Playstation 3

Playstation 3 with controller

Two questions. Why is the controller so weird? And — What’s with the Spider-Man (movie) font?

[UPDATE] Sony gave it a slot-loading DVD tray. I see this as the key feature that will out-cool the Xbox 360. Sony will also pack it with a bunch of slots for Memory Stick Duo, SD media, and CompactFlash.

Here’s the feature that I’m stuck thinking about. It will feature HDTV outputs for two devices. In January, I got a widescreen TV that supports HDTV. I am not going to get a second HDTV anytime soon. However, I still have a 13 inch TV. I still have my old 15 inch monitor. If I could hook one of these up to the PS3 as the second display, I’d almost certainly do it. But I’ve got to think that a setup like that would start to make my room, apartment, house, whatever look like the workstation in the Matrix. Some people might not want two TVs set up. Some people might not have that second TV. Some people might not have room for a second TV. The Xbox sold poorly in Japan. Why? Because it’s so big, and from what I understand homes in Japan are packed pretty tightly.

Now let’s extend this. If the entire Japanese market ignores this two-screen functionality, developers will ignore it. If the whole rest of the world just doesn’t pick up on this, developers will ignore it.

Let’s look at this in a wider perspective. Sony included all these media slots. Two HDTV outputs. Superpowerful processor. Built-in Wi-Fi. Slot-loading tray. What am I getting at? Cost. How much is this thing going to cost at retail? $300? $350? $400?

Looking at the Xbox 360, I’m almost certain that Microsoft will sell that sucker for $300. MS made a change from the first Xbox in that they where Nvidia owned the video processor and Intel owned the CPU, Microsoft owns everything in the 360. This means when Microsoft drops the price of the 360 two or three years from now, they will have no locked-in price with a supplier to cut into margins as they did this time around. Sony? The PS3 uses an Nvidia video processor (or two).

I have this sinking feeling that Sony is going to charge $400 for the PS3 and that it will never be able to drop the price below $200. Microsoft won’t drop the 360’s price to coincide with the PS3’s release (that’s what Halo 3 is for) — but it could drop the price, say twenty bucks for Christmas 2006. This could kill Sony. Look out for it.

Playstation 3

Xbox 360

Xbox 360 with controller

Last night MTV aired its Xbox 360 special. There wasn’t a lot new regarding the Xbox itself — photos of the console and the controller have been on the Internet for a couple weeks. What caught my attention most was actual gameplay footage of Perfect Dark Zero. They even had a playable deathmatch level at the event. I look forward to playing Brown in some P Diddy Zero at some point in the future.

Now that the cat is officially out of the bag, websites of all parties involved have updated. MTV has its site. Xbox360.com has launched, and it has nice pseudo-3D views of the new system and the new, wireless controller. This article at Xbox.com caught my eye because it suggests that you’ll be able to plug your iPod into the Xbox 360’s USB 2.0 ports and listen to your music collection that way. That sounds like just about the best idea I’ve ever heard.

The 360’s hard drive appears to be removeable, meaning that it will likely be optional. If I could use my iPod in lieu of the Xbox-branded hard drive, I would almost certainly go that route. I read on one of the gaming sites that a third party — or Microsoft itself — could release a peripheral that you attach to the Xbox hard drive, turning it into a portable media player. Whatever works.

Xbox 360

I Like Video Games

This November, Microsoft will release the new Xbox.

This Thursday, MTV will air a half hour program to present the new Xbox to the public for the first time.

Look for the new Xbox to be smaller, silver, and offer an optional hard drive. Controllers will likely be wireless by default. I expect that Xbox 1 games will play on the new system, just like PS1 games play on the PS2.

The name of the new console almost certainly will be Xbox 360.

The PS3 won’t come out until 2006, probably May at the earliest.

The new Nintendo system? No one is sure yet.

As you might recall, the PS2 came out in fall 2000, and the Xbox and Gamecube came out in fall 2001. The PS2 got a lead that it never gave up in this generation of consoles. Microsoft is betting that the because of the head start, the last console war was effectively over before it started.

I Like Video Games

The Latest

I found the AC charger. Turns out I took a suitcase and a backpack to Buffalo. I put the charger in the backpack for the trip home, and never took it out. Dammit.

Spider-Man really just gets better and better every week. Even if MTV is only showing one new episode per week.

This game is good.

I downloaded and installed Mozilla. I’ve got 1.4 running, but I couldn’t get Firebird 0.6 to work on my system. It freezes on launch. Version 1.4? … It’s good, but all I hear is how quick it is … for me, IE is quicker. Hopefully when Firebird finally goes gold (probably as Mozilla 1.6) it will compete with IE’s speed on my machine.

