Wow - I ventured into the news threads. Anyhow, one of the posters asked "Anyone offering a counter arguement for HD DVD? I'll be willing to listen." So, well, I sent it to him. Here's a copy of that.

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1. HD-DVD requires player makers to include ethernet for convenient updates (as opposed to downloading firmware, buring to cd, then installing on player) and for online/internet functionality.

2. HD-DVD requires movie to be region free. To be honest, this is consumer friendly feature is probably a turn off to the major companies who enjoy "normal" pricing in some regions then overcharge in others (usually blaming regulations, taxes, costs, etc).

3. HD-DVD is favored by smaller movie companies in Europe due to the lower costs associated with HD-DVD production side (its very similar to DVD's, so you don't need new facilities to make them like you do with Blu-Ray).

4a. 1 less layer of consumer unfriendly DRM. While both formats use AACS, Blu-Ray has BD+ on top of that. The first movies with BD+ only came out a while ago, and some Blu-Ray players couldn't play them without a firmware update (not provided on the disc, either). Manufacturers were slow getting out updates.

4b. HD-DVD's spec is finished. Blu-Ray finally implemented everything with the 1.1 release.

5. HD-DVD's spec allows for companies to make hybrid HD-DVD specs, so a consumer could by a hybrid disc, enjoy it on their DVD player, then when they moved to HD-DVD, already have the HD version. Sadly, this was highly under-utilized.

And reasons why we need HD-DVD to stick around, even if they ultimately lose:

1. To keep Blu-Ray manufacturers honest. The price of players on both sides have dropped by over half since they debuted. Without a real competitor, they won't continue to drop that quickly as the "winning" side will feel a lot more secure and can enjoy making a bigger profit off their high-end, luxury item. HD players are a niche still; Happy Feet on DVD sold more movies than ALL the HD movies sold last year; Blu-Ray and HD-DVD combined. HD is not even close to being mass market yet.

2a. The format war isn't what's holding back HD, no matter what Michael Bay (and others) say.

2b. The problem is that there's an expensive cost of entry; the price of the HDTV itself. You have to pay a pretty penny to get HDTV, and have to rationalize getting rid of your old TV as well. That big-screen TV is probably too big for the kids' room, after all.

2c. There's simply not enough HD content out there. Broadcast TV, Cable, Satellite, etc. Its there, but not in compelling, ubiquitous amounts.

2c. The variety of standards and their level of support is bewildering (480i, 480p, 720i, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, HDMI, HDCP, DVI, VGA, Component, etc). Many HDTV's, especially older or cheaper ones, won't support everything.

3. Having a competitor might force an evolution of features based on Blu-Ray's primary strength; storage space. Time Warner released Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix on DVD - what's noteworth is that it came with two extra copies of the movie! One for portable media players, one for the computer. You know good and well that the large media companies typically would rather double or even triple dip their movies (ie, make us buy the same thing repeatedly) if they can get away with it.

4. The success of HD-DVD might force the Blu-Ray camp to adopt some of its better policies in the future.

5. The success of HD-DVD would speed up the progress of hybrid players (HD-DVD/Blu-Ray players), which would have rendered the entire format war moot. Why pick when you can have both?

Competition is good. No format should ever be uncontested or get a free ride. Even DVD had a competitor before launch; the rival camps managed to settle on something, thankfully.

I hope you find this to be reasonable on both counts (pro-HD-DVD and pro-"The war needs to keep going on").

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Likewise, I hope all of you find these to be reasonable reasons as well.

Was given a nice sum of money. Not enough for a 360 or PS3, but it gives me a nice lead in.

I worked butt-loads of hours last pay period. In theory that would put me in spitting distance of either system.

And tomorrow I'm going to do the boring (but responsible) thing of sticking it into my bank account for my next round of car insurance. Possibly for taxes. No 360 or PS3 for me.

:( :( :(

When I was a kid, I never thought growing up would suck like this.

Started at 8:30 a.m. Got done at 9 p.m. Took an hour for lunch. Busy the whole time, wearing multiple hats, and will have to finish up the paper tomorrow (grab the syndicated stuff, double-check the calendar and classifieds, prep for pdf, make the pdf, double check the final paper, ftp the pdf to our printer). You know what? Feels great.

