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Picard's Alien Flute

Paramout wanted to clear out years of Star Trek junk from its warehouses and have decided that the most efficient way to deal with it is to auction off its overpriced props to overly enthusiastic nerds. The props range from the (cool) actual special effects models of various ships (expected to go for well over $10k!) to some (lame) t-shirt someone wore on the (lame) Star Trek V (expected to go for over $1k !???)

Of the highlights shown on Christie's site, the one thing that appeals the most to me is actually one of the "cheapest" items: a "Resikkan non-playing brass flute".

That flute was used in one of the best episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and, later on, in one of the cheesiest moments of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It's a cool item that I wouldn't mind having, but there's no way that I'd pay $800 for it. I can get a functional next generation game console for that and still have money left over for a bunch of games. That'd get a lot more use than a non-working flute.

Speaking of which:

It even has its own weblog.

E3 Crabtacular

Due to the "me too" nature of a lot of game publishers, pretty much every E3 has a very visible trend, like toon shading or World War 2 shooters. The trend that was noticeable this year, to me, was crabs. Yes, crabs. It became very obvious right from the start during Sony's press conference. Microsoft's subsequent showing confirmed it.

While the crab-filled games were a vast minority on the showfloor at E3, they remained very visible because of their name brand recognition and/or the focus they were given by Microsoft and Sony during their respective press conferences.

The first was Sony's showing of the generic-looking Resistence: The Fall of Man, a game which seemingly combines Half-Life 2 with every World War II shooter ever. This is what we call "original" IP. No self-respecting Half-Life 2 clone can go around without half-Life headcrab clones, so this game has its full share. Not just small crabs, but giant ones too.

Then came the Genji 2 demo, which made me laugh and laugh so much. The idiocy of it has already caused it to become a bit of an internet joke, and it can be seen in the Sony Press Conference in One Minute video that's making the rounds. Once the giant crab creature showed its face in this historic game with real battles from history, there was no saving Sony's showing.

Microsoft came next and the crab hit the fan. That was proof enough of a trend. Thus, I present the E3 Crabtacular:

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Alpha Geek

Several days ago I was browsing the trailers on Apple's site (speaking of which, go see Cache -- good film.) Some were good, some were lousy, some were so-so. One of those trailers that I came across was Alpha Dog.

In the first minute of that trailer, before they even started to expose what the movie was about, I noticed one thing that pretty much forever soured the movie for me. Perhaps that's a bit melodramatic, as it is an inconsequential little error, but it's one of those little things that you notice that just bugs you like rediculous IP numbers on TV shows. While it's not on the scale of Hackers like misrepresentation (but what is really?) This crazy URL'ed Wall Street Journal covers just that very thing.

If you notice that one thing without any prior knowledge of its existence, you would surely score some geek cred points. Unfortunately for me, I didn't just notice it -- I wrote about it online. That makes me doubly lame.

I won't tell you what it is, but I'll leave you with two very obvious clues right below this...

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The Shadowrun Cycle

Shadowrun on the SNES was one of my favourite RPGs of the time, precisely because it was just so different from its contemporary Final Phantasy Mana Triggers. While I never did play the non-videogame RPG, I was certainly aware of its universe and I liked it. A mix of dark future cyberpunk with orcs and goblins and magic and high fantasy? Sweet.

With each generation of consoles, I was disappointed that no one would take on the Shadowrun name. It's unfortunate since the emergence of the internet made some of the game's network elements (hacking systems, etc) feel more relevant, amongst other things.

During the Microsoft press conference, which wasn't streamed live, Shadowrun was announced for XBox 360 and PC. I read about it from someone's text update somewhere. I was excited.

Later, when the video of that press conference became available, I saw the trailer. I was cautious. There was no gameplay footage and the animation and look and feel of the trailer was a little... weak.

Later in the press conference, during a demonstration of XBox to Vista Live connectability, I saw a very, very brief clip. I was annoyed. What they showed was nothing more than a generic-looking FPS deathmatch. Maybe there's a chance it'll turn out good; that it'll have a great single player campaign with strong RPG elements and all that good stuff. A small chance. Maybe. Maybe not.

Now I'm disappointed that someone finally did revive the Shadowrun name and I wish they just left it alone.

Launch Prices

1. The 3DO console launched with a price of $699.95 USD. The high price reflected the system's "revolutionary technology". It launched into a competitive market with lousy games and poor support, with equally powerful (more so) but substantially cheaper consoles, with better brand recognition, on the horizon. It flopped.
2. The Neo-Geo launched at $649.99 USD with with two joysticks, a memory card, and a single pack-in game. It was a premium priced system for a premium, niche arcade-focused market. While it didn't catch on with the mainstream market, it endured and lasted for a long time servicing that niche. Even with $200 games.
3. Sony Playstation 3 is set to launch at $599.99 USD.

I'm not sure if that's the company that Sony wants to be bundled with. Their launch price is making the -- then deemed overly expensive -- XBox 360 Premium price of $399.99 USD seem like a downright bargain. That will definitely work to Microsoft's advantage.

Since Microsoft already has established hardware, they don't need to spend their time hyping the technology. They can focus on the games and if they do that during their press conference today, instead of pushing bullshit like XNA and Vista, then they will knock the wind right out of Sony's sails.

E3 Sony PS3

With my convenient setup, I was able to watch both game two of the Senators and Sabres series and Sony's E3 press-conference at GameSpot's E3 Live site. When one got dull and boring, I'd focus on the other. I didn't miss much of the hockey game.

