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Real quick.

Left my job...

Moved to New Jersey...

Living out of boxes...

Kids in school and love'n it...

Beat MGS4, Ratchet and Clank, and GTA4 (twice)...

Just got Verizon FiOS so I' back online.

chio for now.

BRB

Over the past few week I rediscovered my love for PC gaming (if you noticed my X-fire and collection). I can't remember When I stopped but I can tell you this much. Its a sure bet I'm getting:

• The "id software pack" on Steam.
• Bioshock
• Crysis
• Trackmania
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
• Gears of War

and generally any thing that might be best left on the PC.

Now I think I might save up for the Mac its going on. :D

It a "who done it" but anyone who's seen a modern day drama, knows that usually it's always the ones closest to the victim who has committed the crime. In this case... the usual suspects ARE the ones closest to the Xbox 360.

Looking over the evidence, this is what I surmised what happened. Before its much ballyhooed existence, Microsoft Windows enjoyed a spike of growth it normal didn't normally see. People actually used their Personal Computers to PLAY games. With games like King's Quest, Unreal, Doom, Quake, and The Sims, PC game developers enjoyed great financial growth but Microsoft only gained more marketshare since games on Microsoft Operating systems didn't need specific licensing to actually play on said computers and there wasn't any REAL advantage for developers to go through Microsoft inorder to gain any technical advantage as long as Windows code wasn't taken or explicitly violated. Although PC gaming was on the rise, its growth in the gaming market paled in comparison to the growth of the console and portable gaming sector. With companies like Nintendo, Sony, and Electronic Arts seeing incredible financial gains year over year, Microsoft seems to have lucked out in a medium that was born in its possession and seem to have grown GREATLY and BETTER in most aspects away from Microsoft, however... Microsoft wasn't going to allow the gaming industry to over look them so easily.

It stood to reason that Microsoft was going to jump into the gaming industry to recoupe its potential losses, but how? Buying a software/hardware company (either Sega or Nintendo) would negatively impact the venture since at the time... Microsoft was dangerously viewed as monopoly. So... Microsoft did the next best thing by co-developing the Sega Dreamcast thus being their "in" into the industry. Quickly after its venture with Sega, Microsoft started development of its OWN console called the Xbox. Basically the Xbox was everything Microsoft dreamed of in a gaming PC. The Xbox essentially was a mid-low level PC designed solely for gaming with software designed to be closed unless licensed to its developers for a fee and a "pay for" internet access service provision all under their control. The problem...?

- Nickle and Dime features and aspects that called for users to pay for experiences otherwise offered for free.

- Microsoft did very little to procure or developing intellectual properties in the regions the Xbox was sold in; namely the Asian market.

- The overall bulky size of various aspects of the system was extremely unappealing.

- Hardware failures were frequent

- System modding and piracy made owning a Xbox more attractive and purchasing Xbox games less attractive and considering hardware sale translated to a loss , this was not good.

Taking these factors into consideration, naturally the Xbox did not prevail in its generation however its next iteration, the Xbox 360, fixed some of the mistakes its predecessor was plagued with. But... unbeknownst to the Xbox 360, the remodeled PC went through several changes. Video cards originally designed for "work" soon became restructured expressly for playing video games and pushed to the limits by games like Epic Games "Unreal". Backed by bigger, better, badder... system configurations and quality game development, PC gaming became a potent competitor... and an extremely tempting market.

As the Xbox 360 launched, a good amount of the titles were shared between both Xbox 360 and PC. But what made the PC titles better were the fact that the downloadable extras were marketabley cheaper or of better value considering the very same game expansions were purchasable in stores. The one thing that was soon to be made available on both PC and Xbox 360 was Microsoft LIVE service. But wait... it has already been (and continues to be) established that the 3rd party community infrastructure is better in PC gaming so what has changed?

Uniformity, control and licensing.

Through Microsoft LIVE developers no longer NEED to work on these services and can opt to use this well established refined system. LIVE also offers users an alternative to iTune and other media services. Once these services are refined, the PC is more then likely one step further to being the central entertainment device home and away.

Let's not forget this is still a homicide.

So "who did it"?

Microsoft, WindowsVista and LIVE killed the Xbox 360.

Why... ? Because The PC market in 2008 will be 2 billion strong and the Xbox would have a measly footing of 10 million users.

