Infinity and Beyond

Google threw up this article on my Gmail news ticker–Frogger, anyone?  Old-school gamers revel in nostalgia.  I thought it was a pretty sweet idea to turn a garage or spare room into an old-school style arcade.  I remembered a site I came across when I was trying to get into physical computing which sold a ton of sweet arcade buttons and joysticks for creating your own stand-up arcade boxes.  The site even has templates and layouts for your reference.

This makes me want to get back into physical computing projects.  The board I’ve used in the past is the Arduino board, which is pretty cheap and has an easy USB connection (no painful USB-serial converters necessary).  A good reference book that I’ve got is Physical Computing: Sensing and Controlling the Physical World with Computers, by Tom Igoe and Dan O’Sullivan.  It’s a little outdated, but the basic concepts are all covered, and there are a lot of code examples which can easily be adapted to the Arduino.  They cover basic tools needed, soldering, all the various kinds of components you’re likely to use, explain how to read diagrams, and much more.

But, physical computing projects aside, this brings up the point that I tend to agree with the assessment that most gaming companies these days seemed driven to provide only the best visual gaming experience, while they often seem to ignore the actual gameplay itself.  Which is perhaps why the Wii does so well–the games don’t look the absolute best, but many are geared to have a quick learning curve and are focused on fun.  Wii Tennis for instance is arguably an awful looking game when compared to the graphics of nearly any Xbox 360 game.  But that doesn’t matter, because the gameplay is super easy to learn and you can start having fun immediately.  This has always been one of Nintendo’s strong points.

Thinking about this makes me want to build a stand-up arcade and put on some of the classic Nintendo and Atari games.  Maybe some Super Mario Bros, Frogger, Pac Man, Lolo…perhaps even some Super NES games like F-Zero…or better yet, a 4-player arcade version of the original Mario Kart.

Now all I need is a crappy TV, the Nintendo from the closet in my mom’s house, and a spot to put it.

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An alliance has been forged. Microsoft and it’s Xbox 360 has teamed up with Netflix to deliver downloadable movies straight to their console (check out a video of the announcement here). The deal includes 10,000 movies and tv shows and was announced Monday  at the E3 Media and Business Summit in L.A., which I’m sure we’ll be invited to next year.

“This generation of consoles will change the face of home entertainment more than any other generation before,” said John Schappert, corporate VP of MSFT’s interactive entertainment division. This tool will help allow Netflix to move furhter from the computer towards the television screen, a line that was blurred even further after the success of Roku. This will allow more of Netflixs’ 8.2 million subscribers to stream video content and not be forced to watching it on the computer. About 8,000 more titles should become available in the next few months and Netflix is hoping this new venture is just as successful as Roku has been. Now if only someone could mention this new fangle technology called ‘the internet’ to the folks at Blockbuster they might be able to keep the battle for video home rentals alive, but much like the recent format battle, the companies that develop the best technologies and form the strongest alliances will go home the winners at the end of the day. As Blockbuster continues to sink further and further into a 10-year low stock price. I’ve been saying it over and over but Blockbuster has been making the wrong decision time and time again while Netflix continues to evolve and advance moving into every possible corner of the market it can. When it comes to streaming legal content online through second party devices I think Netflix takes the cake. “The company already has announced that LG electronics will include streaming capability on a Blu-ray DVD player that will debut this year.” Netflic CEO promised “at least one more major consumer electronics company will unveil a set-top box for Netflix before 2009.”

Netflix isn’t the only company embracing the future. This announcement came on a day when MSFT is trying to makeover the Xbox 360. With the HUGE success of Nintendo’s ultimate gaming device, the Wii, MSFT is trying to regain some the market share it has lost to its local rival (Nintendo of America’s headquarters is across the freeway from Microsoft in Redmond, WA). Moving from a hardcore gaming console to appeal to the ‘casual’ gamer the Xbox is becoming a “multipurpose entertainment machine to watch movies, TV shows, and listen to music.” With the demise of HD-DVD the ailing console has been needing a boost to bring it back into the limelight. While partnering with NBC/Universal to stream TV shows like “30 Rock” and movies like “The Bourne Supremacy” to the console might help, its ultimately going to be its diverse capabilities that draw the larger audience. If that doesn’t help get the attention of the average family then hopefully that $50 price cut will at least bring it within $100 of the cheaper Wii.

 We’ll find out how Nintendo intends to counter this new development tomorrow when they take the stage for day two of the E3 conference, which as I said before, we’ll for sure be going to next year? That and ShoWest.

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Figures just in from last week report that “Grand Theft Auto IV” has surged past “Halo 3″ and “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” to set the record for the biggest opening week of any entertainment product.”

Selling over six million units in the first week to gross over $500 million, ‘IV’ surpasses ‘Halo 3′ by $200 million. $310 million of it’s total gross came from the 3.6 million units sold on its opening day alone. It also helped that ‘IV’ was released on multiple platforms and not just Xbox 360 like ‘Halo 3′. While it’s hard to compare video game sales to the multiple windowed film format, it is easy to say that ‘POTC: AWE’ grossed a worldwide b.o. total of $960 million over a period of 19 weeks and ‘IV’ grossed over half that in one week.