Fun note: Three of the ladies I work with got uber-excited when I told them Costco had Wii's in stock last night (they're gone already). Its hilarious since one of them, her husband had gotten a PS3 for the two of them, and she was actually not so thrilled about it (no draw for her) - I'd imagine a 360 would've gotten the same response to be perfectly honest. But she was totally stoked about the Wii.

"They had them in and you didn't call me why?!"

"I ain't got your number, chick."

Anyhow; going to game until stupid o'clock tonight (its 11:49 p.m. right now), crash, wake up late, goof off, eat lunch, go back to work, then hopefully, weather permitting, I'll enjoy a barbecue with my family at the condo my older brother (15+ years), nephew, neice, nephew-in-law (or whatever), and their kids are staying (they're visiting Maui for a week). No gift cards, so no new gaming stuff for Christmas, but that's okay as I've still got lots of junk to play as is.

Anyhow, Paragon City calls. Enjoy your weekend, and enjoy your New Year.

And to any writers and English majors who might be reading and cringing, yes, I've a paragraph composed a run-on sentence and another sentence that's probably poorly written too. I probably should go and get a book on AP formatting since that's what we use at work, but to be honest? Meh. Later. Right now you're lucky I'm capitalizing and using punctuation :P

Dave Perry and Acclaim are really, really leading the way when it comes to working on alternative revenue models for online gaming besides subscriptions. Advertising and Microtransactions are their bread and butter, but you knew that already, right? Well, taking a step farther, they are the first company in the US to allow you to use your cell phone to pay for your gaming goodies! Something that's taken for granted in Korea, to be sure, but still quite innovative here. Very cool, very convenient, and convenience is one of the secrets to the Korean's success in microtransactions.

Good work Acclaim!

Review here.

Whooo! I want! I want!

Yet another game that reaffirms I don't need next gen just yet.

PS2? Check. Freakin' awesome PS2 stick? Check. Another SNK fighter for my collection? Check!

The only thing annoys me would be this:

The North American PS2 version of KOF XI seems to be a straightforward conversion of the original Japanese PS2 version of the game, minus support for online play.

So its not perfect like the Japanese version, but hey, at least it came out. Garou: Mark of the Wolves next, please?

Wonderful. Next Gen looks at the numbers and ponders.

This is the kind of stuff I really like. Thanks to the NPD for sharing data. I like numbers. *Verified* numbers.

Fun tidbit; Assassin's Creed beat Gears of War's record for first month sales only because it was cross-platform. Publishers would do well to note that.

Went through Ghost Squad with my mom tonight. My brother didn't think she'd like it, but he somehow forgot she really like Time Crisis in the arcades. Not enough to go to the arcades, mind you, but she's played it.

Anyhow, she wasn't quite used to holding the Wiimote like a phaser, but got the hang of it (mostly) by the time we where done. Until then, she kept losing her crosshairs off-screen. Friendly fire was rather accurate, as NPC members of our squad were shot and hostages found themselves gunned down by their rescuers (whoops!), we failed some of the challenges they tossed at us ("Don't shoot the claymore mines!"), but she was laughing and amused.

We unlocked an additional weapon each, and got Ninja Mode unlocked in Party mode. Ninja mode is silly.

So, we wasted maybe half an hour or so, but it was great. More later, definintely.

Makes me wonder how she'd take to playing House of the Dead. Don't think she'd be too keen on zombie blasting, though.

Welcome to the wacky world of free and cheap gaming, courtesy of NCSoft.

I like the Chunk #2 update for Dungeon Runners.

Anyhow, before anyone gets all crazy and starts saying stupid stuff like "OMG DR FREE NUT WOW WOW SUX" and all that, comparing Dungeon Runners to World of Warcraft is like comparing a sled during the winter to a Porche. Its cheap, its fun, but it ain't a Porche. If anything, its Gauntlet and Diablo getting drunk then watching "Search For The Grail" one too many times. I must have missed the part in math (asleep, perhaps) where "Free = 1000x mor awsum n00b." Poor me, paying for things and expecting to get something in return (even worse, to get more than the freeloaders).

The startup ad was for NCSoft's Tabula Rasa (or is that "NCSoft's Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa?"), and was no big deal. In-house advertising is to be expected. I rolled up a new fighter and hopped in. At my desktop resolution (1280x1024) the banner ad was fairly unobtrusive; it was for Jumpman23.com (Michael Jordan's line of stuff), which I found rather amusing since I was at home playing video games instead of considering how to improve my 3-pointer and overall dribbling technique. People at lower resolutions might feel the pinch, I'm not sure and didn't test it. Clicking on the ad minimizes your game and opens the website up in your browser. Nice.