Taking into consideration:

- the marketability and affordability of PCs and soon Ultra Mobile PCs

- the wide spread use of the LIVE system and the possibility of potentially having an IP on 2 billion PCs (Tetris LIVE, Gambling games, etc...)

- the Xbox franchise has yet to turn a profit

- doing away with physical media will not only do away with the game "re-sale" business but it will also cut production cost drastically.

- Hardware development cost will be reduced to "suggested guidelines" that would better cater to the LIVE gaming platform.

- The push for Windows Vista to be considered a serious gaming platform.

It stands to reason that in 2010 or 2011 Vista will be well be established in the market as an OS standard and along side it LIVE garnering the 800 lb. gorilla like respect of the Microsoft brand.

So... It was a setup from the beginning by gaining our trust, grooming a patsy for the fall, all to return the thrown of gaming back to the God Father... Windows.

I knew it was you Bill ...You broke my heart. You broke my heart!.

Computers reach one billion mark - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2077986.stm

Lets put this in perspective.

Of the three console manufacturers, which one has been consistent with FREE backward compatibility?

Sony... (PS1 - PS2) of the hundreds of thousands titles in its library, only 2 - 4 thousand were unplayable due to peripheral s and special play mechanics.

If at most Microsoft having 30+ million Xbox Live users (xbox & xbox 360) how many Sony Playstation users have been online? of 100 million PS2 owners its much more then both Nintendo or Microsoft. And for free to boot.

How can the PS3 have failed?! Its only been 6 months! Have you seen the lineup of titles leading to 2008?

LittleBigPlanet in 1/1/08
Metal Gear Solid 4
LAIR
Ninja Gaiden Sigma (played the demo this morning :P)
Heavenly Sword
Warhawk
Home
Eye Toy

And this doesn't include the multi platform titles. This fall will be extremely good for the PSP, PS2, and PS3....oh wait thats my other point I guess.

If you look at Sony like Nintendo, everything is reverse. The consoles are two tier and the handheld is single tier. meaning the GBA and the PS2 won't fade anytime soon and the DS and PS3 get all the cool projects. The two consoles the developers are having problems with developing for are the PSP and Wii. But no worries the Wii will get the PS2 and PSP dev half baked spill overs.

This being said... the PS2 is still in the game. Look at the NPD sales God of War owned. Other gaming hardware can only wish to get a taste of that market share. As long as games are still being announced for it there will be amazing sales figures for that console. The PS3 is the little brother who has yet to learn the ropes. Sony so far has kept the pacing between titles really good. The Xbox 360 is going to have a tough fall. Halo 3, Mass Effect, and other top titles are slated for a release around the same time as GTA4 and thats not good. Titles will get lost and get poor sales. Why devs. are afraid of a summer release is beyond me. New Super Mario Bros. and Tekken Dark Resurrection had very good sales for that period.

A lot of the response the PS3 is getting is reactionary. If things go as planned Sony will be ahead in 2009.

Think about it. All the Sony first parties are hard at work at next gen versions of successful old titles and new ones.

Gran Turismo 5
Wipeout
Motorstorm 2
Resistence Fall of Man 2
Uncharted
SOCOM 4
MLB, NHL, World Tour Soccer, and NBA 07
Rachet and Clank (surprisingly Insomniacs second title in such a short turn around)
Killzone

Take that into consideration and the other companies seem to be standing still. The only failure Sony is guilty of is being too popular thereby bring uncalled for hate to itself.

I think the majority of gamers don't get the idea of HOME for the PS3 just yet. Maybe its because its being likened to too many things most aptly current familiar experiences. Its like second life.... XBL + SIMs=HOME, Mii+SIMs+Second Life+XBL=HOME

bahhh.... rubbish.

Lets pull back and look at the big picture. Here is one aspect I can introduce. HOME appeals to gamers and non-gamers alike. It IS about community in the "Playstation" world. Its more likely that a non-gamer (ie. movie buff) would run into a hardcore gamer in the HOME world as apposed to the same thing happening on the Wii or XBL. If a person who bought the PS3 primarily as a inexpensive movie player and goes on the PSN to download content, they might happen on to HOME or get invited. Once in HOME, everything we saw at GDC can be realized. People gathering to see an exclusive trailer... CD listening parties... Advanced Movie screening... Test groups for product advertising... Product Demoing... etc.

