Sony is in big trouble with the PSP. They can’t figure out how to market it. First it’s a gaming machine. Then it’s a multimedia machine. Now, it’s something of both.
The truth of it is that the PSP is a remarkable machine. It could be so much more. But, one of the problems is that Sony’s advertising is misleading, in my opinion.
Take a look at their new “find me” commercial: Find Me PSP
The girl in the commercial drops off a memory stick with the message “find me” to a guy sleeping (we can only assume it’s his bedroom – which is interesting because the situation implies he’s already “found her” and spent the night with her – but I digress).
Anyway, the guy looks at the various things on her memory stick for clues to her whereabouts. We see a video of her singing and a photo of her in a shirt with a unique logo that he finds on a poster.
Sure, its nice that you can put pictures and video on the PSP. What they don’t tell you is that you can’t do that very easily. You can if you cough up another $25 for Sony’s media manager. Or you can dig around for one of the freeware apps.
But, what would make the PSP a really cool machine is if the girl in question could have done all of this on the PSP natively. Oh yeah yeah, they have that nasty god awful brick of a camera that’s supposed to come out at some point (and costs more $$$).
Pics of PSP camera / GPS unit
So, why not just go ahead and make a PSP2 or PSP redux and integrate the camera in it? You would think it wouldn’t be that hard since every cell phone now has some type of camera in it, if not something with 2-3 megapixels.
While you’re at it, let’s rethink the GPS thing as well. I don’t care if it’s integrated, but I would like it to be a separate attachment that looks like it’s part of the overall design, not a big clunky block sticking out on top of the PSP.
And, go ahead and open up the source. The modders are coming up with really cool things for the PSP, so why stop them? How hard is it to make good music player UI?
It’s really sad because the PSP is one really cool little machine. It’s unfortunate that Sony can’t make up their mind about what they want it to be or invest the resources in making it a much better machine.
Wii are the champions…
For anyone not paying any attention to the world of gaming lately, two of the latest next gen consoles have released in the last week or so: the playstation 3 (ps3) and the nintendo wii (yes, it’s “weee”).
If you look at what’s out there now, I think the Wii is going to blow away the competition in sales over the next year, even though the Xbox 360 has a year-long head start. Why? Simple:
1) The Wii doesn’t use the bleeding edge technology the other guys have, which is a plus because they can crank them out production-wise. Sony barely managed to get out 400k units of the PS3 at launch, and they’re still struggling. Rumor has it that Nintendo plans to have 4 million Wii’s out there by end of year.
2) The Wii has a lower price point than the others. At $250, it’s a bargain compared to the other two (360 is at $399 and PS3 at $599 – don’t let the marketing guys fool you – sure they have a “lower end” model – but you’re better off getting the higher priced one by the time you buy the components separately).
3) Nintendo is making sure their major brands are out there with new games at launch, especially Zelda, which is by far one of their most popular titles. The worlds of Zelda and Mario have sold them millions of machines over the years, and their popularity transcends the usual gamer market. That means, someone would buy a Wii purely on the basis that there’s a new Zelda or Mario game. Microsoft and Sony don’t have anything on their consoles that can even compare to that type of consumer loyalty.
4) Nintendo is trying something different with the way we play video games. They’re trying to make the experience more interactive with their unusual controllers. It’s hard to say how well this will work (and they can easily come out with standard controllers if it doesn’t), but the initial reviews have been positive.
In a way, Nintendo appears to be borrowing a page from Apple, whose ability to design products that “just work” is uncanny. Instead of making something bleeding edge, Nintendo went the other way. Let’s make a video game system that’s “FUN” to play.
Wow. Imagine that.
Things could get interesting if Microsoft chose to drop the price of the Xbox 360 to $199/299, but there’s no indication at this point that they are willing to do that. Even so, after looking at all three consoles this week with my family, there’s not a single title on the Xbox or the PS3 that entices me to buy the game.
But, that new Zelda game, on the other hand, might be worth picking up…
Now, if I can just get my hands on one of those Wii’s…
Moving day(s)
After a long absence, I’m in the process of doing something with this blog. Part of it is a redesign. Part of it is to actually contribute something to it. And, part of it is moving it to another hosting company.
I’m hoping to get this knocked out over the Thanksgiving holiday, so come back in a week and see how it turns out.
This theme, by the way, is called freshy, and can be found at http://themes.wordpress.net.
X-Men 3: The Last Dump
No, that’s not a typo in the title, that sums up my feelings about X-Men 3. If you’re just looking for a decent summer blockbuster/action flick, then you may enjoy it. But, if you are a fan of the comic book, then you’ll be better off sitting at home and watching the first two movies on DVD.
