Jimquisition: Revivify The Cold Vitae

[Aardvaarkman]

The 16GB memory card is only $40 on Amazon (My 16Gb Flash drive was just about as expensive, barring discounts)

I paid 30 for a 64 GB SD card. If you paid 40 bucks for a 16 GB flash drive any time recently, you got ripped.

What was the class rating on that SD card? Chances are, you got a low-rated card. Most cheap SD cards don't perform well. There's no way you're getting a quality 64GB card for that money. So, it's a just question of getting ripped off on performance, rather than price.

 

[DanHibiki]

The main reason I got the original PSP was because it was hackable. I was able to bypass a lot of the awful BS that Sony imposed on the system, like it's need for disk only games, I was able to play music from my collection while playing other games and I had access to a slew of PS1 ports like X-com and other home brew games. It was great.
Now take all that away and you've got the new Vita.

 

[blackbishop]

Okay, I've been watching the Jimquisition every week for longer then I care to admit and I've gotta ask: What's with the shrimp? It's in every episode at least once.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WebVideo/Jimquisition

It's mentioned here but I'm not satisfied. Does Jim like shrimp? Does he think they're funny? Did he just once use a picture of a shrimp in an episode and, on reflection, felt it was off topic and decided it could be in every episode as just some weird occurrence? Why a shrimp and not, say, a cow or a marmoset? If it was important to be a crustacean, why not a lobster or mantis shrimp?

It'd be fun to see it pay off somehow. I mean, I doubt a video game will come out with shrimp front and center that creates talking points like Beyond: Two Souls did with the Willem Defoe but it'd be nice to see something develop around it.

This really bothers me too. I also wish to know the meaning of the shrimp. It always seems to show up when he is changing his argument, often around a "however" moment. What does it meannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

The shrimp might symbolize wealth or opulence in this series of videos. So he uses it when talking about individuals that are money-hungry or when someone made a fortune by doing right choices. In this episode, he used it while talking about the PS Vita memory cards and how a wonderful deal they are for system owners.

 

[Thanatos2k]

You know this does beg a question.

Where are these games on the PSOne section?
Breath of Fire 3
Brave Fencer Musashi
Suikoden 2
Legend of Legaia

Suikoden 2 has been heavily hinted at coming to the PSN recently, so it's very much a strong possibility we'll see it soon.
As for Brave Fencer Musashi and Breath of Fire 3, that's up to their respective developers. Sony needs the okay to go and release them onto the system as a classic, and there can be issues within those games that restricts said companies (Square and Capcom, respectively) from being able to do it as well.

At least, that's Capcom's weak little excuse when it comes to releasing Mega Man Legends 1 and 2 as a PS1 Classic. "We don't own all the rights" or something similar.

Also, let it be noted that I do not approve of Valkyria Chronicles being shown. It still rubs me the wrong way how utterly idiotic Sega treated that game with the bastardized, fan-fic written trash that was 2...

And let's not forget them refusing to localize VC3. Screw Sega, seriously. Took a wonderful JRPG that could have been a console franchise for years to come and ground it into the dirt.

 

[doomed89]

I don't think it is that SOny doesn't want the games on the Vita since it seems they got a lot of them working, but there is a lot of legal red tape before they can legally release the game in our region.

I think this is a similar thing with the WiiU. There are a lot of games Nintendo can get working on the WiiU, but they can't get the rights from the IP holders. Because Nintendo wants to have a steady stream of games from the VC make it over to the Wii U they have to really stagger those Nintendo titles which is why we get another Nintendo published and owned game to the VC every other month. It isn't that they don't want these games on the new console, but they will end up in a lot of legal trouble if they just do it.

Nintendo is lucky they have a full Wii emulator and were able to get the Wii to play off of the gamepad, so it can still buy the games from the Wii VC.

Could Sony get away with releasing a full PSP emulator on Vita?

I think this "accident" may have been Sony trying to force those IP holders into letting them sell the games on Vita. Then again I am a conspiracy nut :3

I doubt it didn't last long enough to even test the waters (unless they were testing legal waters, ie how long until IP holders screamed to take them off, but as I barely knew about it I doubt they did in that time but you never know) but from a coding perspective it's more likely the update just set them all to a default which in this case was on the store and buyable.

