Every once in a while, I come across a gaming device that utterly fascinates me. Recently, Youtuber MetalJesusRocks wowed me when he showed off a US retail prototype of the Nintendo 64DD disk drive add-on. This latest find, however, has me at an absolute loss. What the hell is this thing? How have I never heard about it? And where can I get one? This ”thing” is the Doctor V64 development console, a bootleg add-on for the Nintendo 64. It was released in 1996 by Bung Enterprises Ltd and retailed for $450. While expensive for the time, it turns out it was a popular option for some third-party developers. Apparently, it was a much cheaper alternative to Nintendo’s official dev kit, which was made by Silicon Graphics. The Center for Computing History recently grabbed one and put it through its paces: The Doctor V64 attaches to the bottom of the N64 via its expansion slot, just like the 64DD does. An official Nintendo 64 game cartridge must be plugged into the base console in order to bypass its region lockout chip. The Doctor 64 features a CD drive that can read N64 ROMs and load them into the machine’s RAM. Once loaded, the user could select a ROM, power up the N64, and play the game smoothly. Although the Doctor V64 was sold as a budget development kit, it doesn’t take a genius to realize it had more utility as a way to play pirated games. The CD drive also acts as a video CD player, a format very popular in Asia at the time. The Doctor V64 has a 25-pin serial port in back that allows connection to a PC. This allows users to dump ROMs directly into the V64’s ram, bypassing the CD drive. Granted, the Doctor V64 is not nearly as rare as MetalJesusRocks’s Us 64DD. Still, I would love to own one for…historical purposes.
Supercell has released its new squad-building action game Squad Busters in Spain, Mexico, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Canada, and Singapore. This game features characters from different Supercell titles, such as Clash of Clans, Brawl Stars, Hay Day, Clash Royale, and Boom Beach.
As part of its plans to cut 1,900 jobs, Microsoft has reportedly shut down operations at Bethesda France, letting go roughly 15 people
They can form a company if they want, they are just as jobless as if "Microsoft had left them as 3rd party".
"MIcrosoft leaves Bethesda do what they know how to do best" ... close! Oh the irony ....
(Citation from a week old article)
Bethesda France was made up of roughly 15 people... they couldn't of being doing much
Bethesda France mainly did publishing and marketing within the region
that's a shame for you to say that, i'm sure Elite loves hearing what you just said.
Bethesda France focused on publishing and marketing in the region. And 15 people lost their jobs as part of the closure.
I wonder if this is part of Microsoft's strategy to abandoned physical media or possibly gamepass advertising makes their roles redundant you don't need to market a game as hard when the majority of players get the game as part of a sub which already promoted upcoming games
It's France too, there's a high likelihood only 1-2 people on the team even had an Xbox.
Tbh Microsoft I think Bethesda being 3rd party same with Activision would probably more competitive than thus scenario imo
I think it would have been better for all parties really especially gamers
The recently purchased Activision French offices might take over all the licensing and marketing for Microsoft in France from now on.
Sony has recently published a new patent that wants to dynamically handle the games' difficulty and gameplay based on the player's emotions.
This is something I might use. Sometimes I play some good games but they don’t have difficulty option and are a little too easy.
cool idea
cool idea for horror games especially
the way it's explained here sounds like it could never be forced hopefully, so that's ok with me
You know I was really excited about the concept of owning a 64DD back in the day but it wasn't to be but that recent one showing up was super cool to see.