Ross Fisher
So one morning I was standing wrapped only in a towel when the doorbell rang. For a moment I thought of answering the door, as it was most likely a delivery man brining me my PSP back from the Sony repair shop... but what if it wasn’t? Do you love your PSP enough to risk answering the door in only your towel? What if it was girl scouts? Or that really hot chick that lives next door?
In other not so important news: I think my keyboard is finally going out on me. The down arrow key hasn’t been so responsive lately. Of course wouldn’t you know it? My left mouse button is acting up as well. Hardware failures are nothing new, but when the little stuff starts to betray you… well, you start to think long and hard that in the future you will be a console only gamer.
Speaking of console games, how about that Halo 2? Coming up on a year later and I’m still playing it pretty regularly. Though recently I had to clear off my friends list because too many of my so-called "friends" weren’t playing Halo 2. Not that I blame them. Why is it that a game that is rated "M for Mature" has so many squeaky voiced 12yr-olds playing? Damn.
Though in all seriousness the longer I play the game, either online or offline, the more I fall in love with it. It’s the little details that get to me, the kind of stuff that I think far too many people run by at full speed without noticing. I have great faith that Bungie Studios will do something equally amazing with their next game.
Sadly, I have no faith in Rare Studios doing the same with Perfect Dark Zero. I’m still waiting to be proved wrong (October 4th XO5), but every time someone tries to talk up PDZ I recall the horrible single-player adventure in the first game. My fingers still hurt when someone says "Chicago. Rain. Find the knickknack."
Speaking of all things Xbox let me just say that Microsoft’s Xbox website is horrible. How horrid? Well, it so retched that something truly beautiful was almost lost in the shuffle. Thankfully I was there to stumble onto Canada’s best gift to the world since maple syrup: the Gamer Identification Device.
Following that link will take you to a place where you can "Create a personalized symbol that explains your gaming philosophy to the world. Turn it into an icon. Paint it. Customize it." Fancy words for a series of rather nifty looking icons that are highly modifiable. In the spirit of the almighty Halo 2 I set myself up some dual-wielded "boom-sticks."
Finally, if you haven’t been listening to Major Nelson’s Weekly Blogcast you should be. The Major is the man in charge of Xbox LIVE, and always has something interesting to say. Any questions you might have about how LIVE will work with the next-generation Xbox has most likely already been answered in one of his weekly shows. Check out blogcast #142 for a great interview with the man who designed the Xbox 360.
Aaron Drewniak
I am an videogame vulture.
I check what Play Asia is offering up at their weekly discount sacrifice, and if it's something tempting, I also scan their virtual shelves for other unwanted titles at low prices to reach the golden $50 amount needed to use the latest self-destructing coupon. Once every two to three months I hop over to ebgames.com, dive into the bargain bin, and don't emerge again until I have at least a half dozen titles, costing me less than a full priced game altogether. Not everything I get this way are lost classics, or even worth playing, but more often than not I get entertainment far beyond the asking price.
Next-gen is going to be big, bad, and especially pricey. $400+ for the console itself (360 light is a joke and borderline scam), $60-$70 per game (I did pay $70 for the original Phantasy Star when it first came out and no surprise, it was the only SMS game I ever brought full price), and all the hidden expenses like added controllers, online fees, and the like. This worries me simply because it's bound to spawn a whole new breed of videogame vultures that will be willing to wait for a game to drop below the $20 line to stretch their gaming budget, and pickings will become scarce.
There will also be a slug-like reaction from the industry itself when they find first week sales drooping. Of course, their solution won't be to lower prices back to $40-50 range that had become the standard, but instead hold out much longer before issuing price drops, and pressing less copies to keep the old budget in check. Smaller game producers who can't meet the high production costs will suffer the most, and die off one by one as they're absorbed by the megacorps EA and Square-Enix.
My dream is this will allow the "it's fast, it's cheap, it's good" game publisher D3 to dominate the industry with its junk food entertainment, eventually leading to a console of their own that will be more popular than Sony and Microsoft's efforts combined. For the name of the new console, I suggest either D-Station or Dx3 (Delicious Digital Delights).