 

[Sack of Cheese]

I love my Vita and was about to get chippy about it... But Jim is right. It has so much potential and it's being wasted.

 

[daxterx2005]

Crash theme at the end, Aku Aku Thumb nail.
I approve <3

 

[Willstown]

I picked up a Vita last month, the PS4 release perked up my interest in it. it's a great little platform, but yeah the memory cards are insanely expensive, especially if you are getting a lot of digital copies of games via PS+ (I went straight for a 64gb).

So much potential, so little marketing.

Tearaway was one of the best little games I've played for a long long time.

 

[Faustek]

I don't get it.

Some games work in my beloved European region, they don't in the states.
The states still have the PS1/2 classics on the store we Europeans and Aussies don't.

Sony doesn't talk, just silence.

Yeah I have most physical discs left but would love to play them on my Vita/PS3/PS4 without having to deal with the hassle of discs...but hey I can just rip them and play on my shield instead. Hey Sony maybe I should just ignore you since you ignore us?

Yepp, I'm not there,yet, but I won't blame anyone who pirates and runs CFW on their Vita/PS3.

Edit:

I should add that if it wasn't for Shahid Kamals team and enthusiasm I myself would probably be running a CFW on my Vita, can't guarantee I wouldn't have gone across the border and downloaded a few classics, or just left it somewhere to absorb dust.

 

[Something Amyss]

There's no way you're getting a quality 64GB card for that money.

Have you shopped online in the last, like, two years?

As for getting ripped off on price or performance, Sony's Vita cards read what? Sub 10 MB/sec? No matter how poor you think the UHS class 10 cards in my phone and on my PC are, Sony's performing worse as a significant markup. I think I paid 45 for the one in my phone, for the record.

You can't seriously be arguing that there's performance for the cost of a PS Vita, card, the equivalent of a class 4, when you can get a class 10 card of much higher capacity for less, can you?

And oddly enough, my cards are Sony.

 

[maximara]

I think Jim nailed it in an earlier vid when he said that Sony is basically begging for piracy. It's such a pity that they still haven't learned their lessons.

I think it goes back to what Moviebob said in his Game Overthinker V39 "The Emperor Has No Clothes"--thanks to Nintendo and Saga majorly dropping the ball in the early 1990s Sony became a major player in the game company market without really understanding what they were doing. They were the man with one eye in a kingdom of the blind but the blindness didn't last and now it has been a case of watch Nintendo and Microsoft do a much better job of selling their consoles.

I don't agree with this statement. I think its bullshit since Sony was already making video games long before anyone thought that they would make a console. Granted, most of the time their games were crappy, but it would rather be idiotic on Sony's part if they did not use their time and energy to understand nintendo's policies.

But we are not talking about making games but making consoles. Apple tried it with the Pippin and well given how well the thing is even remembered we all know how well that worked.

Nintendo the day after Sony showed off their prototype of a NES with a built in CD at the 1991 CES announced that they were scrapping the project...and the decision had been made a while ago. Nintendo's next brilliant idea was to partner with Phillips and give us the CDi resulting in what are regarded as the some of the worst licensed Nintendo games ever made and a very limited gaming console. Sony had been paying attention to what they were learning while Nintendo's partner and as Nintendo continued to figuratively shoot itself in the foot they ran with what they learned. Microsoft first effort was effectively locked out of an entire market (Japan) and Sony reaped the benefits of that along with Saga's total meltdown as a console maker.

Sony's efforts in 2004 to get into the handheld market shows they really didn't know what they were doing and PS3's price point combined with Microsoft catering to the rapidly emerging United States market and Nintendo going for the "casual" crowd resulted in a clock cleaning that indicated that Sony really didn't have a clue about the console market either. The mismanagement of the Vitae seems to bear out Moviebob's contention that Sony's 1990s success was due them to having luck that would have broke Vegas and not to them actually knowing what they were doing.

 

[Colt47]

I think Jim nailed it in an earlier vid when he said that Sony is basically begging for piracy. It's such a pity that they still haven't learned their lessons.

I think it goes back to what Moviebob said in his Game Overthinker V39 "The Emperor Has No Clothes"--thanks to Nintendo and Saga majorly dropping the ball in the early 1990s Sony became a major player in the game company market without really understanding what they were doing. They were the man with one eye in a kingdom of the blind but the blindness didn't last and now it has been a case of watch Nintendo and Microsoft do a much better job of selling their consoles.

