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I never really understood the technical theory behind audio compression. I understand the benefits of smaller file sizes, but how do you compress audio and not lose quality at the same time? Perhaps this is a topic for another discussion, but it interests me all the same. I guess ideal file choice would also depend on the playback equipment too. I've noticed that songs I know very well sound different, and I pick up on different tones and characteristics of the song, depending on what I'm listening to. Cheap car speakers, expensive car speakers, default i-device headphones, quality over the ear headphones, portable audio systems, the cheap theater system in the garage, the Klipsch stuff in the living room... you get the point. So many ways to hear a song, it's so much fun discovering new things about old songs that you've been hearing for years.

While on the one hand, I'm still disappointed with the downfall of gaming mags in the US, largely due to the internet, we probably wouldn't know anything about one another or be able to have a common hobby like Retromags if not for said internet. Darned catch-22's.

I was just curious to see what your perspectives were, absolutely no judgement here. For all the more I watch, getting cable or satellite would be absolutely pointless. Now, if I could pick the perhaps 3 channels that air shows we watch, and record to watch at my leisure, I might be interested. Honestly though, apart from the anime here and there, everything we watch is on Netflix or HBO. Not really a sports fan here, apart from occasionally hockey, and F1, so no need for some fancy package deal like Data was describing. E-day, I'm rather jealous of your internet man... our best option is still significantly slower than your former option. I may as well go make a sandwich if I want to upload anything.

To those that have partaken in piracy in the past, what would it take to convince you of the value of paying for the entertainment you've gotten for free? Personally, anime was always a pretty big one for me back in the day. Lot of it, however, wasn't available in English, subbed or dubbed, so I had no qualms in getting it through fansubbers. TV in English however, I don't mind the pay-per-episode model, as I have no use for 458 channels containing maybe two or three shows I want to watch anyway. However, why would I pay $3 per episode for, well, anything? Given that an average show can have 5-25 episodes a season, that quickly becomes pretty unreasonable. Now, at $1 per episode, I'd be happy to buy shows that we enjoy. Otherwise we just wait for them on Netflix, Amazon, stuff like that, or watch with friends who have TV on occasion. I'd say that the TV industry would be well served to look to Steam to find their way into my home. Satellite and cable options are not that way.

The irony of ROB is that, back then, if you had a Nintendo, you HAD friends.

Had never heard of a lot of those, if I'm honest. I can't read anything other than English and Spanish, so the Japanese mags are out of my reading list haha. I'm guessing a large portion of those listed in English are UK based?

You know, I'm not sure. File size, flac files seem to average about 4x the size of a high bitrate mp3, but the sound is worth it, considering the price of storage these days. CD's still sound great, and I still listen to them on a regular basis (two of the cars don't have auxiliary inputs yet), but quite a bit of my collection is digital. Most of the discs are from the days before I had a computer. Frankly, records still sound the best to my ears, but I grew up with them. Portable... no. Great sound and ambiance, yes. Video game soundtrack related? Err... not so much.

So I've been replaying Suikoden with my fiance lately, and noticed something. It was really ahead of its time, as far as RPG's go. My reasoning is as follows: -The experience point system isn't linear. A level 40 character might only get 5 or 10 exp from the same battle that a level 20 character would get 5000 exp from. The lower your level versus the challenge of the battle, the more exp you get. This levels out once you get to an appropriate level for the challenge of the area. I love the exponential growth of characters, if you survive, as it gets you up to speed quickly. Not only that, but this system discourages grinding, as well as makes over-leveling your party tedious and unrewarding. This... then preserves the challenge. -Speaking of grinding, I don't have time for it. Not sure how many of you do, but I can really think of more rewarding things to do with my limited time here on earth. Enter... the Champion rune. This little crystal of awesome eliminates significantly weaker random battles from even occurring. You'll still fight anything that is worth your time, but the pointless battles aren't even brought up anymore once you equip this rune. Unfortunately it requires a rune space, and those are precious in this game, but hey, that's the sacrifice you gotta make if you wanna make the most of your time. Only downsides here, are if you are playing the game for the battle system, in which case, leave it off, the other being that it is obtained about 2/3 of the way through the game. Really... this should have been something you could get around the time you establish your home base. -Gaspar. For those of you poor souls who haven't played it (it's on PSN and very reasonably priced if you have a PS3, PSP, or Vita), there is a man named Gaspar in the game, who runs a gambling den. In it, you throw dice into a cup. I won't spoil the details, it's a fairly simple game, all dependent on luck, but suffice to say, it's an easy moneymaker. You can easily max out your funds (of which you will likely want a lot of throughout the game, armies aren't cheap, ya know?) in a matter of a few minutes. Konami knew how to make a solid RPG back in the 90's. All of these things speak to one common quality... the developers respected the player's TIME investment into their game. Vandal Hearts was similar in this sense, there was no grind to speak of, which, in the 90's, in an RPG, was an uncommon quality. For so much content, and such a rich world, the Suikoden games sure had a way of going by quickly.

