Author Archives: Filemon

May 09 2006
3 Comments
Games, Technology

You really do need two jobs to afford one.

Hey, it’s the PS3 pricing announcement. There are two models of PS3, $499 and $599. Let’s look at the differences between the two, based on the press release.

The $500 version is missing more than just hard drive space. Additionally, here’s what you don’t get:

  1. No WiFi
  2. No Memory Card Reader
  3. No HDMI

The WiFi thing is odd to me because implementing WiFi is pretty cheap. At $250, the PSP has WiFi. Hell, at $130 the DS Lite has WiFi. But I guess you could get a USB wireless adapter. Currently this is how the Xbox 360 handles WiFi. Not a big deal here.

No memory card reader, also not a big deal. In theory, you can plug in a USB reader to the PS3 and have it read your media. Unless, they do something to their hardware to make it proprietary. Which would be completely out of character for SONY. All I ask here is that you can use them to save your games. Is that too much?

The no HDMI is going to make some people angry when they try to play a next generation DVD but can’t, because only HDMI supports the crazy ass DRM that the movie houses demanded be on blu-ray. Of course, this is a non issue since most televisions right now don’t even have HDMI connections.

So, if you don’t care about any of these things, sure. I guess it’s worth half a grand. On the other hand, an extra hundred dollars gets you the additional functionality. I’m thinking that all of these bells and whistles are a tad excessive for something that is supposed to be playing games.

And to be honest, I haven’t seen anything that makes me want to spend half a grand on the system just yet. We’ll see how things shake down in the next couple of days of E3.

But I’m not holding my breath.

Now I have to wait for the MicroSoft and Nintendo announcements.

May 04 2006
Uncategorized

A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, in a far off western kingdom, there lived a boy.

Now the boy, through no fault of his own, had an offsite backup copy of Episode IV on Betamax. He watched that movie repeatedly until his VCR died. This made the boy sad, because he really enjoyed Episode IV. Even if, midway through the movie, a “flip laserdisc” notice interrupted Luke’s training sequence on the Millenium Falcon. Right before Han dismissed the force as a “hokey religion.”

Then, the boy moved east to seek his fortune and met other people who enjoyed Episode IV as much as he did. They reveled in the remastered theatrical releases, and spontaneously quoted the movie to each other whilst in the theater, much to the dismay of the three people that were watching it for the first time.

Suddenly George Lucas decided to “fix” the movies. It is important to note that at this time, they were not broken. Many people were angered, including the boy.

The boy resorted to watching divx copies of the original versions of the story, ripped from laserdisc editions not available in the United States. He had heard that many people distributed them illegally, but he wouldn’t have known anything about that. Nothing at all.

Then, George Lucas’s handlers decided that maybe they should listen to the people (make more money) and give them what they wanted in the first place, which was digitally remastered copies of the original theatrical releases.

The boy, and everyone else rejoiced—until they remembered Episodes I, II, and III.

May 02 2006
Uncategorized

Do not aim at eyes or face

This is great. A gun that shoots plush teddy bears.

Of course, with a little “on site acquisition” these bears could become capable of grievous injury, perhaps even death. I guess it depends on how powerful the party crackers are. Sure, it’s better than rice.

But is it safer?

Update:

I know what you’re thinking.
“Did he fire six bears or only five?”
Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a Sunamiya, the most powerful teddy bear launching handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself a question.
“Do I feel lucky?”
Well, do ya, punk?

May 02 2006
Games, Technology, writing

Shameless self promotion

I’ve got an article up over at videolamer about whether or not you should buy the xbox 360. I go through a few questions you should ask yourself, but as I read it now, I realize I completely forgot to talk about whether or not you have broadband. Ah well. That’s my editor’s fault.

Another thing to consider is, are you ready to be an early adopter? This is the first revision of the hardware. There will be others. As they work out tiny little kinks like overheating, the next model number of the Xbox 360 should be sturdier, cooler, more stable and less likely to consume you in green fire.

Just a couple of common sense questions. Questions that people don’t seem to be asking themselves when they consider the PS3.

May 02 2006
Games

Cooperation is good

It’s about time someone designed a game with cooperative play from the ground up.

I’m just surprised that it’s EA.

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