I don't agree with this statement. I think its bullshit since Sony was already making video games long before anyone thought that they would make a console. Granted, most of the time their games were crappy, but it would rather be idiotic on Sony's part if they did not use their time and energy to understand nintendo's policies.

But we are not talking about making games but making consoles. Apple tried it with the Pippin and well given how well the thing is even remembered we all know how well that worked.

Nintendo the day after Sony showed off their prototype of a NES with a built in CD at the 1991 CES announced that they were scrapping the project...and the decision had been made a while ago. Nintendo's next brilliant idea was to partner with Phillips and give us the CDi resulting in what are regarded as the some of the worst licensed Nintendo games ever made and a very limited gaming console. Sony had been paying attention to what they were learning while Nintendo's partner and as Nintendo continued to figuratively shoot itself in the foot they ran with what they learned. Microsoft first effort was effectively locked out of an entire market (Japan) and Sony reaped the benefits of that along with Saga's total meltdown as a console maker.

Sony's efforts in 2004 to get into the handheld market shows they really didn't know what they were doing and PS3's price point combined with Microsoft catering to the rapidly emerging United States market and Nintendo going for the "casual" crowd resulted in a clock cleaning that indicated that Sony really didn't have a clue about the console market either. The mismanagement of the Vitae seems to bear out Moviebob's contention that Sony's 1990s success was due them to having luck that would have broke Vegas and not to them actually knowing what they were doing.

Oh yeah, they don't know the first thing about what they are supposed to do with all of their backlog, let alone how to get the right games on their consoles.

 

[hydrolythe]

I think Jim nailed it in an earlier vid when he said that Sony is basically begging for piracy. It's such a pity that they still haven't learned their lessons.

I think it goes back to what Moviebob said in his Game Overthinker V39 "The Emperor Has No Clothes"--thanks to Nintendo and Saga majorly dropping the ball in the early 1990s Sony became a major player in the game company market without really understanding what they were doing. They were the man with one eye in a kingdom of the blind but the blindness didn't last and now it has been a case of watch Nintendo and Microsoft do a much better job of selling their consoles.

I don't agree with this statement. I think its bullshit since Sony was already making video games long before anyone thought that they would make a console. Granted, most of the time their games were crappy, but it would rather be idiotic on Sony's part if they did not use their time and energy to understand nintendo's policies.

But we are not talking about making games but making consoles. Apple tried it with the Pippin and well given how well the thing is even remembered we all know how well that worked.

Nintendo the day after Sony showed off their prototype of a NES with a built in CD at the 1991 CES announced that they were scrapping the project...and the decision had been made a while ago. Nintendo's next brilliant idea was to partner with Phillips and give us the CDi resulting in what are regarded as the some of the worst licensed Nintendo games ever made and a very limited gaming console. Sony had been paying attention to what they were learning while Nintendo's partner and as Nintendo continued to figuratively shoot itself in the foot they ran with what they learned. Microsoft first effort was effectively locked out of an entire market (Japan) and Sony reaped the benefits of that along with Saga's total meltdown as a console maker.

Sony's efforts in 2004 to get into the handheld market shows they really didn't know what they were doing and PS3's price point combined with Microsoft catering to the rapidly emerging United States market and Nintendo going for the "casual" crowd resulted in a clock cleaning that indicated that Sony really didn't have a clue about the console market either. The mismanagement of the Vitae seems to bear out Moviebob's contention that Sony's 1990s success was due them to having luck that would have broke Vegas and not to them actually knowing what they were doing.

I definitely agree that the launch of the PS3 was a disaster, but that is not enough to justify that Sony indeed does not know what they are doing, because I still believe that I know what they are doing for the following reasons:

1: They have a monopoly in all PAL markets (with the exception of the UK, where the Xbox 360 was the largest selling console). This is only due to them understanding that markets outside of Japan and the United States are viable markets as well. No where is this more clear than in Brazil, because Sony released many versions of the same console over there because the next version would always be cheaper. Since they are pretty much the only console company that genuinely cares about those foreign markets they will forever be remembered there. This is mainly reflected in the fact that the FIFA series of sports games comes out on the PS2, but neither on the Gamecube nor the Xbox.