Not sure why I get the feeling that I've seen this very thread topic on the forum and put in my two cents on the subject..? Is the "sometimers" getting worse? Anyway, Suikoden. That series really established a world, without it feeling too forced. Things flowed naturally, and you always got the sense that there was a LOT more behind the curtain than the creators were ever showing us. I liked that, but perhaps my imagination filled in a lot of blanks... Sadly, Konami is content to let all the fantastic gaming franchises it owns the rights to, rot.

Suikoden 6... oh wait... *sigh* Truthfully though, much as I love physical media, if I can't find a copy of a game at an acceptable price, I have no problem at all buying it digitally. After all, the biggest point of a game is to play it, right? That, and over the years I've picked up games that I knew I wanted here and there. I now own a healthy collection of PS1 and PS2 greats as a result. Mid 2000's were a good time to be collecting for those systems. Now? Yikes. People seem to assume that old = gold these days.

Nice post man. I was a kid back then, neat to see it through adult eyes.

...and call it Itchy-Ban. I think it will sell like crazy in Japan, it's the BEST! Ok, I realize only a few of you will get it, so it's a bit limited in appeal, but hey, I found it funny. I thought we had a joke thread on here, but I was unable to find it, so here we go. Feel free to contribute, and be warned that my humor tends to skew towards something you'd find on a pop-sicle stick.

I use WMP for .mp3 files, but everything else gets put through VLC. Loooooove me some .flac files. Never really noticed a difference on my old surround sound setup, but when that was upgraded to Klipsch... whoo boy. Reminds me of how records used to sound!

Love dogs and cats, and most other pets, but not home enough to feel right in owning one. EDIT: About 20 minutes after posting this reply, neighbor down the street stops by asking if we have a brown lab, which is super full of energy and runs through the open door. I tell the girl that we'll try to figure out where it belongs and go from there. Ended up hanging out with it in the garage for about half an hour and got it some water and chicken to snack on. Poor thing seemed like it had been a bit since it last had nourishment, but it was happy and healthy, full of energy too, sheesh. Pretty sure it was a Boxer / Pit Bull mix. Pretty dog and really friendly, but no collar to identify it with. Protip: make sure your dog has a collar...

Schweet! Are there any still in publication that were in publication in 2003? Another four years and we could host the entirety of PSM / PTOM.

Darned kids... I'd be willing to bet the same could be said of my Street Fighter skills. 20 years ago, I was competent with literally every character, I'd let opponents pick who I played as, just to spice things up. Now? Hah. Haven't played seriously since SFA3 came out, what, 1999? I'd be a plaything for most anyone with a decent amount of skill, I'm sure. As for what I've been playing lately, picked up an SNES Classic. Have already put in about 20 hours into Link to the Past, just have the final dungeon to wrap up and I'm done with that one. Little bit of time with Yoshi's Island with Megan (she's really good at it), and I'm walking her through the first Suikoden game, which I suspect is probably more fun for me than her, unfortunately. At least it's a short game, either way.

Given how many names I see in Hiragana or Katakana online, playing multiplayer games, I'd say the digital age is closing the gap somewhat. You're right that there were some excellent western games over the years, and it would have been unfortunate to have not been able to experience them. It goes both ways as well... I recall how disappointed a lot of folks in my group were that we wouldn't be able to play Dragonball GT unless we shelled out a TON of money for it since it was such a small release here... That, and what I wouldn't have done to play a Rurouni Kenshin or Cowboy Bebop game back in the day! Knew about them, but unfortunately never got the chance. Japan had similar measures of protectionism in regards to their auto industry back in the day, so perhaps they stuck to their "Made in Japan" attitude toward gaming as well. Nothing wrong with a little bit of nationalistic pride when it comes to art and production. The car subject is a topic I could discuss in another thread though, so I'll not clutter this one up. Shame about Worms though, the early console ports were embarrassingly slow to play compared to the PC version. Not like you needed a super powerful PC to play it even, it was likely just porting issues causing the slowdown. Consoles definitely had their place though... both from a budget and accessibility standpoint. So I'm grateful for the massive variety of games that we got to experience thanks to the Japanese development side of gaming. I mean, I could start listing off some of my favorite console exclusives, but we'd be here all day!

That is a much more informed and eloquent way of saying what I mentioned (well, touched on, anyway,) that they covered their bases in Japan. I know it was largely a PC game franchise, but has somewhat come into its own in the PS3 / 360 generation, but how well did the Worms franchise do over there? It is easily one of my favorite western games. Hmm... this makes me realize something. You've mentioned how western development was mainly focused on PC games back in the day, and you know... most any good game I can think of that was made by a western developer HAS been for the PC. Doom, Diablo, Monkey Island (really, any of those Lucasarts adventure games), Worms, Wing Commander, Thief... Perhaps the lack of western game proliferation in Japan is due to the hardware our best offerings were made for not being very popular in Japan at the time. Maybe it really is that simple... Much like we would have had to import and figure out how to play certain types of games back in the 90's, they would have had to do the same in Japan.

