Teh_Lurv

The artwork looks good, but viewing that last pic of the Ninja Gaiden box sides zoomed in I have the gut feeling the boxes will have a different texture feel to them that gives them away as a fake.

I believe it. I think part of the reason for the worker shortage is businesses are content to play the waiting game until job hires are desperate enough to accept pre-pandemic job wages and conditions. Business Insider ran a story of a Florida man who tested the "no one wants to work" by sending 60 job applications for entry level positions at local businesses complaining the loudest about lack of workers. He got one interview. "Two weeks and 28 applications later, he had just nine email responses, one follow-up phone call, and one interview with a construction company that advertised a full-time job focused on site cleanup paying $10 an hour. But Holz said the construction company instead tried to offer Florida's minimum wage of $8.65 to start, even though the wage was scheduled to increase to $10 an hour on September 30. He added that it wanted full-time availability, while scheduling only part time until Holz gained seniority. Holz said he wasn't applying for any roles he didn't qualify for." "By the end of September, Holz had sent out 60 applications, received 16 email responses, four follow-up phone calls, and the solitary interview. ... In a Facebook post on September 29, which went viral on Twitter and Reddit as well, Holz said, "58 applications says y'all aren't desperate for workers, you just miss your slaves."" https://www.businessinsider.com/worker-applied-to-60-jobs-got-one-interview-labor-shortage-2021-10

I came across a link to this twitter thread on another forum's discussion of the video and I thought I'd share. It's a long thread, but the author provides some supplemental info that complements the video:

I can totally see trading card companies looking at EA loot box mechanics and online collectable auction sites and adopting that system. Log into a sports card website, pay $2.99 to buy/open a virtual card park. Flash of light and glitter and your cards appear on screen. The website will then mail you are cards unless you didn't like what you got, so instead click the "recycle" button to discard those cards for a 5% discount on your next card pack purchase. Get lucky and wind up with a highly sought after rare? You could have the company mail it to you...or you could immediately put it up for resale on their own internal auction marketplace for a modest fee. Scuzziness from the beginning to the end of the collecting pipeline.

It has come to this: Trading card collecting has gotten so feverish Target has decided it's safer to take sports and Pokemon cards off their store shelves. From The Verge: "Target has decided that it’s had enough: the company has officially confirmed to Bleeding Cool that it will halt the sales of Pokémon cards throughout the US, starting Friday, May 14th. The retailer cities “an abundance of caution” for the safety of both guests and store employees and notes that it will still be selling the cards on its site. ... Target has recently started limiting how many packs customers are allowed to purchase, and has even threatened to get law enforcement involved if it found people camping out by its stores for them. There was also an incident at one of the stores where someone pulled a gun during a fight about sports cards — which could explain why the halt also applies to MLB, NFL, and NBA cards as well." https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/12/22433236/target-halts-sale-pokemon-mlb-nba-nfl-trading-cards-may-14

Maybe they're operating under the assumption that import collectors are willing to pay a premium?

This story caught my eye: Legendary Japanese retro-game store Super Potato has finally opened an International eBay shop to sell their merchandise. From what I understand, Super Potato relies heavily on tourist collector dollars so I guess the pandemic has forced them to branch out into online sale. "Described as " a museum as much as a shop ," the flagship store (which is spread across three entire floors) boasts a vast array of video game, anime, and manga products, with a focus on rare Japanese retro games. Now, these products will be offered up to international buyers, although prices aren't cheap; according to eBay, some of the store's featured items are way above average in the price department." https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/04/super_potato_japans_legendary_game_store_opens_its_very_own_international_ebay_shop Super Potato eBay Store Link

True, but I'd bet a lot of those games require a Day 1 patch to get them to a usable state. I think are putting the cart before the horse with the clock battery issue. Sony could always EOL patch out the clock battery requirement or custom firmware hacks could be created.

I think it's easier to think of NFTs in terms of trading cards. If you own a 1-out-of-10 foil card of Pikachu, you don't own the image or have any rights to the IP, but you do own a physical object bearing the image that happens to be limited to 10 copies. NFTs are basically digital trading cards that can encapsulate other digital media. How many NFTs exist for a digital object is up to the person creating and selling them.

Happy Birthday @Pendragonx!

Nope, you don't get the trademark or copyright to the digital item. All you essentially own is the code in a blockchain, but not the actual contents. Really all it serves is a proof of authenticity. An artist could create a unique NFT of digital art, right-click copy the artwork, and spread exact copies of the image all over the Internet. In theory, that NFT of the digital art still has worth because it's "authentic".

I stumbled upon this Twitter thread this morning; a sharp-eared listener noticed buried within a 90 minute interview with Adam Conover (Adam Ruins Everything), he briefly discusses an anecdote of how Nintendo abruptly cancelled the live-action Legend of Zelda Netflix series as well as a Claymation Star Fox series in development by CollegeHumor due to someone at Netflix leaking news about development of the Zelda series. Amazing how deals like this can fall apart so easily. The world was denied (or spared depending on your POV) a live-action Zelda series because someone at Netflix jumped the gun on the hype. Though I am disappointed the fallout ruined that Star Fox series. A series in the style of the Fantastic Mr. Fox would've been cool to see. The Youtube video in question if you want to hear Adam's whole story (starts at 39:06):

A few months ago, a SNES modder by the handle of Gizaha discovered while reverse-engineering the game's source code a convoluted sequence of steps that would unlock a playable version of Shin Akuma. The steps you need to take are: Beat arcade mode on any difficulty and earn enough points to score at the top of the leaderboard Enter the initials KAJ When you return back to the title screen, choose Arcade or Versus mode while holding down L+X+Y+Start on the player 2 controller until the character select screen appears Highlight Akuma at the character select screen, hold down Start, and press a button to choose him. If you did everything right, Akuma's gi will change color to Shin Akuma's color. From what I've read, unlocking Shin Akuma bugs out the arcade mode, so perhaps this is why this secret code was never made public back in the day.

IIRC, Gamestop started selling homebrew and multi-cart games about a year ago.

No word yet that I'm aware of, however I'd expect it by the fall to coincide with holiday shopping.