Whine and cheese

The XBox forums are the best entertainment one can have. It was funny reading them yesterday when the GRAW DLC came out and you had people moaning about DLC and the price.
Then, all of a sudden, everyone is downloading. Next thing to whine about: it's taking too long to download.
All y'all who are complaining about it sound like a bunch of women from the Tuesday Night Book Club, which mercifully was cancelled after 2 episodes.

Boooring....

Well, at least that's what Killer was saying. And I partially have to agree with him. This is a boring time for an XBox 360 owner. Games are late, there is vaporware (anybody hear what happened to Texas Hold'Em???) , and there is the ever present PS3 lurking around the corner.

Here are some of my beliefs why we are in this time:
1) Summer: Not too many games released because most of the country is out in the sun. Well, except for Phoenix which stays indoors.
2) PS3/Wii: Why? What incentive do game makers have right now to come out with games when there is no competition? So, if they release on XBox 360, they have to dumb down versions for PS2? That's not a money maker for them. There will be more games this time next year.
3) Development time: It definately takes a while for development of these games, not as easy as before. In order to take advantage of the processing power, more coding and testing is needed.

For the most part, I'm pretty happy that developers are taking more time to get games out, that way, you have quality graphics and games on the market. However, I would approach it differently:
1) Come up with a game theme, get the first version out ASAP, charge less money for it, say $40-$45.
2) Use the learning experience from this to create the next release, charge less money for it, say $40-$45.

So, by doing this, you now have $80-$90 instead of $60 in your pocket. Will people be unhappy with the first version, yes. But if you have a solid story line, the next version would grab a hold of people to buy the next game.

Til then, I'll get some sleep or go to get 1000 on each game.

PS3 - the new rootkit

Sony just doesn't learn.
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2158170/sony-ban-second-hand-ps3-games
In short, Sony is now saying that they putting in measures to make sure you cannot resell games. How stupid is that?
They are mad because resales don't generate them any money, only initial sales. Sony, if you're that ticked about it, open up a store where you resell games, in competition to EB games. Don't force everyone to pay marked up prices for these games.
The thing I wonder is this: What if I buy a game, bring it to a friends house to show him, and then he buys the game? Will he not be able to use it because it sees mine?
Dumb, dumb, dumb

XBox dashboard update

They did a lot of pretty cool things here. For those whiners out there saying this should have been done in the first place, they have to keep their mouths shut. Those whiners have never been in software development otherwise they would know that it is an evolutionary process. It is very hard to have all the specs ready day one of release. Also, a lot of the updates was based on user feedback.
There are cool updates, such as streaming music playing constantly between games, background downloads, etc. You can see full list on
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/press/2006/0605-springrelease-features.htm

However, it is not without it's bugs. For example, we've noticed that the shuffle feature, although it has hit snazzy new button, has been affected negatively by this update. Random play songs are not so random, playing multiple times within a short period of time. I have over 5000 songs to choose from, yet the same song popped up 2 times in 30 minutes.
Another issue is that if you go to skip to next song on random play, it goes to the next alphabetical song. Not so random and not so shuffling anymore.

All in all, a nice release, even with a couple bugs. Going to have to try the PDZ maps soon...

Demo's

One of the best things about the Xbox Live Marketplace: Demo's!
One of the worst things for game creators: Demo's!!!

Since a demo game is limited on size, you may not get the full experience of playing the game. And, of course, game developers need to put in all those worthless screens taking up memory instead of adding functionality to the playable demo! Case and point: TW '06. Most worthless demo out there.
I really like the fact you can download and try these games before buying, especially since you are shelling out $60 USD per game.

Test Drive demo: I liked it, from a graphical stand point, but didn't like from a realism stand point. I know, it's based in Hawaii, which is one of the reasons I like it. But, I rammed a car at 120 MPH and the other car was totalled without one scratch on my car. Will have to think about this one.

The Outfit demo: Played last night, don't like it so much. The controls are a bit strange and the screen movement stranger. Was looking forward to this one, but not any more.

TW '06 demo. What a piece of garbage. Tiger, be smart, take you're name off this ASAP!!

Wik Fable of Souls - This is such a strange game. Don't know if I fully understand it, but it seemed too easy to me. Very 80's type of game, brought me some flashbacks.

Speaking of which, where is Missle Command, Asteroids, and Pac-man for Arcade???