Tag Archive for: Retro

Nuala McCann: I’m dusting off my chequebook and going retro – it’s safer that way

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WHEN I turn on my new laptop, I feel like I’m clambering onto my horse in a big set of clunky silver armour about to joust with the black knight called t’internet security.

Yes, I am up for the challenge, yes, I have a password manager, but sometimes machine says no.

It tells me I need to go through three different levels of security, it laughs at me for not remembering the name of my first best friend – but was it the real or the imaginary one? – and it blocks me.

It’s like standing at the door of a very fancy private club and having a snooty gentleman in a frock coat look down his nose at you.

Damned if I’ll take it, but you have to.

“What’s your worry?” says my friend. “I keep all of my passwords in a little notebook in the drawer. That way there is no bother.”

Surely Burglar Bill will look there first, I tell her. That’s the 21st century equivalent of your granny keeping her cash stuffed in a cushion.

But I can see the temptation.

In my defence, I keep all my important stuff carefully locked away on my iPad.

I don’t write down my passwords – you never ever should – but as memory serves me not-so-well these days, I rehash my old ones and add a number up to 99.

It works, mostly. But the machine keeps nagging me to change the password.

“This password has appeared on zillions of leaked lists. Are you sure?” it asks.

And the endless appeals for new passwords drive me crazy.

Shouting: “I only have one mother, father, husband, son, date of birth…” has no effect.

So I use my thumb print.

“When I die,” I tell our boy who rolls his eyes on cue. He knows all the details including the willow coffin and the cremation.

When I die, I tell him, cut off my thumb.

He raises an eyebrow. He wasn’t planning on that.

It makes sense, really. If they up security to include iris recognition, he’ll have to pluck out my eye too.

My thumb is the key to opening my iPad and to the Aladdin’s Cave of all my worldly goods, such as they are.

My thumb is “Open Sesame” to the Premium Bonds.

I keep hoping.

My sister is a born optimist.

“Some day, Agent Million will be calling at my door,” she tells me with such certainty that I’m buying the…

Source…

Sony Decides That It Too Can Compete With Free With Its Own Retro Console

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Remember that quaint mantra from a few years back, “You can’t compete with free!” The misguided idea behind the quip was that if the public could get your product for free, typically in digital form via the internet, then you were sunk. Dunzo. Kaput. The problem with this thinking is that selling a product has always had to be about more than an infinitely reproducable digital file, making any claim that “you can’t compete with free” exactly two words too long. And, of course, we’ve seen so many counterexamples in which people and companies very much compete with free, and in fact make a killing at it, so as to make this theory essentially dead. We recently touted the fact that Nintendo is barely able to keep its Nintendo NES Mini in stock as perhaps the ultimate example of this, given how pretty much every computer and smartphone can get all those same games and functions via emulators.

Well, it looks like others noticed this success Nintendo has had competing with free and have decided that they can do so as well. Sony has decided to jump into the retro console market with its Playstation Classic console, despite that it too has emulators available roughly everywhere.

It’ll be out on December 3 in the US, Canada, Europe, Japan and Australia, and includes games like Final Fantasy VII, Jumping Flash, Ridge Racer Type 4, Tekken 3, and Wild Arms. There’ll be 20 bundled titles in total, but those five are the only ones announced at the moment.

The PlayStation Classic will include two original PS1 controllers and a HDMI cable, and cost US$ 99.99 (€99.99 in Europe, AUD$ 150 in Australia).

And guess what? It’s going to sell like crazy. And that’s because the reason for buying one goes beyond simply wanting to play a Playstation game. Anyone wanting to do that could simply download one of many emulators and game files and have at it. You know, “free.” But this console will compete with free the exact same way Nintendo did: by having a small, slick console that reeks of nostalgia and serves as a conversation piece, all while having the available ports and cords for a modern day television on which to play it.

Frankly, that’s not exactly a ton of work to do to compete with free. There’s no secret sauce. No magic formula. Just make what people want, don’t make it laughably expensive, and reap the rewards.

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