Online Play and the PSP. Ha ha ha ha ha.................

Highlights It's not all bad news and sometimes developers go out of their way to reward loyalty. E.g if you complete Devil May Cry 3 and load up Devil May Cry with the memory card with the DMC3 save game in you get the pendant from 3 in your inventory. CLEVER AND OBSCURE like a comic book.

Nintendo
One of the reasons I like nintendo was because of the cross-format interconnectivity as well as backwards compatability. But there have been an amount of naughtiness almost on a par with Sony.

GBA link cable. Maybe this will change with the Wii but you can't access the GBA bits on Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Windwaker, Animal Crossing or Pokemon Colloseum using a DS. The handheld end doesn't fit in the DS. I don't know about the game boy micro either but I'm guessing not?

Gameboy/N64 Attachments. There were a glut of these and about 25 managed to reach European shores. For example the wireless attachment that shipped with Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green. Firstly, these only worked between Leaf Green and Fire Red so trading with Sapphire or Ruby had to be done with a link cable. Secondly did any other game use the wireless adaptor? The same goes with the N64 gameboy game pad adaptors that were used with Pokemon Colloseum did any other game use these? Same again for the Gameboy camera, tilt sensor, E-card reader etc. etc. The gameboy player for the Gamecube boggles my mind especially multiplayer gameboy or GBA games that would require 4 Gamecubes, 4 TVs, 4 Gamecube Gameboy players and 4 link cables.

Phasing out of the last gen. First gameboy then gameboy color then gameboy advance now DS. It's a real shame that the DS can't play gameboy/gameboy colour games because it means you have to keep a Supergameboy, GBA or Gamecube Gameboy player handy. Transferring pokemon red/blue/yellow pokemon to gold/silver was frustrating because it required either two gameboy colors or pokemon stadium 2 and x number of those darn N64 gameboy adaptors. Also it was infinitely frustrating when the Gameboy Pokemon could not be transferred to the GBA games. The rumour mill is saying that the GBA pokemon will be transferable to the DS versions but I'll believe that when I see it.

Highlights There have been some really good ideas from Nintendo but the execution especially in Europe has required boxes and boxes of hardware. To be fair a lot of the extra hardware was shipped with the game it was used for but to really get the most out of the system 4 of each adaptor were required which, all bar the hardcorest of nintendo fans didn't have (demanding 4 GBAs and GBA link cables for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles was a bit steep). A lot of this hardware is now like gold dust. The other day I couldn't find a Gamecube-GBA link cable anywhere in central London! However, when you do find three friends with all the accessories, games and consoles the experience is awesome, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and WarioWare Inc. to name two. Nintendo is really getting to grips with interconnectivity and multiplayer with the DS with (almost?) every game having an aspect of multicard play and a significant number having downloadable single cart play.

To highlight the naughtiness of Nintendo and Sony to play these 11 different game types

Mario Kart DS
Pokemon Stadium 2
4P Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
Point Blank 2
4P Micro Maniacs
4P Freedom Fighters
Link Up Command and Conquer
Link Up Timesplitters 2
Tetris Gameboy
Trading Pokemon Sapphire, Pokemon Fire Red and Pokemon Leaf Green
Trading Pokemon Yellow to Pokemon Silver

Requires this amount of hardware

2x Playstation 1
2x Playstation 2 (not slimline and old version with PS2 link cable port)
Playstation 2 (new version to play newer games that don't work on old PS2)
Playstation 2 Memory Card
Playstation 1 Memory Card
8 Dualshock Controllers
G-con
Playstation 1 multitap
Playstation 2 multitap
Playstation 2 slimline multitap- "which allegedly exist" Still 3 types of multitaps!
Playstation 1 link cable
Playstation 2 link cable
Nintendo Gamecube
4x GBA link cable
4x GBA/SP
N64
4x N64 Controllers
4x N64 Gameboy adaptors
2x GBA wireless adaptors
1x GBA link cable
Nintendo DS

If someone could cost this (adjusting for inflation) that would be great

Microsoft
Having never been an Xbox owner I can't really go into depth on this but the backwards compatability issue seems to be pissing off many people. On the other hand Live! and Arcade have been widely acclaimed. Also the option to listen to your own downloaded music on selected games was a fucking master stroke. There is some indication that patches may be the way forward for the Xbox but there is enough on that on the internet already.

Chuff_72 adds - To use a PS1 multi-tap in a PS2 slim you need to "customise" it, shaving off the guard that is designed to stop you putting a mcard in the wrong slot on the PSone, this can be achieve via the use of a small plane or file.

To play the Chocobo min game for FFVIII, you need - 1x Imported "Grey" PS1, 1x NTSC tv, 1x Pocket Station, 1x Imported FFVIII

Also bear in mind that you need the first/second generation "Grey" PS1 to play link up games, as they removed the i-link port for the newer models.

To play Thrill Kill, you need - 1x "Grey" PS1, 1x Biro (ink cartridge), 1x black market copy of said game, 1x dedicated mother fucker to spend hours mastering the disc swap, 1x Ridge Racer alleged to be the best game for swapping, 1x a retard to select "No" to the "are you old enough to play this game" screen

Update update Apparently there is a multitap for the slimline (that is different to the slimline multitaps which were relesed before the PSTwo we bought one and it didn't fit it was just a trimmer version of the chonky PS2 multitap). I'll be fucked if I've ever seen one though, apart from the dodgy MAD BOYZ or GAME own versions with two seperate plugs that break as soon as you take them out of the packaging or just refuses to acknowledge P3 regardless of the different dance mat/joypad combinations you use.