2: They used all their time and effort mainly in the development of consoles that would be more graphically powerful than their competition. You may say that the PS3 had a bad launch, but I doubt that anyone can call it a failure due to the high sales of games such as Uncharted 2: Among Thieves that take advantage of their graphical superiority.

3: They have such ties with indie developers that all other first party companies have almost no good indie companies left that could make games on their respective consoles. This is mainly because Sony started early with the attraction of indie developers on their system, those ties may already go so far back as 2009.

In conclusion: I admit that Sony has done many missteps in its life (releasing the PSP Go as competition to the DSi was just one of the many) but saying that Sony is incompetent in the console gaming business is for me just a step too far. That feels to me like saying that SNK was being idiotic just because they did not market their Neo Geo Pocket series of handhelds well.

 

[maximara]

I think Jim nailed it in an earlier vid when he said that Sony is basically begging for piracy. It's such a pity that they still haven't learned their lessons.

I think it goes back to what Moviebob said in his Game Overthinker V39 "The Emperor Has No Clothes"--thanks to Nintendo and Saga majorly dropping the ball in the early 1990s Sony became a major player in the game company market without really understanding what they were doing. They were the man with one eye in a kingdom of the blind but the blindness didn't last and now it has been a case of watch Nintendo and Microsoft do a much better job of selling their consoles.

I don't agree with this statement. I think its bullshit since Sony was already making video games long before anyone thought that they would make a console. Granted, most of the time their games were crappy, but it would rather be idiotic on Sony's part if they did not use their time and energy to understand nintendo's policies.

But we are not talking about making games but making consoles. Apple tried it with the Pippin and well given how well the thing is even remembered we all know how well that worked.

Nintendo the day after Sony showed off their prototype of a NES with a built in CD at the 1991 CES announced that they were scrapping the project...and the decision had been made a while ago. Nintendo's next brilliant idea was to partner with Phillips and give us the CDi resulting in what are regarded as the some of the worst licensed Nintendo games ever made and a very limited gaming console. Sony had been paying attention to what they were learning while Nintendo's partner and as Nintendo continued to figuratively shoot itself in the foot they ran with what they learned. Microsoft first effort was effectively locked out of an entire market (Japan) and Sony reaped the benefits of that along with Saga's total meltdown as a console maker.

Sony's efforts in 2004 to get into the handheld market shows they really didn't know what they were doing and PS3's price point combined with Microsoft catering to the rapidly emerging United States market and Nintendo going for the "casual" crowd resulted in a clock cleaning that indicated that Sony really didn't have a clue about the console market either. The mismanagement of the Vitae seems to bear out Moviebob's contention that Sony's 1990s success was due them to having luck that would have broke Vegas and not to them actually knowing what they were doing.

I definitely agree that the launch of the PS3 was a disaster, but that is not enough to justify that Sony indeed does not know what they are doing, because I still believe that I know what they are doing for the following reasons:

1: They have a monopoly in all PAL markets (with the exception of the UK, where the Xbox 360 was the largest selling console). This is only due to them understanding that markets outside of Japan and the United States are viable markets as well. No where is this more clear than in Brazil, because Sony released many versions of the same console over there because the next version would always be cheaper. Since they are pretty much the only console company that genuinely cares about those foreign markets they will forever be remembered there. This is mainly reflected in the fact that the FIFA series of sports games comes out on the PS2, but neither on the Gamecube nor the Xbox.

2: They used all their time and effort mainly in the development of consoles that would be more graphically powerful than their competition. You may say that the PS3 had a bad launch, but I doubt that anyone can call it a failure due to the high sales of games such as Uncharted 2: Among Thieves that take advantage of their graphical superiority.

3: They have such ties with indie developers that all other first party companies have almost no good indie companies left that could make games on their respective consoles. This is mainly because Sony started early with the attraction of indie developers on their system, those ties may already go so far back as 2009.

In conclusion: I admit that Sony has done many missteps in its life (releasing the PSP Go as competition to the DSi was just one of the many) but saying that Sony is incompetent in the console gaming business is for me just a step too far. That feels to me like saying that SNK was being idiotic just because they did not market their Neo Geo Pocket series of handhelds well.