Now you (press, enthusist, bloggers, etc...) don't have to go to E3, TGS, etc... The events come to you. Lets say David jaffe has a cool Idea he wants to show the Gaming Press but to do this you have to answer a PSN invite. Upon answering the invite, Press are invited to the Sony HOME HQ where Press can download screens, demos, and clips of everything they see at this virtual release as well as take part in a Virtual Press Q&A session.

How much of the PSN community will embrace HOME and make it as real and inviting as it can be...who knows, but its all up to the users...which IS the idea.

Yup its a bit odd but to make the tie in, After seeing a friend of mine use a PCLinux LIVE CD and seeing how easy it was to configure my first thought was, "Dang why doesn't Suse do this." but I realized that Suse is half and half; Close to but not quite bleeding edge distro heavy on enterprise features.

Another Friend of mine was trying to convince our friend to try Ubuntu and showed him how easy it was. Got me fired up. So I downloaded Beryl and started to install the packages. Didn't work. Defeated and shattered I broke down and looked for help on the opensuse site to follow how they configed beryl and copmiz. Compiz gave me trouble but after crashing KDE several times and a few commandline tweaks I got beryl running. Where does the survey come in? Well after looking for help on the opensuse site, it prompted me to do a survey. I like surveys... make me feel like I'm contributing. Anyways... I went through the survey and realized... "Wow! the technical jargon is rich here." Why are Linux folks still in the mindset that Linux is for the masses and not the 1337?

Anyways... got Beryl working and like the KDE motto says... I'm "rediscovering" my desktop.

 

For those of you who don't know here is a sample.

(I won't dignify the mentioned blog site by stating its name)

 K-taco is not an e-magazine. Get it straight. K-taco is a blog site you know a "fan" site that should barely get the attention of any manufacturer but they do have a following none the less. For the past few days the "Internets" have been getting there panties in a bunch decrying “Sony is Trying to Bully K-taco!!”

How did Sony bully K-taco?! K-taco wanted to run a “rumor” story on something that Sony did not want out into the public to begin with. If I ran a rumor story on “‘insert YOUR name here’… Inside and Out" and in this story I gathered information about you that is public record and information your friends and family dictated to me about your habits, I am sooo sure you wouldn't want that story out for all to read. GOOD or BAD this was information Sony did not want out. Do we have the right to know? Not really.

In the K-taco rumor article it clearly states that some of this information was gained via a Sony employee. Sony has the right to track through K-taco the "Sony employee" and more then likely he will be fired and sued along with any other person who was in contract violation and contributed to this story. Think about it. Not only will the employee who "spilled the beans" get fired, the entire department might feel the Ax-man's blade. Sony has every right to do as it deems is best for itself (the company).

By Blackballing K-taco (because K-taco ran a rumor Sony did not want to be told good or bad) K-taco was reduced to returning Sony PS3 devkits (which plays advanced copies of PS3 titles), becoming dis-invited from PS3 events (which allows them to see advanced copied of titles) thereby reducing K-taco to what it is... a blog site, but they are privy everything we (the public) will or may know. They did it to themselves. But they patched up with Sony, hmmmm... to good to be true? I'm sure it is.

Sony contacted K-taco (not vise versa) and patched things up but it can't be that simple. A pound of flesh was taken form Sony and be sure they want that pound of flesh back. As I stated before there must have been a quid pro quo, were Sony asked for the names and information of the sources in the story and things panned out. Now ask your self this...

Was it worth it?

Was it worth this guy (or department) to be fired for information that really wasn't that secretive to begin with?

The PS3 "home" button has been there since E3 and by the rumor article the worker was working on this project in June or July and the details were formulated and ironed out, so this project could have started a year prior. But... back to K-taco. K-taco probably thought that all the thinks it did to get the story out and be credited for the rumor that would fade away long after Sony unveils what it has in store for the PS3 this year or the next. But is it all worth it (the firings, the drama, the mindless support and ridicule)

... All for a rumor? K-taco thinks so.

Maybe I'll be right maybe I'll be wrong. We'll see.

"Speaking as someone who owns a Neo Geo Gold system, d-pad controllers are not the ideal method of playing a Neo Geo game. Expect these games to be priced at the upper tier 1000+ points; more then likely Samurai Showdown, World Hero II, Fatal Fury, and the like would be 1500 point. If its lower count yourselves lucky."