Sony

Only Bill Gates can afford a PS3

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$500 for a stripped down system? And if I save up after buying it I still can never have all the features the full $600 version has? When Phillips launched the CD-i at $800 it was clear they were insane. The PS3 will be cheaper but not by enough to make it clear that Sony are in their right mind.

Sony justifies the cost by saying there is a Blu Ray player in the system. Guess who designed the console. No, it wasn’t me. It was Sony. So they decided to put a Blu Ray player in the system. The Blu Ray players cost a thousand dollars so we are all getting a great buy, Sony says. If the PS4 comes attached to a Lexus and sells for 30 grand Sony will praise the system for being much cheaper than a Lexus without the PS4. →  Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this post!

An E3 for the proletariat

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E3 is fast approaching. I won’t be going this year but two of our senior staff (a position I just made up) will be there. Due to chemical imbalances, I tend to tire of reading about E3 if I’m not going myself. Game sites are completely saturated with E3 info and I get bitter about not being there so I say screw it, I don’t want to know.

With this in mind, we have decided to make this E3 the E3 of the people. If you want to read about a specific game, company, talent, genre or anything else, let us know and we will cover it in as much depth as possible. You may not be able to go to E3, but we can go for you. →  I’m so excited, my braces are tingling!

Naming the Revolution

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The Nintendo Revolution still lacks an official name. Nintendo will likely rename the console in May at E3, but chances are they’ll come up with a less than stellar moniker. Luckily, I am here to suggest names that are sure to be winners in the court of public opinion. Of course I’ll expect royalties.

Gamecube 2 – The most obvious and worst choice. Similar to Sony renaming the Blu Ray discs BETA Max 2.

Nintendo 540 – The new Xbox thinks it’s xtreme and in your face, but a 360 is a pretty easy move in most new extreme sports other than freestyle walking. Besides, a 360 leaves you facing the exact same direction you were prior to the move, which explains why the new Xbox is also tanking in Japan. →  You had me at read more.

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 4.21.06

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It’s not vandalism if it’s illegible.

Getting Up game mediocre enough to inspire Hollywood movie
This makes perfect sense to me. The game wasn’t very good and was style over substance. Why wouldn’t they make a movie out of it and say… seven sequels to the game? When has quality ever been something consumers cared about?


Guitar Hero 2 is coming
Awesome to the max. More songs than the first one and more importantly, new modes. Bass guitar I could take or leave, but two player mode with one doing rhythm and the other doing lead sounds like a lot of fun. Now I wish I’d invested in that cherry red second guitar. It’s a tad keyboard heavy, but I really hope Rainbow in the Dark is in this game. →  All the lonely gamers, where do they all belong?

A rant about fanboys

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He shaves his head because he's mostly bald

Microsoft’s J Allard is paid to be a fanboy. For no extra cost, he is also a tool.

Fanboys remind me of the villain from the Serenity movie. He was sharp and eloquent but also utterly and completely blind. His faith was clearly proven wrong by the reality before his eyes, but rather than rethink his faith, he simply changed his perception of reality. Intelligent people who believe weird or extreme things are very dangerous because they’re able to make their faith sound rational. Thus, a fanboy is a force to be reckoned with. A forum of onlookers is often persuaded by a fanboy’s arguments, much like an intelligent design proponent can easily confuse and place doubt in the heads of smart, rational people. →  Please sir, can I have some more?

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 4.14.06

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Video game skills do not usually transfer to real life skills
Man in his 30s attempts to outrun cops in a car because he did it in GTA. Instead of putting age restrictions on games, there should be an IQ test. Is anyone else waiting for the guy who played too much Trauma Center to show up in the news?

photoshopped

Too good to be true?

Two Revolution games announced
Red Steel is coming to the Revolution, and check out the fake screen shots. Maybe they’re not polished, who knows. The game seems to be another attempt by Nintendo to convince gamers that they can appeal to an older crowd. The choice of a FPS is slightly odd, though. They tend to do terribly in Japan and if the Revolution is to stand a chance, my guess is that it’d have to repeat the DS’s and Allied Forces strategy of dominating the homeland. →  Did I do that?

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 4.7.06

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Bloated cash cow, I choose you!

Nintendo engineers talk about the process of designing the DSLite
I personally find this article to be fascinating. More interviews with hardware designer’s would be a welcome thing.

Nintendo has great year financially
Despite having a dead console, Nintendo made a lot of yen this past year, thanks to the “favorable” performance of the DS. Maybe one day they’ll stop living off of handhelds and Pokemon and be a real player in the console wars again.

First Amendment bitch slaps anti-game lobbyists
Said the judge, “Video games are a form of creative expression that are constitutionally protected under the First Amendment. They contain original artwork, graphics, music, story lines and characters similar to movies and television shows, both of which are considered protected free speech.” →  Jesus: Readful Bio Monster

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 3.31.06

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Must miss
I did my part to support UMD movies by buying 25 copies of this classic story about a girl who wakes up a slut.

UMD movies failing
Is it possible Sony somehow is responsible for a failed format? Of course it is, they love failing, and I love to see their new formats fail. This is a good sign for those of us who want game systems to focus on playing games. To read more complaining, read this.

Blizzard sued by some guy who wants to sell Warcraft guides on the internet
This is a very interesting and possibly important lawsuit. The guy suing Blizzard sold his guides on eBay until Blizzard complained and they were taken down. They say he is trying to make money off of their good will and recognition they’ve built with their games, whatever that means. →  Zone of the Readers: The 2nd Reader

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 3.24.06

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PS3 to be region free.
Woohoo. Now I can buy RPGs I can’t play without getting the system modded. I expect this will increase the number of gamers who import titles from Japan, but also eat into sales of Western releases by a little, which is part of the reason console manufacturers always used region encoding.

GameStop makes huge profits.
Buying your competitors and selling used games as new really works.

Errrr
This pic of Representative Keeley is really a stronger argument against her position than anything I could write.

Jack Thompson and Delaware Representative try to brand violent games as obscene, thereby getting around that pesky First Amendment.
According to them games are not speech so they shouldn’t be protected. Since when did artistic expression need to be in the form of spoken words? →  Keep it warm.

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 3.17.06

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OMG itz a remote control!11111

Miyamoto confirms the new Zelda will use the Revolution controller.
Though in what regard, we are still not sure. If it’s simply for mini games or something silly like that, many fans may pissed off. I think Nintendo painted themselves into a corner with this new Zelda game. They wanted to release it as a GC game but then there are no other big games coming out on that system… possibly ever. So instead of supporting their own dead system they decided to launch it with the Revolution. Making it a Rev launch title makes sense, but then Nintendo would just alienate more fans because the game was originally promised for the GC. So now they’re trying to dress it up like a Revolution title to sell the system. →  Jet fuel can’t melt videolamer.