1) It is interesting you mention Brazil because Extra Credits in their "Global Games: Brazil" piece covered that market. One of the biggest headaches is contrary to what companies claim piracy is no where near the levels in old markets like the Japan and the United States as it is in new markets. To be fair, Brazil in particular that is due to insane tariffs and import taxes: a $60 piece of software can run between $120 and $160. The pirated version? $5. So there is problem number one. Also you can still buy a brand new Saga genesis down there (or at least when EC made their piece) It certainly didn't help that until very recently Xbox life and PSN might as well not have existed in that country. Then you had the joy of the government rating games... and EVERY game...resulting in a major bottleneck. Then you have the distribution problem as there really wasn't anything even remotely like Gamestop or Steam at the time EC did their piece. So we could have a case where Sony got another streak of luck of being in the right place at the right time as was the case in the 1990s for the US market.

2) Again as Extra Credits pointed out in "Why Console Specs Don't Matter" the market has NOT gone to the console with the best specs. In the 3rd the Saga master system got its clock cleaned by the NES; in the 4th the Neo Geo got whipped by everybody else; the N64 of the 5th generation got its clock cleaned by the PS1; in the 6th the Xbox got its clock cleaned by the PS2, and in the 7th the PS3 was more powerful...if you could use the architecture...something even Sony didn't do all that good a job of and it got its clock cleaned by the Wii; and then we see the 3DS and vita sales...and well there we go again. The success of World of Warcraft in the PC world shows that graphics are not everything; it has and still is cleaning the clock of games with far superior graphics. In fact, the Amiga and the Macintosh had superior graphics to comparatively priced PCs for form the late 1980s through 1990s but got their clocks cleaned by Microsoft and far cheaper PC hardware.

3) Indie developer support is only good if your have a good handle on quality control. Shovel-ware was always a problem in the early console world and the later PC world but if you want to see it go totally off a cliff take a look at Steam; if Steam doesn't get its act together soon people will be making jokes about Steamshovel-ware. If Sony keeps a tight hold it should do well but there is the pressure of 'need more games' which could send things into a tailspin real fast.

 

[ScorpionPrince]

It really is a shame. I just got the Vita a few weeks ago to play persona 4 golden (this happened a little before they announced persona 4 will be available on psn) and Im amazed at just how beautiful things look on it and Ive been trying to find more stuff for it because it really is a useful machine but Im not finding much. It's a really impressive piece of tech but it needs more software to really take off

I have a Vita as well, sharing the same concerns, but now I simply have too many games for the vita. I love every single one of them. here's the list:

- Playstation allstars: Battle royale - super smash brother with playstation characters, very well executed.
- Modnation Racers - Kart racer with custom carts as well as tracks, a rare combination
- Tearaway - cute 3D platformer set in a world made entirely of paper. Uses all of the features of the vita very well.
- LittleBigPlanet Vita - 2.5D platformer with custom levels
- Final Fantasy X - JRPG with a nice story, voice-acting, interesting optional bosses, nice combat system.
- Final Fantasy X-2 - A more light-hearted story, but an arguably better combat system, very fun to play.
- Gravity Rush - An interesting action adventure where you can manipulate gravity
- Killzone Mercenary - The first FPS game on a handheld that is actually good, nice online multiplayer.
- Soul Sacrifice - A sort of monster hunter/Dark souls, with very interesting spells.
- Dragon's Crown - A very cool side scrolling brawler, with varied classes, hidden paths, a full item and leveling system
- The jak and Daxter trilogy - Very cool action platformers, focused on exploration.
- Dead or Alive 5+ - A very deep Fighter, Looks very good.
- Mortal Kombat - Less deep than DOA, but it's a lot easier to pick up and play. Plus Fatalities.

So yeah, for me personally, I don't have any troubles finding games for it.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

No TV out no buy.Same for the 3Ds I only play on a screen I read the damn text on.

 

[Cecilthedarkknight_234]

People wonder why I'm still prefer playing my psp 9 yrs later instead of getting a vita.

 

[dbenoy]

This is what happens when you support copyright.

"Big non-sequitur ahead cap'n!"
"Aye! Veer to starboard, get this lunk back on track, ye salty seadogs!"

No way, dude! It was totally uh... sequitiry! Jim was complaining about how you can't play old PS1 games on the Vita, even though the old games actually run on them just fine.

See? Copyright!

 

[hydrolythe]

I think Jim nailed it in an earlier vid when he said that Sony is basically begging for piracy. It's such a pity that they still haven't learned their lessons.

