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Video Game Database Discussion / Disney and Disney/Pixar games item names on database

« on: September 09, 2020, 03:55:11 pm »

As I've been adding my games to the database, I stumbled a lot of Disney and Disney/Pixar games I have, but it seems to be no uniform name of how to call them. Some are called "Disney …", some are called "Disney's …", others are "Disney/Pixar …", "Disney Pixar …", "Disney/Pixar's …" or Disney Pixar's and some are omitting the prefix altogether. What is the preferred item name to use here? I've read through the Style guide and Advanced Style guide, but I couldn't find an explanation on this sadly.

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Video Game Database Discussion / Xbox 360 console naming

« on: May 01, 2016, 01:58:32 pm »

Since I recently got hang of my first Xbox 360 and decided to add it to my collection here, I noticed there's a lot inconsistency in the naming of the consoles. Following the idea behind my previous post of Hardware naming I decided to submit some changes and discuss them here.

First of all, following a short section of Style Guide I changed the names in all entries from "Xbox 360…" to "Microsoft Xbox 360…" which were quickly accepted from which I thank you approvers . However, changing it was only a tip of an iceberg, and there are still a bunch of naming inconsistencies and lack of details in the names.

After doing my research, since I never had an Xbox 360 and my systems came without packaging, it seems that as far as the fat systems goes, there were 4 main packaging versions released:

• Core – came in matte white color with matte white disc drive, but it's the only version with no HDMI port
• Arcade (which replaced Core) – matte white color with matte white disc drive but with HDMI port
• Pro (which seems to be equivalent of Premium, but "Pro" is a more commonly used) – matte white with chrome disc drive
  
• Elite (black consoles)

There was also a name "Super Elite" which indicated an Elite console with 250 GB hard drive added.

Among these were versions with various sizes of HDD drives:

• Core (no HDD)
• Arcade - 256 MB memory unit
• Arcade - 256 MB onboard memory
• Arcade - 512 MB
• Pro - 20 GB
• Pro - 60 GB
• Elite - 120 GB
• Elite (Super Elite) - 250 GB

I'm not sure if and how many onboard memory non-arcade models had (I assume that Core, Pro and early Arcade/Elite had none?)

After then there's "S" (Slim) and the latest "E" models which I don't have and didn't researched properly, but they should be similar/easier to rename once the details are decided.

For more details see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_360_retail_configurations#Discontinued_models and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360#Retail_configurations

Unfortunately Wikipedia isn't comprehensive when it comes to the limited editions variations :(

Based on the information in Official Style Guide (and also what I suggested for PlayStation 2 in my previous Hardware naming thread), the Core/Arcade/Pro/Elite/S/E should appear before the hyphen, while the limited variations should be after it. I guess bundled disk sizes should appear after it as well, so I came up with the following name scheme:

• Microsoft Xbox 360 Pro - 20 GB [NA] (with Premium being in alt-name)
• Microsoft Xbox 360 E - Blue Special Edition 500 GB [EU]

(with mandatory space between GB, because of style :P)

There are, however some unresolved issues with this as well. For example, the old FAT Xboxes had different board revisions, which differ significantly:

• Xenon
• Zephyr
• Falcon
• Opus
• Jasper

See: http://www.360drives.com/howto and http://beta.ivc.no/wiki/index.php/Xbox_360_Revisions

While the changes are internal, luckily they are possible to be spotted without opening up the console. Now the question is, should these be listed as well, for example:

• Microsoft Xbox 360 Pro - 20 GB Zephyr [NA] (with Premium being in alt-name)

I guess there are other differences worth listing, such as includsion of bundle games or accessories (Kinect).


Do you mostly agree with the changes I suggest? Also, all input and suggestions on the matter are welcome :). I also don't mind reviving Hardware naming topic to discuss it further, as long as admins/mods don't mind it.
If there's no objection of the suggested format, I will start submiting the changes to the current entries.
Also, thank you in advance for all the replies and suggestions :)

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Video Game Database Discussion / Suggestion: Comment field for approver upon editing an item

« on: February 07, 2016, 04:59:05 am »

Currently it seems that the approver only see the original and suggested changed value when someone is submitting an edit on an item. Wouldn't it be good idea to add an (optional) field where the person suggesting the change can fill a field for the approver to read before accepting/rejecting the change? That could be for example a source for picture, a reason for the name change, or anything else the editor  could want to try to inform approver for. That kinds of fields are already implemented on most other online databases (for example MobyGames), as well as Wikipedia (in case of Wikipedia it's a public field, but I see no big reason for it to be public - it could be but don't have to - once an edit is approved it doesn't even have to be kept actually).

I just hope the idea wasn't suggested before, as I couldn't imagine what keyword to use when searching; if it is, then sorry about it 

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Video Game Database Discussion / Pictures from The Vanamo Online Game Museum

« on: February 07, 2016, 04:37:42 am »

I just recently discovered The Vanamo Online Game Museum on Wikipedia which seems to be a great quality source of console pictures (just consoles, no boxes sadly so far) - here's also a twitter to follow for those interested on the project updates - and I was wondering if it would be a good idea to upload these pictures for the hardware in database, and probably stick them up in forum as a good source for pictures to use. They are under public license (that was the aim of the project, they're totally free!) with no additional copyrights attached whatsoever, so they would be better to use than any of the official artwort (which may be copyrighter) without any issues.