The movie has a lot of issues, the primary one being what story to focus on. For some reason that I don’t pretend to understand, the rumor has long been that this X-Men movie would be the last. Why on earth any studio would let go of a franchise that they could easily milk for another 10 or so movies (and since there are 20-something Bond movies, 9-10 Star Trek movies, and 6 Star Wars movies, its not unheard of) — especially considering any script writer for the series has 40 or so years of comic books to draw from — boggles my mind. Maybe they wanted to end on a high note?
Maybe they should wait till X-Men 4 for that…
A couple of significant events happened between X-2 and X-3 that I think had a major impact. 1) Bryan Singer, the creative force behind the first two movies, jumped ship to work on another comic book movie — Superman. 2) Singer is replaced with Brett Rattner, who did the Rush Hour movies. 3) A new X-comic came out in 2005 by Joss Whedon ( of Buffy the Vampire and Firefly/Serenity fame ) with a very compelling story about a cure for the mutant gene.
There are enough X-Men storylines, including Whedon’s, that would make a great movie and potentially be an excellent way to end the movie series. Singer hinted at the end of X-2 that we might see the Phoenix saga.
For those of you playing at home, the Phoenix saga centers around Jean Grey/Marvel Girl. She has the combined powers of telekinesis and telepathy, and is one of the most powerful mutants ever. Followng the classic concept of power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, Jean Grey is seduced/deceived by a villan, which inadvertantly unlocks her true potential. She goes nuts, and turns evil, and her teammates have to stop her.
There are a couple of variations from the original story, but in the end of the original, she pays for her crimes with her life.
Anyway, I digress. The Phoenix saga is regarded as one of the best X-Men storylines in its history. So, it would have been a great story to do in X-3.
But, somewhere along the line, someone decided that if one of these stories are great, then if we combine three of them together in the same movie, it’d be absolutely spectacular!!! Lets mix the mutant gene story with Phoenix, and oh yeah, let’s have Magneto threaten mankind again. That would make an uber story that would make the fanboys thrilled to see all three stories in the same movie.
At least, in theory…
The reality is that X-3 becomes a movie that bounces back and forth between three separate stories, making it feel disjointed. It also feels as if they primary focus is the grand battle at the end, and everything leading up to it is simply there to throw enough of a back story in front of you before moving you along to the next stop on the express train to the end of the movie.
The movie has some good action sequences, and it does introduce us to some more of the main X-Men. Kelsey Grammer is an excellent choice as Dr. Hank McCoy/Beast, and the girl that plays Kitty Pryde doesn’t get a lot of screen time, but she looks exactly like her comic book counterpart.
There are a lot of ‘deaths’ in the movie, a couple are not surprising, but the others are. One of the characters is killed off simply to show us that another character has ‘gone bad.’
But the mixture of the stories never really takes hold. The movie follows one story for a while, then swtiches to the next, then goes to the third. In the end, two of the stories are wrapped up, and then the movie goes into ‘oh yeah’ mode, remembering at the last minute that there’s still this other issue to resolve.
Realy, what they should have done was forget about only doing three movies. They should have spent this one doing the Phoenix saga, and then use X-4 to cover the mutant ‘cure’ story. Both would have made excellent movies in their own right.
Instead, we get the mess that is X-Men: the Last Stand. I’d blame it on Rattner, but I don’t think he did a bad job with the movie. The movie was in trouble long before he got on board.
But, it’s clear that the movie was created by someone who wasn’t a fan.
To me, it’s the most challenging thing about making a comic book movie, and why some of them work while others not.
Spider-Man (1 & 2 & probably 3), X-Men (1 & 2) and Batman Begins were all excellent movies because the directors behind the movies were all fans of the comics. They work dilligently to preserve these characters when they make the leap from the comic book page to the screen.
All of the other movies don’t work for any number of reasons, but one of the main ones has to do with directors having no background or personal interest in the characters. Just look at some of the other comic book movies — Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Elektra, Hellboy, Hulk, Constantine, etc.
Maybe the studio will change its mind and do an X-4. I’d hate to see the series end with this one.
losing my (mac) religion
Although I have long since gone back to the world of windows, something happened last week that no one really expected.
Apple released a beta of a product called ‘Boot Camp’ that would allow owners of intel-based Macs to install Windows. The product will eventually be merged into the core OS X product, but it allows users to boot their shiny new intel-Mac with either OS X or Windows XP.
Apple takes great pains to note that they do NOT support Windows XP on the Boot Camp download page.