I think it goes back to what Moviebob said in his Game Overthinker V39 "The Emperor Has No Clothes"--thanks to Nintendo and Saga majorly dropping the ball in the early 1990s Sony became a major player in the game company market without really understanding what they were doing. They were the man with one eye in a kingdom of the blind but the blindness didn't last and now it has been a case of watch Nintendo and Microsoft do a much better job of selling their consoles.

I don't agree with this statement. I think its bullshit since Sony was already making video games long before anyone thought that they would make a console. Granted, most of the time their games were crappy, but it would rather be idiotic on Sony's part if they did not use their time and energy to understand nintendo's policies.

But we are not talking about making games but making consoles. Apple tried it with the Pippin and well given how well the thing is even remembered we all know how well that worked.

Nintendo the day after Sony showed off their prototype of a NES with a built in CD at the 1991 CES announced that they were scrapping the project...and the decision had been made a while ago. Nintendo's next brilliant idea was to partner with Phillips and give us the CDi resulting in what are regarded as the some of the worst licensed Nintendo games ever made and a very limited gaming console. Sony had been paying attention to what they were learning while Nintendo's partner and as Nintendo continued to figuratively shoot itself in the foot they ran with what they learned. Microsoft first effort was effectively locked out of an entire market (Japan) and Sony reaped the benefits of that along with Saga's total meltdown as a console maker.

Sony's efforts in 2004 to get into the handheld market shows they really didn't know what they were doing and PS3's price point combined with Microsoft catering to the rapidly emerging United States market and Nintendo going for the "casual" crowd resulted in a clock cleaning that indicated that Sony really didn't have a clue about the console market either. The mismanagement of the Vitae seems to bear out Moviebob's contention that Sony's 1990s success was due them to having luck that would have broke Vegas and not to them actually knowing what they were doing.

I definitely agree that the launch of the PS3 was a disaster, but that is not enough to justify that Sony indeed does not know what they are doing, because I still believe that I know what they are doing for the following reasons:

1: They have a monopoly in all PAL markets (with the exception of the UK, where the Xbox 360 was the largest selling console). This is only due to them understanding that markets outside of Japan and the United States are viable markets as well. No where is this more clear than in Brazil, because Sony released many versions of the same console over there because the next version would always be cheaper. Since they are pretty much the only console company that genuinely cares about those foreign markets they will forever be remembered there. This is mainly reflected in the fact that the FIFA series of sports games comes out on the PS2, but neither on the Gamecube nor the Xbox.

2: They used all their time and effort mainly in the development of consoles that would be more graphically powerful than their competition. You may say that the PS3 had a bad launch, but I doubt that anyone can call it a failure due to the high sales of games such as Uncharted 2: Among Thieves that take advantage of their graphical superiority.

3: They have such ties with indie developers that all other first party companies have almost no good indie companies left that could make games on their respective consoles. This is mainly because Sony started early with the attraction of indie developers on their system, those ties may already go so far back as 2009.

In conclusion: I admit that Sony has done many missteps in its life (releasing the PSP Go as competition to the DSi was just one of the many) but saying that Sony is incompetent in the console gaming business is for me just a step too far. That feels to me like saying that SNK was being idiotic just because they did not market their Neo Geo Pocket series of handhelds well.

1) It is interesting you mention Brazil because Extra Credits in their "Global Games: Brazil" piece covered that market. One of the biggest headaches is contrary to what companies claim piracy is no where near the levels in old markets like the Japan and the United States as it is in new markets. To be fair, Brazil in particular that is due to insane tariffs and import taxes: a $60 piece of software can run between $120 and $160. The pirated version? $5. So there is problem number one. Also you can still buy a brand new Saga genesis down there (or at least when EC made their piece) It certainly didn't help that until very recently Xbox life and PSN might as well not have existed in that country. Then you had the joy of the government rating games... and EVERY game...resulting in a major bottleneck. Then you have the distribution problem as there really wasn't anything even remotely like Gamestop or Steam at the time EC did their piece. So we could have a case where Sony got another streak of luck of being in the right place at the right time as was the case in the 1990s for the US market.

