From: phaedrus@milton.u.washington.edu (Phaedrus)
Newsgroups: rec.games.video
Subject: Re: Neo Geo: the only 24-bit system?
Date: 29 Jul 92 09:40:22 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

In article <1992Jul28.164053.2031@merrimack.edu> desmondw@merrimack.edu writes:
>In article <1992Jul26.162625.19864@u.washington.edu>, phaedrus@milton.u.washington.edu (Phaedrus) writes:
>> In article <1992Jul24.152210.14172@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov> jonke@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov (Stephen Jonke) writes:
>>>        Telling tall tales to the public has been routine in the consumer
>>>market.  SNK is just doing what others do (not that I approve of this, but
>>>if you are looking for truth in advertising by Nintendo Sega, TT or Kellogs
>>>for that matter, you are looking the wrong places as well!)
>>      With all due respect, bullshit.  If you can come up with an instance where
>> Nintendo or Sega has repeatedly, systematically, deliberately lied about a
>> basic capability of their system by a factor of eight over a period of many
>> months (perhaps years, I don't remember), despite the blatant impossibility
>> of their claim and the repeated attempts of all sorts of people to correct
>> them, then post it; I for one would very much like to hear it.  Otherwise,
>> stop throwing claims like this
>     Okay hotshot, you want to hear about false advertising, its not
>too hard to remember Sega and their "true" photos in their game booklets
>that they advertise in various magazines and put in with each piece
>of trash they call a game. I can remember one photo of Super Monoco GP
>which looked very high tech for the genesis machine, a little like,hmmm
>I don't know....the arcade photo maybe?  And how about the photos for
>Golden Axe, forget about those?? And how about the pictures of scenes
>that weren't even included in the games themselves. Sega is a big
>false advertiser and so is nintendo so keep your trap shut.

     Congratulations.  You have just earned a permanent place in my kill file,
an honor only Richard Rauser had previously merited. 
     Your argument has all the convincing force of "Hey, he just jaywalked,
and she spat on the sidewalk.  So I'll just take an Uzi and go blow some people
away, and don't you give me a hard time about it either, because we're all
committing crimes so I'm no more guilty than they are."  This is the real
world, and in the real world there are degrees of "wrong", and just because
someone commits a minor wrong is no justification for committing a major one.
Strike one.
     You claim that "Nintendo is a big false advertiser", then give absolutely 
no evidence to back up your claim.  That may work in the National Enquirer, but
it doesn't wash here.  Strike two.
     You must really have something against Sega; you actually take the trouble
to attempt to present some evidence against them, while calling their games
"pieces of trash."  (Hmm... checked Sega's sales figures against SNK's lately?
A whole lotta people don't seem to agree with you there...)  You're exactly
right; screen shots often don't exactly match the games they're attached to.
Ask someone who works in marketing just how much of a living hell it is to
get a decent screen shot.  Ask the television manufacturers; they don't even
try it in their ads--when was the last time you saw a TV ad that didn't say
"SIMULATED PICTURE" somewhere in the fine print?  Ask EGM; they practically
make their living from screen shots, but have you ever noticed how many of
them they manage to put with the wrong game, under the wrong caption, or just
reproduced so badly that you can't make out the details of the game anyway?
It's not at all uncommon for screen shots to be retouched, or even drawn by
hand, and there's usually no attempt to deceive involved--they're just trying
to come up with something legible enough for people to be able to look at it
and get some idea of what the game is about.  And as for scenes being shown
that aren't present in the game--welcome to the ugly world of software
production.  Screenshots and other advertising copy often have to be delivered
to printers, magazines, ad agencies, etc. months before the game is actually
finished.  If the programmers run into a snag, the scenes on which those
screen shots are based may have to be altered or even dropped, and it's already
too late to change the screenshot.  Again, there's not necessarily any attempt
to deceive.  
     Now, contrast this to SNK.  There is absolutely no way that any game
company can be unaware of whether their own games will be measured in megabits
or megabytes.  Just ask anybody in programming (they certainly know how long
their code is), engineering (they certainly know what chips they plan on
using), or production (they certainly know what chips are being used), or
accounting (they're certainly capable of telling you that the cost of
acquiring tens of megabytes of memory is several times more than the retail
price of a Neo Geo game), and you'll have your answer.  And SNK certainly
didn't accidentally let this little error ship in unnoticed one month; month 
after month after month, they repeatedly, deliberately emphasized this 
fraudulent "difference" between their system and others as much as possible.
They repeatedly promised their customers and potential customers eight times
more game than they knew they were delivering.  If you really believe that
this sort of deliberate, systematic fraud is no worse than getting some screen
shots wrong, then you have a very odd sense of reality.  Strike three.
-- 
Internet: phaedrus@u.washington.edu        (University of Washington, Seattle)
 "If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs,
    consider an exciting career as a guillotine operator!"
Newsgroups: rec.games.video