Excluding the consoles not released in the US, all of them are most likely an US models (the photographer lives in the US), but I'm not sure if there are any visible differences between the US and other regional models when it comes to the console itself (I'm not talking about firmware/software, internals, limited editions/colors, stickers with model number (which are not visible in the photos), boxes and power plugs/accessories), so maybe they could be used as a photo for the releases from other regions.

If so, would it be wise to replace the current photos when there is a matching color from the Vanamo Online Game Musem? Or are the official photos preferred instead? And should it be used only for NA releases or worldwide?

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Video Game Database Discussion / Bug: items from Hardware [EU] counts as "Games"

« on: February 05, 2016, 01:41:12 am »

In "Collection Breakdown" of your profile, the Hardware [EU] (and possibly the other regions as well) counts as "Games", when clearly both the category name and the items inside suggest that it should count as "Consoles". It may also be related to the fact that they share the region tags, an oddity I reported earlier.

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Video Game Database Discussion / Hardware [Region] sections

« on: January 27, 2016, 06:15:21 am »

What's a bit of awkward is the (Misc.) Hardware section on the "Browse" list. It's the only section of "Hardware" that is split into different regions ([EU], [JP], [NA] and [OTHER]) while for the rest of hardware there is no region-based categories - it's used solely for games, with hardware having a region indicated after the name in it's title.

That leads to some confusion, with some items from the categories having additional suffix and some not. I'd suggest unifying the categories - the simplest one is to add appropriate suffix to each item from Hardware section (there isn't that much of them actually) and merge all "Hardware" categories together. Alternative solultion would be splitting all of the Hardware sections in other platforms, but that's rather lengthy task, plus some consoles are not split by regions (like some Nintendo consoles).

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Video Game Database Discussion / Hardware naming

« on: January 11, 2016, 01:26:46 am »

First of all, welcome everyone as it's my first post here .

I just created an account here yesterday and I'm slowly starting to add items I own to my collection, starting with the consoles. I started with the PSX and PS2 and while I had no trouble finding the two models of the PSX/Psone I own, I couldn't find PS2 models I own.

Instead of instantly adding them, I started browsing what other PS2 models are listed on the site, deciding not to trust the search results so blindly and I found there's a lot issues with the naming of the PS2 models.
I did a bunch of edits, originally mistaking two model numbers of PS2 as one, but turned out the PS2 I got the box with came with a box and instructions from a different model (who would have thought ) - the edit was initially accepted but luckily my correctional edit was accepted as fast as well .
After that I browsed through all the different PS2 models listed in the page, trying to sort them out, contributing some mistakes/ommisions, like missing model numbers or missing/unprecise regions (there are more than 3 regions in the PS2 consoles that was used on the website; Wikipedia lists them well on PSP page and they seem to correspond to PS2 regions from what I saw).

However, some of my editions weren't so obvious with an objective to help clean up/standarize the naming, and Style Guide unfortunately doesn't help either. Let me break down the problem:

• There were 3 designs of PS2. original "fat" one, Slim/Slimline and a Slim/Slimline with an embedded power supply on the latest model. Those were mostly referred in the current submissions as:
• Sony PlayStation 2
• Sony PlayStation 2 Slim *or* Slimline (inconsistency here, I assumed "Slim" would be the more common naming)
• Sony PlayStation 2 Slim - 2nd version (although it was used only once; no idea if the differences are enough to differentiate models SCPH-9000x from the other slim units)
• On top of that, there are quite a bunch of different models on top of the Fat/Slim versions, all with some internal differences
  
• And to add to it, there are different regions. Three mail ones are Japan (NTSC-J), US (NTSC-U) and EU (PAL), but there are different model numbers for a wider array or regions (Australia, United Kingdom, Russia and more)
  
• There are of course also different colors (with a basic unnamed(?) "Black" color for the fat units and named on the box "Charcoal Black" Slim color) and editions, too.

Now, the Style Guide only says that the (special?) colors and editions should be named following the "-", but says nothing about model numbers and regions.

So far I came up to the conclusion that the names like "Sony PlayStation 2 Slim - Charcoal Black (SCPH-79004) [EU]" are the most logical ones, and that's how I named my missing entries, though I'm not sure about whether the default "Black" and "Charcoal Black" colors should be named or not (though the "Charcoal Black" is the name written on my box, so kinda a part of a console name - but I can't say if it's written like that on all the boxes out there, and it seems not to be named on the original fat console boxes either), or whether or not the last number of the model is enough to warrant a "variant", as "The final digit is simply a region code and has no bearing on the hardware other than region lock-outs for games and DVDs, and language options within the system software."

Now I have the same problem adding my Xbox to the collection, as there are only two entries: Microsoft Xbox (with no region indication - generic? eu?) and Microsoft Xbox [NA].

Any clarification/elaboration and replies would be helpful in clearing the matter a bit for me :).

TL;DR: How to properly name consoles with different model numbers, regions and colors, with the Style Guide only mentioning the latter?

P.S. Sorry if I made some mistakes or made something unclear, as I wrote the post when it was way too late (or to early, depend how you look at it) to think clearly enough upon proofreading it)