I’m a big fan of the ‘Halo’ franchise as well as ‘Pirates’ but the GTA series is just not one I’ve been able to get excited about. Aside from the mature content, the style of game just isn’t my style. I don’t think Take-Two is really bothered by my lack of interest but it is interesting to see what content has brought about the ‘biggest opening week of any entertainment product’ ever.

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The “Home” 3D virtual online space for the PS3 owners will be delayed until autumn, according to Sony Corp.  This is the second delay of the “Home” service, which I believe will be similar to the offerings Xbox users can currently access via Xbox Live.  The announcement is another blow to the PS3, which is trailing both Nindendo’s Wii and Microsoft’s Xbox consoles in unit sales.  It’s hoped that when (if?) the service launches, it will help to boost sales of the system.

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Using games developed using it’s XNA Game Studio 2.0, Microsoft announced today in a press release that users will be able to create, play, and peer review games developed by Xbox 360 users.Developers can download the XNA Game Studio 2.0 toolset for free.  In order to submit the games for distribution on Xbox Live, developers will have to join the XNA Creators Club ($49 for 4 months or $99 for 12 months).  Seven games created on the XNA platform were announced and should be immediately available for download from the Xbox Live Marketplace.  Other developers will get their chance to try out the release process in a beta starting this Spring.   It appears that games created by developers will be first peer-reviewed the game and content rated for appropriateness and conformance to the Terms of Service.  Once it passes, it would then be added to the Marketplace. 

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If this deal goes through do you think they’d change their name? What will Google try to buy once the deal closes? Themselves?

According to S. Ballmer “A year has gone by, and the competitive situation has not improved,” so it looks like they’ll keep doing what they do best. Buy the competition until they have none. As a product of Redmond, Microsoft’s home town, I have seen the company go from it’s original buildings in the middle of a forest to what it is now, a mini city. Wait, no, I take that back. Microsoft has become physically what it is operationally. A huge mess of piecemealed buildings and departments without easy access from one to the other. As the physical size of the headquarters has grown and diversified so too has the company, but in a bad way. The limited parking, the incredible traffic jam that it creates at 5:00pm when the entire crew heads home, and don’t forget about Bill’s notoriously bad driving, it all adds up to a lack of vision in the company. It has moved from innovative to reactive.

With the success of Google they have spent billions trying to catch up. Instead of working hard and truly revolutionizing the industry the way they once did Microsoft has become too big for it’s own good and can no longer produce anything of real value on their own. The best thing to come out of MSFT in the last few years would probably be the Xbox gaming system, but I only like that because it has Halo on it and that was developed by Bungie (which they bought and have thankfully let loose again). Everything from the Zune to the acquisition of aQuantive has been a defensive move.

Maybe if this deal fails they’ll have to go back to the drawing board and I can only hope the wipe it clean this time and start from scratch instead of just smearing around the colors.

You can see below the mess that it has become and what it will become. The company has more property North of this map and has broken ground in nearby Bellevue on their first high-rise. Also check out this ‘Incredibles’ inspired monorail system that has been proposed here.

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Video game console sales soared to 188% for the month of September. This was in large part due to the increase in Xbox 360 consoles now that Halo 3 has been released. Feeling the heat Sony announced that they will be offering a $400 PS3 that is Blu-ray equipped and has a 40GB hard drive. But thats not all! This new lower priced device will also come with a Blu-ray copy of Spider-Man 3.

With Sony and MSFT going head to head this holiday season we may not see any kind of winner in the HD world but competition is good for the consumer, so take advantage of the special deals on consoles now because they’ll be gone just as quickly as the holidays.

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According to a statement by Don Mattrick, Senior VP of the Interactive Entertainment Business unit at Microsoft, Halo 3–which went on sale at 12:01AM, September 25th at more than 10,000 stores across the US–became the biggest entertainment launch in US history:

“Beating all expectations, Halo 3 became the biggest launch in the history of entertainment in the US, grossing more than $170 million dollars on Day One alone. In a year filled with blockbuster sequels, Halo 3 still stood out, passing both Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ($166 million) and Spiderman 3 ($151 million).”

I picked up my copy from the company store for a nice discount, and spent a bit of time with it Tuesday night and last night.

<SWEET PICTURE WOULD APPEAR HERE>

I’d have a great picture of the pallets full of discs and employees lined up at the registers, but my Windows Mobile powered device froze after I took the picture and it seems to have gotten lost…

So far I’m personally not blown away by any one thing in particular, and am having to get used to the slight changes in controller configuration. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t a fanatic and never did play Halo or Halo 2 all the way through. And I haven’t spent hours upon hours immersed in this next installment.

That being said, the graphics are certainly gorgeous, and the environment seems significantly richer than the last version. The textures are rich and detailed, water looks amazing, and the lighting effects are spectacular. Also little things I’ve found that are cool so far are things like pre-loading certain parts of levels while you’re setting up games and what appears to be significantly decreased load times in general. That’s definitely a great improvement.