Perhaps I'm becoming increasingly jaded and I need to lighten up, but the majority of the content that Sony was peddling looked uninspired and dull. After talking sales, Sony showed a number of PSP trailers. Apart from Loco Roco, most were boring. Then came the PS3... and footage of a PS2 (Gran Turismo 4) game with higher resolution. Then a historic action game with real historic battles from Japan's past--a past which apparently involved giant crab creatures. I don't remember that from the history books. Then a God of War clone; then a Karaoke game; then an eye-toy powered physical card game, which was cool tech but seemed completely impractical. Then a whole bunch of short trailers that showed nothing. Even Metal Gear Solid 4 felt tired.

After a couple of disconnections of the stream, Sony was gearing up its big guns. The first? A motion sensor in the controller (where have I seen that before.) Innovative. It's not surprising, really, but they referred to the addition as "innovative" at least a half dozen times. Really now. While the tech is similar to Nintendo's controller, there is a strong difference in philosophy.

Nintendo used the motion sensor as a means to simplify the interface. Sony just tacked it onto an already busy Dual Shock controller. The new DualShock now has 12 buttons, 2 analog sticks, 1 d-pad, bluetooth wireless, 6-directional motion sensing, and vibration feedback (do they still have this, considering that lawsuit?). Whereas Nintendo removed, Sony added. The differences in philosophy are obvious. For Nintendo, less is more; for Sony, more more more.

Then they showed off Warhawk, a title that uses the motion sensor for control. Warhawk is the one game in the presentation (apart from Loco Roco) that I'm interested in. I very much enjoyed the original Playstation game and I welcome a sequel, especially since it's just the first sequel since the Playstation's launch. It hasn't been overdone and oversold yet. However, watching the guy (lead designer?) play the game didn't fill me with confidence. Maybe it's just him and maybe he was being overly exaggerated just to show it off, but with the motion sensor control Warhawk was flopping and twisting around like a plastic bag in the wind. It didn't strike me as nearly as smooth as the original pre-analog game's tight controls, which made the game what it was.

After all that came the price. Almost. First came the revelation that the system will launch in two tiers (where have I seen that before) -- a 20GB version and a 60GB version (there are likely many more changes beyond that but they're obviously hushed a bit to make the system seem like more of a "deal" -- CONFIRMED). The loser version will cost $499 USD. The real system will be $599 USD (a $100 difference does not cover a 40GB difference -- I'm sure there are other handicaps: CONFIRMED).

Sony, you might try to disguise it with a "budget" version of your console, but that doesn't change the fact that you are trying to sell a console with very similar games to what I can get now for 600 dollars. To that, I say "fuck that." By the time you launch, I'll likely be able to get an XBox 360 and a Rev Wii (we'll see about that during tomorrow's press-conference) for the same price.

The only good news from all of this? The Ottawa Sentators lost.

Listening to Your Customers

Time magazine has a story about Nintendo at E3, its direction, and some first hand contact with WarioWare Wii. The article is illicitly making its way around the internet. What stood out to me, more than any revelations about the hardware and the games, is one paragraph.

But the name Wii not wii-thstanding, Nintendo has grasped two important notions that have eluded its competitors. The first is, Don't listen to your customers. The hard-core gaming community is extremely vocal--they blog a lot--but if Nintendo kept listening to them, hard-core gamers would be the only audience it ever had. "[Wii] was unimaginable for them," Iwata says. "And because it was unimaginable, they could not say that they wanted it. If you are simply listening to requests from the customer, you can satisfy their needs, but you can never surprise them. Sony and Microsoft make daily-necessity kinds of things. They have to listen to the needs of the customers and try to comply with their requests. That kind of approach has been deeply ingrained in their minds."

The article then concluded with a trendy Nintendo+Apple comparison, which reminded me of something Signal vs. Noise posted once: looking back at an original iPod announcement thread with the hindsight that we have now. Their (sarcastic) comment then? Apple should have just listened to their customers and never released the iPod.

Rising Dollar

For the first time in my life, the Canadian dollar has closed at over the 90 cent US mark. Some are predicting that they will be equal in value by next year. Wow.

There's a multitude of social-economic effects of this, mostly involving cross-border business, tourism and all that other fun stuff. Whatever. The important question is: what does it matter to me? And with the kinds of products that I buy, small media things, it means a potential for a lot of savings.

The higher the dollar rises, the cheaper and cheaper importing from the US (or anywhere else abroad that charges by USD) becomes. And with relatively low shipping costs (for books, DVDs, games, etc), it is becoming increasingly cost-effective to just order stuff from abroad.

"Budget" games, which go for $19.99 USD, have always been exactly ten dollars more expensive here. This price is always fixed, so no matter how much the dollar fluctuates, they stay at $29.99 CAD. It's sort of like when books have a price tag printed on them in USD and CAD. No matter how much the dollar changes, the price will remain as it was when it was printed (barring sales and all that). Now, if I order that same $19.99 budget game from the US, all I have to pay is $22.38. 25% savings!

Of course, there's shipping too, but for small items it doesn't affect things too much. If I go by Amazon's rates, for three budget games shipping would cost me about $11.06. The games would be $66.60. In total three games with shipping would cost $77.66 CAD.

Meanwhile, if I were to walk into a local store and buy the exact same games with cash and, obviously, no shipping, I'd be paying $89.97

I save twelve dollars, get it delivered to my door and I don't have to go and deal with game store employees. This rising Canadian dollar is going to be a boon for online shopping.

Branding Alphabet Soup

Drove home on my Prius™ while listening to my Muvo™ today. Then I got on my Viiv™-enabled Vaio™ and Google™d for info about Roku™ while IMing with Meebo and exploring the Podcasts on Odeo. Sync'ed some mp3s with my Oqo™ and my Zire™ before playing with Ning a bit. By then I was already getting tired, so I turned on the Aquos™, cranked up the Jamos™, and started up my Wii™.