Fundamentally, we are on the same side, as far as ideals go. Remember that although a law may be old in origin, it may often still be relevant far into the future. Reaching way back here, the Magna Carta is still VERY valid in terms of human rights, and it is nearly a thousand years old. I agree that the market needs more competition when it comes to broadband providers, as well as content producers. Personally, I have little use for cable makers and the like, I rarely watch TV in general anymore. BUT, I understand that a lot of us do, and don't want to see corporations abuse their customers. I don't believe Pai has our best interests in mind, truthfully. Taking a lawyer who worked for the very industry he is now supposed to regulate? Have you ever heard the phrase about not letting the fox guard the hen house? Very much applies here, and is a large part of what is wrong with Washington, it's a revolving door between lobbyists and the white house. Either way, we will find out soon enough, as there is a proposal presentation in congress for next week, the week before Thanksgiving. If you pay attention to history, a lot of shady policy tends to get passed during times that folks aren't always paying attention to what their representatives are doing...

I'm open to playing just about anything if it has one or more of the following: -Unique art style -Great writing -Atmosphere that pulls you into the game world -Great controls -A fun sense of humor Really, my requirements aren't many, so long as it does at least one of those things well, I'm more than willing to check a game out. I'm a little disconnected from the modern gaming scene, and honestly, I'd have trouble naming you a list of big games in the last, oh, I dunno, 5 years over here? As far as western games over there, I can see Crash Bandicoot having appeal. It was a great platformer, and had fun characters. Everything about those games just focused on the player having fun... even if it was frustrating at times, it was a motivational frustration, something that challenged you to do better next time.

Sorry E-day, had a feeling that a simple approach like mine wasn't going to fit your needs too well. No worries though, only one who uses my computer is me, but I can understand helping others in the house makes life easier for everybody.

Title II regulations was applied to broadband service providers in 2015. The discussion at hand, at least initially it seemed, was on the subject of Pai's attempt to repeal those regulations. To my understanding, this would prevent the FCC from exercising any authority over your ISP (well, my ISP anyway) if they chose to really put the screws to their customers. I could spend a LOT of time looking into the finer points of this discussion, but when you have the telecom industry on one side of the argument, and everyone from content producers, to non-profits, to open source developers, to civil rights advocates, on the other side of the argument, it's pretty obvious to me which side of the argument is motivated by profit, and which is motivated by free speech and the exercise of it. I have nothing against the free market, I'm actually a huge supporter of it, as I stated in my last post. That said, I don't believe the internet is something that belongs to a select few companies either, no matter how much they may invest in infrastructure. Let's address one of my main points, that the ISP has no right to modify bandwidth to any particular website. Forgive me if I'm misunderstood here, but this is Zero Rating, in a nutshell: ISP provides access to X page, with no impact on your bandwidth allowance, while accessing Y page does have an impact on your allowance. This will have the result of the majority of the ISP's customers accessing X page rather than Y page. To me, this is an anti-competitive practice. I'm not fond of such large companies having such control over what is available to the user. To be both gate keeper and producer / provider of content seems an ethical conflict of interest, as you will use your ability to direct as much traffic as you can to sites you own, and hinder traffic headed to sites you don't own.

Call me old fashioned, but I understood very little of your post. Not that I'm a technophobe, but I haven't been around anyone who does this sort of thing in a long time. For the last... 11 years now? I've simply used my pc attached to my tv. Current setup is literally an 11 year old pc, with wireless keyboard and mouse. No cords, no fuss, no issues, apart from modern media requiring a bit more muscle than my computer has. As far as the software side of things, stuff is organized via folders that suit my needs on the computer, through windows. Hell, I don't even know what version of windows I have haha. Use VLC media player, it handles just about everything nicely.

I don't know that you'd ever find the info you're looking for here bud. Sounds to me like a niche subject of a niche role of the available entertainment in Japan? Not that I don't find it an interesting concept, I just wouldn't know where to even begin looking. I wonder if it wasn't largely due to a lack of marketing, as I believe you mentioned. I mean, a western developer makes a game, with US sensibilities in mind, why bother trying to sell it across the ocean, if your target audience is right there? Might have been difficult to convince management of the value of exporting games to Japan. Didn't know that Japan still did sports games, or at least I never really thought about it. Not my favorite genre, but I do remember some of the sports titles from Japan back in the SNES / Genesis era. Are there any big western titles that have done well in Japan? Perhaps we could start a list here...

Sometimes they (or more likely, their interns) would reply, but as has been the case with nearly every reply on any topic I get from them, they are VERY non-committal. Not sure who your congressional representatives are, but I suspect they're likely the same way. Congress (and most politicians, in my experience) don't want to be held accountable, so they rarely take a concrete stance. If they DO... you're not likely to sway their opinion, especially as a normal person. Social elite or very wealthy? You might have a shot. Guy like me? Not likely. To answer your question about seeing them in person, I'm not sure where you live, but I live in a rather large state. Unfortunately, taking a day off from work to drive eight hours through what most would see as a desolate hellscape for an audience with someone isn't what I call a productive use of my time. If they were significantly closer, or held town halls near me? Sure, I'd be there. That said, I'm MUCH better at writing out my thoughts than I am debating them in person. In this sense, so were our founders... they wrote a LOT of letters in shaping our constitution.