The Latest

Rant

The new Apple iStore ads suck worse than previous Apple ads, which is saying a lot. Females should not be allowed to put poetry and/or song lyrics in their buddy info. Summer should be longer than winter. If you feel like the world owes you something, maybe it does. Shaquille O’Neal drops his shoulder on everybody, and his jokes aren’t funny, but he gets calls and people laugh because he’s big. Last year Jason Kidd was the NBA’s real MVP. Maybe Michael Wilbon is right, and hockey should just be called “goalie.” It’s a travesty that it costs money to listen to “The Jim Rome Show” on the Internet. DSL should be available in Chipmonk. The United States should probably have switched to HDTV by now. Everybody wants to rule the world. Eminem should focus less on D-12. It’s the economy, stupid. If big airlines were run the way that small airlines are run, they wouldn’t need government money to bail them out. Summer should still be longer than winter. Nintendo should drop out of the console business. You shouldn’t believe everything you hear. Java is a lot like C++. It’s time to format c: again. The New York Mets are a train wreck. File-swapping is not the record industry’s only problem. Dan Brown is getting married. The Matrix Reloaded is good. Rule of thumb: plural words are usually not “apostrophe – s.” Books will survive the digital revolution. Chip ‘n’ Dale are not intimidating. I want a 24 inch HDTV. Finding a job sucks.

Rant

Commercial … Games

Been avoiding the page a little lately. I’ve been putting a lot of work into the redesign. I can’t get the colors quite right on my sister’s computer. This week I should be able to get my system going, and with PhotoShop I should be able to get the colors more like I want. After I get the colors right, do a background image, and create some corner rounders for the layout boxes, I should be able to go live with the new design.

However, I just filled out a survey for Sony’s PS2 site, and I typed this into a box that asked something like, “What do you think is important in videogames today?” So this is kind of a cheapo post, but it’s a post nonetheless.

The one facet of games today that I feel is suffering is polish. There are some games that miss deadlines, but for the most part it seems that developers try at all costs to deliver games before Christmas or before whatever their deadlines are. I feel that games are released that seem as though they are only 99% or even 95% finished. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City could have used a lot of polish, a lot of finishing touches. Taking damage when you run down stairs, streets popping in as you drive over them … even the clothing system that seemed worthless. But Vice City made it out before November. It could have used another month of development and still had a nice Christmas release. Maybe it should have had more than a single year of development. Of course, PC games can be updated with patches. It looks as though Xbox Live can deliver new levels and characters, and apparently Unreal Championship will release a patch over the Live service. Official magazine demo discs could also provide updates, as was the case with Dead or Alive 3. Unfortunately, a hard drive is a neccessity for complex patches. PS2 doesn’t have a hard drive (yet), but it would probably enable patches to be a viable option. Perhaps PS3 will come with a built-in hard drive. Of course, giving developers the option of releasing patches may make for even more hurried releases. And users without internet access or a broadband connection may be left in the dark even more than they are now in regard to the quality of game releases. This is an interesting problem. Perhaps consumers who purchase M rated games such as Vice City or Unreal Tournament/Championship would be more likely to have Internet/broadband than consumers who purchase E and T rated games. In my experience, M rated games tend to be more complex, and also appear to be most likely to be most in need of a patch. So perhaps patches for M rated games would not only be the most needed, but also the most widely downloaded.

One more thing: Brian Lewis keenly pointed out that the Jordan vs. Jordan commercial that I liked used complex computer special effects, which I derided and plan on deriding more in a future post. Lewis’s comments got me to thinking, and I’ve concluded that it’s not the use of the technology that bothers me, it’s the use of the technology for technology’s sake. Or using the technology just to prove that it can be used. The kid getting sucked into a Pepsi bottle? Kind of stupid, but it was a visual effect that wasn’t possible a couple years ago. The Jordan commercial? It was made so we could see Jordan playing basketball against a younger version of himself. Technology … for art’s sake? I guess that’s good enough for me.

Commercial … Games

The Don Johnson Fuzzy Look

Did I ever buy a console for just one game?

It’s interesting. Some people might think that I bought two consoles for one game each, but I really only bought one console for one game.

See, I bought an Xbox and I bought Halo, but I didn’t buy the system just for that game. I bought the Xbox because it’s getting better games than the GameCube, it’s getting more games than the GameCube, and it’s got better graphics than GameCube or PS2.

And of course, I bought GameCube because I’ve always had Nintendo systems. After all, there’s always Mario, and I was looking forward to the new Perfect Dark and whatever else Rare put out. Now Microsoft has purchased Nintendo’s share in Rare and Rare’s stake in itself, and owns the company outright. So no more Perfect Dark on GameCube.

But the one console I bought for just one game? PS2. But it’s not what you think. I didn’t buy a PS2 for Grand Theft Auto III. I bought the PS2 for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. I mean, a game that takes place in the 1980s? Built around the engine of the most popular game in the past 5+ years? I just couldn’t resist any longer. So I bought a PS2 and GTA3. I want to be ready when Vice City comes out.

So I’ve sold my soul. I’ll be writing a long letter to Nintendo in the coming days. It’ll be nostalgic and bittersweet. I’ll talk about our good old days with Super Mario Kart and Mario 64, and even about how when I played Perfect Dark I thought that “everything was gonna be okay.” But over the last few years we’ve kind of grown … distant. And those big, black boxes that play DVD movies just look so damn good. Sorry Nintendo, but … the magic’s gone.

The Don Johnson Fuzzy Look