But, like I said, I haven’t been blown away yet (except by some hard-to-hit sniper creature things and things with giant war hammers). Also, having played a lot of Gears of War, I kind of miss the cover feature. However, it’s still early…

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As we mentioned earlier Microsoft is expecting big numbers for ‘Halo 3′
when it hits shelves on September 25. Just how big you ask? How about
the biggest opening* of any media product in the history of consumable
media? The previous record holder belongs to this year’s ‘Spider-Man 3′
which brought in $151mil over its opening weekend and $59.84mil in its
first 24 hours. Looking back a few years we have ‘Halo 2′ which raked in
$125mil and now flash forward to September and Microsoft is quietly
predicting an opening day of $155mil. Not even the 270,000 iPhones sold
in the first 30 hours made that much money for Apple.

MS isn’t just hoping for ‘Halo 3′ to be a big success, they are also
hoping that the exclusivity will drive console sales as well. Attempting
to dominate the market the Xbox is banking that the high price and lack
of franchise games the PS3 won’t hold its own this holiday season.

This goes beyond Redmond and the console wars. Hollywood has also gained a stake in the gaming business because these next-gen devices double as High-Def players. With Blockbuster and Target going Blu-Ray an increase
in Xbox sales could also add up to an increase in HD DVD sales.
Currently the playing field has remained somewhat even overall. HD DVD
players have outsold Blu-Ray, but when gaming consoles are figured in
more Blu-Ray enabled devices exist in American homes than HD DVD which
also accounts for the higher sales of Blu-Ray discs by a margin of 2 to
1.

This all comes on the wake of today’s announcement from Paramount
Pictures that they will be dropping support for Sony’s Blu-Ray format in
favor of Microsoft’s HD-DVD. Paramount and its subsidiaries (DreamWorks,
Nickelodeon, MTV) will join Universal on the HD-DVD side of the battle.
Currently Warner Bros. has yet to make a decision and straddles the
fence releasing in both formats. Blu-Ray has the support of Sony, 20 th
Century Fox and the Walt Disney Co. Strangely enough you’ll still be
able to see a high-def version of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ on your
Xbox 360 where Disney started selling movies via Xbox Live on August 14
th.

It seems Disney and Warner Bros. don’t want to miss out on any
opportunity for the consumer to have access to their products. A wise
move as this developing format has yet to go main-stream in the American
conscious and only a year into the fight the odds change everyday.

Looking ahead the picture doesn’t become any clearer. So far over
halfway through 2007 the box office market share is somewhat divided.
Paramount leads the way with 18.1% but the dual-format Warner Bros., and
Buena Vista are second and third with Sony following closely behind in
4th. This makes taking bets on holiday hi-def DVD sales a little tricky.
The year’s #1 movie so far is ‘Spider-Man 3′ which was produced by Sony,
‘Shrek the Third’ is giving DreamWorks a second place spot while ‘POTC:
AWE’ bring Disney into the top 3. With the year of the third taking
hold, maybe ‘Halo 3′ is the secret weapon that could turn the tide back
in favor of HD DVD. Up until today I would have bet on Blu-Ray to win in
the long run, now I’m going to see what Apple does. That’s right, I’m
predicting that the next Mac product will have an HD player built in and
whoever they go with is who I’m putting my money behind.

*The first 24 hours is what MS is considering the opening #’s for ‘Halo
3’. Film openings either refer to the first day or weekend.

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With the delay of Take-Two’s highly anticipated new game ‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ the Xbox and the Wii are set to take center stage this holiday season. Citing “technological problems” the game under whelmed at the E3 Convention last month and has been put on hold until early 2008.

This means that once all the platforms debut ‘Madden NFL ’08′ in the next week all eyes will be on Microsoft and Nintendo (who share intimate quarters in Redmond). This was going to be the underperforming PS3′s first break into the reliable world of video game sequels. The PS3 has yet to see any of the standards that made the PS2 such a giant success. No, ‘Final Fantasy’ games, no ‘Metal Gear’ and now a delay of GTA.

While GTA is being delayed for the Xbox as well (even though the delay in release is caused solely due to the PS3), I’m sure Microsoft doesn’t mind as come this September the highly anticipated ‘Halo 3′ makes its debut in a home near you. Microsoft isn’t the only one relying heavily on proven content. Nintendo will finally give the people what they want with ‘Super Smash Bros. Brawl’ and in a move to get those after Christmas returns ‘Mario Kart’ will be released for the New Year.

Both Sony and Nintendo took a gamble on their new devices. While Sony opted for brilliant graphics and seamless game-play with blu-ray capabilities Nintendo did what they do best and revolutionized the gaming industry. Both companies relied heavily on new technology but it’s how you use technology that remains key. While the lack of content might be hurting the PS3 the Wii, with a similarly small selection of remedial mini-games, has excelled both nationally and overseas, outselling the PS3 3-1 in Japan (Headquarters to both Sony and Nintendo). Content remains the dividing factor. Even if the Wii and the PS3 had the exact same library the game-play allowed by the Wii offers a new way to experience that content, which is when technology is at its best. When we take the ordinary and smash it all to Hell. Well, at least that’s what I plan on doing once ‘Smash Bros. Brawl’ comes out.

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