2) Again as Extra Credits pointed out in "Why Console Specs Don't Matter" the market has NOT gone to the console with the best specs. In the 3rd the Saga master system got its clock cleaned by the NES; in the 4th the Neo Geo got whipped by everybody else; the N64 of the 5th generation got its clock cleaned by the PS1; in the 6th the Xbox got its clock cleaned by the PS2, and in the 7th the PS3 was more powerful...if you could use the architecture...something even Sony didn't do all that good a job of and it got its clock cleaned by the Wii; and then we see the 3DS and vita sales...and well there we go again. The success of World of Warcraft in the PC world shows that graphics are not everything; it has and still is cleaning the clock of games with far superior graphics. In fact, the Amiga and the Macintosh had superior graphics to comparatively priced PCs for form the late 1980s through 1990s but got their clocks cleaned by Microsoft and far cheaper PC hardware.

3) Indie developer support is only good if your have a good handle on quality control. Shovel-ware was always a problem in the early console world and the later PC world but if you want to see it go totally off a cliff take a look at Steam; if Steam doesn't get its act together soon people will be making jokes about Steamshovel-ware. If Sony keeps a tight hold it should do well but there is the pressure of 'need more games' which could send things into a tailspin real fast.

1) Thanks, did not know that.
2) I think the title of that Extra Credits episode should have been renamed to "Why Console Specs do not attract the biggest market." because I do not believe that that is entirely true.

Rather true is that:
a) Its in the end the games and not the console itself that brings a console to the man (which is not a problem for Sony because they have lots of support from many video game companies).
b) What rather matters is how great the specs are for the price that you pay for the console (Sony indeed screwed up on it when they released the PS3, but with the PS4 it seems that Sony's risky move in the past turned profitable for them again).

So I will now throw away your argument and say that console specs do matter, no matter in which generation you reside in (except the fifth generation, there is definitely no way to defending that): The atari 2600 was only so successful because they could make original games for that console without hindering the graphical achievement that was previously successfully established with Pong Consoles (unlike the Fairchild Channel F and the RCA Studio 2, which were the 2 Second generation consoles that came before it). The Intellivision could only boast about its sports titles because back then there was no console that could replicate a sport as accurate as the Intellivision did. The Collecovision could only boast about its arcade perfect ports because they were graphically closer to the arcade than any other console could come close at the time. The Famicom was such a major hit in Japan because everyone was impressed by how graphically amazing their arcade perfect ports were, but flopped in Europe because they saw better stuff on the Commodore 64. This is also one of the reasons why the Sega Master System was more successful in Europe, as the people there never had seem something that looked more graphically appealing than what they saw on their Commodore 64's. The Neo Geo found a niche in the elite market (I mean rich people with this) because those rich people needed something for their kid to keep them at home so that they should not play arcades outside simply because they were more graphically powerful and is because of it the leading console in that market, to the point that rich people in Europe imported it from Japan to give to their kids. The Xbox managed to find a market of FPS fanboys because there were no better looking FPS's on the console of the competitors.

Bottom line: Throughout the examples I have given you can clearly see that there exist no way to better advertise a console than to show its console specs. It will never sell a console for you but if you put focus on the games (which was the reason why the Pioneer Laseractive and the RDI Halcyon, the 2 most graphical consoles of their respective generations (3rd and 4th), flopped if you don't consider their price point as an argument) it will be a guarantee that you will have someone to sell it to.

3) I do not know. It is true that Sony always had the best games seeing as how game reviewers on average gave higher reviews on games that came out on the PlayStation series of consoles than on those of any competitor. I however do not know if Sony will keep their untouchable position due to the needs more games pressure. I would have dismissed your argument back in 2005 and before it because we can clearly see that the PS1 and the PS2 had more games than any console of the competitors, but the PS3 got fewer games than the Xbox 360 did. I think the best we can do is wait to see how things will move along. I however would still put quality over quantity, perhaps the CEO of Sony thinks that way too.

 

[Atmos Duality]

No way, dude! It was totally uh... sequitiry! Jim spent the whole video complaining about game companies dominating and controlling the distribution of games to the detriment of all.

Agreed, though there are many ways and/or incentives to control media besides Copyright, you know.
Company public image, investment effort, personal hamheadedness (*glares at Capcom and Megaman*)...

I'll rewatch the video, but I don't recall Jim railing against Copyright specifically even once here.
In that, it's just kinda jarring to single out Copyright as the main culprit.