Already, the Mac fanatics are declaring victory — saying that this will convince the masses to abandon their pcs and make the switch to macs. Even Wall Street seems to be convinced this will mean a boost in Apple sales.
Others, from CNet and Robert X. Cringely, take other stances, saying that it’s a gimmick and/or it only helps Microsoft, not Apple.
Microsoft is currently debating supporting Macs running Windows XP, and I predict they probably will. Why? Because, after supporting all the other guys (Dell, HP, Gateway, Lenovo, Acer, etc, etc), Apple is just one more hardware vendor.
Will it really convince the masses to switch? Probably not. Boot Camp provides a nice security blanket for anyone sitting on the fence about switching, because now they can happily boot Windows XP on their Mac and run any apps that don’t have a mac counterpart.
The biggest problem, still, is the price point. Macs are still cost several hundred dollars more than their PC competition. That’s not counting software, and a lot of that is in flux because every sofware company on the Mac side of things now has to build ‘universal’ binaries that will run on the new intel-based machines as well as legacy systems.
So, why would I really pay more for a Mac if I’m just going to put Windows on it?
I looked long and hard for the last month at my options for a new laptop. My choices came down to three: an HP nx9420, the Acer Travelmate 8204, and the MacBook Pro. The mac intrigued me more for the design/weight features than the OS. The HP, though light for a 17″ notebook, was going to be too big for what I wanted. I looked at 15.4″ and 17″ laptops side by side at a local CompUSA, and I decided that the 15.4″ screen was plenty big.
So, it came down to the MacBook and the Acer. Ultimately, I chose the Acer, and it was at my door before the Boot Camp announcement. Would that have made a difference? Probably not.
Don’t get me wrong, the MacBook is one nice piece of hardware. The Acer had the same basic configuration as the MacBook Pro, and it was several hundred dollars cheaper. And, I can run everything I have on it.
For me, the OS doesn’t matter to me, so long as it doesn’t get in my way. Windows XP has been relatively painless for me, and it gives me the flexibility to run just about anything.
Linux woudl be nice, but it’s still a long way off from being a desktop contender. They are making great progress, though. I plan on installing SUSE 10 at some point.
Vista promises to have some of the spiffy OS X features that wows everyone, if it ever ships, that is.
But, now that OS X runs on an intel machine, wouldn’t it be cool to run it on my Acer laptop? After all, the hardware is basically the same.
Cringely suggests just that. Apple will take things one step further at some point in the future announce a “Boot Camp for Windows” that would allow OS X to be installed on standard PCs.
Heresy! cry the Mac faithful. Jobs would never allow it!!!
But, why wouldn’t he?
Ah, say the faithful, if OS X ran on any PC, then the masses would flock to OS X and kill Apple’s hardware business in the process.
But would they? Really?
The masses haven’t flocked to Apple for anything besides iPods, iTunes and QuickTime in years. Apple still holds 2.3% ish of the PC market, but that hasn’t really changed (maybe shrunk a few tenths of a percentage point – but it’s never really gone up).
Or, the fanatics argue, it kills the entire “Mac experience” by running OS X on something other than Apple hardware. Well, doesn’t booting up Windows XP on that spiffy intel-based Mac kill the “mac experience” as well?
In a way, rolling out Boot Camp for Windows benefits Apple in the same way Boot Camp is benefiting Microsoft now — more sales of their OS.
If Apple does such a thing, it will probably issue a lot of “not supported” statements, or they may partner with a couple of vendors. It may be that some features are intentionally disabled as well.
It’s providing the security blanket the other way. Here, keep your PC and Windows XP, but check out our cool OS. Give it a test drive. Maybe, you’ll learn to like it so much that you’ll completely switch over.
Worse case? Apple makes a bit more money off of OS sales and maybe loses a few hardware sales. But, I think, it might win them a few more converts.
Actually, I think the best way that Apple can help raise people’s comfort level with switching is to provide them a list of equivalent apps. Oh, you like Office? We gotcha covered? Like graphics? Check out Adobe products on the Mac. Need development tools? Look at these.
Maybe there’s already a list out there, and I just haven’t seen it.
Now, what would be really wacky would be if Windows, after Vista, announces it’s abandoning its core for a unix/linux flavor, and the next version of windows would be unix-based.
Now, at that point, you would have three operating systems all running on the same basic hardware, competing over who provides the best ‘user experience.’
At that point, the REAL OS wars would begin…
Oops… er… excuse the mess…
Yeah, the site looks a bit different right now… In my quest to rid myself of comment spam, I decided to update to wordpress 2.0. Unfortunately, I have been too lazy to change my blog layout to use a theme instead of the old-school method of changing index.php. So, things are going to appear a bit out of whack while I build out a theme.