The biggest improvement from my time during beta is the fact that small scrubby stuff like potions and such now stack for the free accounts; previously that was a paid membership function. The ability to use some of the nicer items that were previously for members only (75% of the yellow items, 25% of the purple and rainbow items) is nice too. Toss in the bank storage (one page worth) and the free guys got a nice bump all at the price of having in-game advertising. I've no idea yet if the game supports a gamepad or not; might look into that later on.

Exteel is now live, and that makes me happy.

I logged on; no ads. Okay, get to the game screen, go to the store, and they've got some stuff for sale with NC Coins. Cool. Can I buy them? Uhm... crap, no. No convenient way to get NC Coins in-game, so I had to log out, go to PlayNC.com, then go to my account and buy NC Coins. While I can understand this being done for safety purposes ("Mom! Dad just pimped out his mechs with $15 worth of stuff again!"), it is still annoying. Dungeon Runners has a convenient in-game link that takes you to the website to get membership, City of Heroes has server transfers and rename services in-game ($10 a pop, immediately billable or with password verification), and Guild Wars has a whole in-game store! Hopefully NCSoft makes it a little more convenient for us folks later. Anyhow, NC Coins are 100 per $1, and can be bought in $1, $5, $10 and $20 lots. I do like the fact they have an image recognition thingie when you attempt to complete the transaction, plus the immediate reciept straight to my email is nice. Anyhow, $5 for 500 NC Coins, just like I promised Crickette (one of the community reps) during beta ("I will be buying crap.").

Anyhow, I bought the Haskell mech (345/$3.45) plus black and red paind (20/$0.20 each) leaving me with 115 ($1.15) NC Coins left. Yeah, not much worse than a booster pack for Magic or a Burger King Whopper Jr. Meal. I'm not sure if the Haskell is a timed purchase or not; if it is, the length of time I get to keep it isn't clear. The paints last for 30 days, though, so that's not horrible if the period of time is the same. I was dissapointed in that there are no Skills available for purchase (30-day special attacks) nor where there any rocket launcher weapons for sale with NC Coins. Guess they have to keep me grinding away one way or another.

Looking at the items, I'm reasonably sure that I "bought" them, so they shouldn't time out on me.

A quick game of Last Stand and I go back to the shop, polishing off the remaining NC Coins with the Sentinal thruster (85) and a repair pack (30). Jump into one more last stand and I *feel* a lot better, game-wise. I move better because of the new thruster, easy, although I don't know if it can have any skills associated with it. There's another thruster (Tomahawk) and a skill you have to buy with in-game credits (what you earn from playing) that is literally perfect for the way I play (enables you to launch a bunch of missles at multiple enemies), but I need to earn money for it and the skill first. That's the nice thing with the NC Coins, really, is I can be decently function without having to grind and spend all those credits on working my way up; anything I earn can be saved for really cool stuff later on. How does the paid stuff compare to the regular stuff? Dunno. But its better than my starter mech, so no real biggie.

Both games are fun and easy to get into, which is a massive plus for me. I like having "off" games to play when the mood strikes me, and to be honest, that's great. I've got little to no commitment to either game because they're free (or "free"), unlike most subscription games that you can feel obligated to play because you're forking over $15/month for it. I'm looking forward to seeing what NCSoft does with these titles in the future; Chunk #2 was a great upgrade for Dungeon Runners, so I'm looking forward to Chunk #3. Exteel added 4 more maps which is nice; I'm hoping they develop the PVE element of the game myself (Western players seem to prefer PVE, Asian players PVP). All in all, great games. I think Soccer Fury might've gotten canned, which is a pity; I was really curious to see how that would've turned out...

Read first then comment.

I post my thoughts later.

Bonus points for pointing out company bias (ie, smoothing something over, statements that reflect company policy/direction/etc).

Rappelz.

Might be a while; its nearly 2 gigs. Anyhow, I hope to give you guys a quick impression of it. For those of you who don't know, its a free, microtransactionally support MMO.

Figure I'll get around to doing one up on Dungeon Runners and Exteel as well, time permitting (after the holidays), as well as my impressions of WOW, post BC and the "holy hell leveling is fast" patch.