Harry Potter is my Homeboy?
FYI,
In case you haven’t heard, the newest Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire trailer can be found here:
Goblet of Fire trailer
I saw this today, and the trailer looks great! What really bugged me wasn’t the trailer, but it was the title of the column next to the trailer; the one entitled “Harry’s Homies.”
Oh come on now people! While time will tell whether or not Harry Potter will go down in history as classic literature, calling Harry’s friends his “homies” makes as much sense as putting a story out there about Lord of the Rings and refering to the Fellowship of the Ring as “Frodo’s Homies.”
Dictionary.com lists the following synonyms for “friend”:
acquaintance, ally, alter ego, amigo, associate, bedfellow, blocker, boon companion, bosom buddy, brother, buddy, chum, classmate, cohort, colleague, companion, compatriot, comrade, confrere, consort, countryman, cousin, crony, familiar, fellow, intimate, kissing cousin, little brother, main man, main squeeze, mate, other self, pal, partner, playmate, roommate, schoolmate, sidekick, sister, soul mate, spare, well-wisher
Ok, maybe “soul mate” doesn’t really fit in, but still, there are plenty of other words to use. I know someone was trying to be really clever and trendy by using “homie,” but if they really wanted to be clever, why not use British slang like “mate” or something? Rowling uses a lot of British slang in the UK versions of the book.
What’s next? Will Harry walk into the Gryffindor common room in the Goblet of Fire movie and say “wassup?”
Why isn’t ‘42′ the answer to the question ‘Why do people find “Napoleon Dynamite” so funny?’
Because, in my mind, “42” makes about as much sense as any other answer to that question…
I put “Napoleon Dynamite” in my Blockbuster movie queue thinking I might as well see it to see what all the fuss was about. Critics and “kids” love it. My first warning sign should have been the MTV logo at the beginning. To be fair, MTV has co-produced a couple of decent movies. “The Perfect Score” was a decent flick, even though it had a shade of “Breakfast Club” to it.
Continue reading “Why isn’t ‘42′ the answer to the question ‘Why do people find “Napoleon Dynamite” so funny?’”
best and worst of human nature
Today marks the four year anniversary of 9/11.
The aftermath of hurricane Katrina will no doubt overshadow this. But, in a way, the events of the past two weeks remind us about the best parts of human nature.
I saw this story online this morning on the Dallas Morning News website.
Would-be volunteers left to wait
Now, even though the story really covers people complaining about being frustrated over not being able to help the victims of hurricane Katrina, the fact that there are more volunteers than the various help organizations know what to do with speak volumes. There are other stories about how literally millons of dollars of donations are flowing to the Red Cross. There are stories of people who have gone out of their way to help these people.
Continue reading “best and worst of human nature”
live 8 — so what’s the big?
UPDATE 07/06/2005:
AOL has posted a page with links to videos from some of the performances:
http://music.channel.aol.com/live_8_concert/highlights
Why was this show important?
Twenty years ago yesterday, another huge concert event called live aid occurred. Two concerts in London and Philadelphia ran most of the day with a large number of bands that were big in the mid 80s. They were trying to raise awareness and money to help aid poverty in african countries.
Although live aid and other efforts like it have raised millions of dollars in aid and have done a great deal to help this part of the world, the effort has simply been a band aid for the problem, not the cure.
The organizers of live 8 realize this, and they are shooting for a bigger, more important goal. End poverty in these countries. Period. But, in order to do that, things have to happen on a much larger scale than they have ever done in the past. So, live 8 is focusing on the G8 summit, where 8 of the wealthiest nations get together and talk. They already have Tony Blair, the british Prime Minister, on board, and he will present their idea to the other nations.
So, if they’re talking to world leaders, why should we care? Well, do you really think President Bush is going to listen to the likes of Bob Geldolf and Bono? Probably not. That’s where the concerts come in. The concerts are meant to attract attention of us, the people, in order to raise awareness of the situation. The president may not listen to a couple of rock stars, but he will pay attention to the concerns of millions of his constituents. I read somewhere that he appears to be on board with this and may double the amount of relief effort to africa. He’s a president on his second term, and like most presidents, he’s thinking about the legacy he will leave behind.
It’s an intriguing idea. Wouldn’t it be nice for the United States to make a difference in part of the world without sacrificing a single soldier, or firing a single shot?
Go here to find out more: www.live8live.com.
Now, about the shows themselves…
Continue reading “live 8 — so what’s the big?”