All That Nerdy Stuff » microsoft

Hot deal on Xbox 360 Pro!

Jason Ward — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 06:46:25 +0000

OK, OK, so I’ve been slacking off lately. I might as well just admit it and get it done with. Here’s hoping this will make some headway in making up for lost time, then: Woot is having a Sellout sale in which they’re letting the always desireable Xbox 360 Pro 60GB console go for just $229. I know what you’re thinking: “Oh, but it’s probably a refurb, and we all know how MS tends to treat refurbs”. Lucky for you, then, it’s not a refurb but a brand spankin’ new console.

Of course, you probably already know that the story has the 360 Elite (120GB) receiving a $100 price drop (to $299) to counter the newly minted PS3 slim 120GB version that was announced the other day at Gamescom, but still, for $229 you’d be hard pressed to find a better deal on the 360 right now. My feeling is snag it while it’s cheap, it won’t be too long before all you’ll get in this price range is the hard-drive-less Arcade model at $199 (though if Microsoft is smart, they’ll drop that sucker to $149 post-haste!).

Now about that Wii price drop…

Microsoft announces “We just invented the FUTURE: Suck it!”

Jason Ward — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:04:04 +0000

So, this was a couple of days ago now, but I’ve been so busy over at E3 and blogging at our sister publication All That Gaming Stuff, that I haven’t had time to drop a note about it here. Project Natal is, in a word, the single most advanced motion control system ever devised or introduced for a home game console (OK, so that’s not a word, it’s more of a…phrase-like construct…thingy). And yes, that includes Sony’s newly announced Wiimote Duo (and yes, you should check out the Demo, it’s actually very cool as an evolution of the Wiimote concept).

So what does this sucker do? Well for starters it detects your entire body and the motion of 48 of your joints. It also detects your face–and will automatically log you into your profile when it sees you. It can detect your voice–and distinguish it from those of your friends, your family and even the game or movie characters you’re watching or playing. It can rapidly scan real world objects and convert them to real-time objects in a game as you can see in both the above video and in Lionhead’s demonstration of its advanced AI character Milo. But the most impressive thing shown with regards to Natal so far is that it enables the game software to do something that no game software has ever done before–it can recognize your emotional states by reading your facial and vocal patterns. No other system on the market or announced for a home console has this capability, and what it can mean for games where characterization is of great significance (RPG lovers take note) is simply off the charts.

Sadly, Microsoft has yet to announce a release date for this impressive new device, but given that they’re now in a race against time to beat Sony’s new Wiimote to market, to say nothing of Nintendo’s Wii Motion Plus, which is already on the market, it’s likely that this device has already been placed onto a priority track in Redmond. I wouldn’t be surprised in the coming months to hear of a massive internal push by Microsoft to get developers up to speed with this technology, retrofit high profile existing games for which it will make sense, and get the device into the hands of consumers as soon as possible. If they’re smart, they’ll also bundle it with consoles moving forward to ensure a reasonable amount of developer support, but we’ll just have to keep our eyes peeled.

What do you think of Natal? Next-Gen or gimmick (or both?) Let us know what you think in the comments!

All That Gaming Stuff launches!

Jason Ward — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:28:10 +0000

We’ve been swamped the last week or so as we prepare for the launch of our new sister site, All That Gaming Stuff. While we occasionally cover games industry related news (and generalized bitching) here, the new site will focus exclusively on games news and reviews and Industry chatter. We’ll shortly be launching a new Gamer’s community on the new site where you can drop by and shout out what you think about all the latest comings and goings in the industry!

Welcome to the fold, ATGS, we look forward to a long and fruitful run!

UBISoft thinks new consoles in 2011ish–and they’re probably right

Jason Ward — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 05:18:55 +0000

It probably seems like premature nerdjaculation to begin speculating about the Next Generation of gaming consoles at this point; PS3 and Wii have scarcely been on the market for 2 years and 360 has just broken 3. Even so, that hasn’t stopped a little speculation from happening, not the least of which has come from UBISoft’s Yves Guillimot who, quoted in an article on GamesIndustry.biz, has stated that his company is preparing for the next generation to arrive in the 2011-2012 time frame.

As you should expect, there are naysayers, and some of them have good reason say nay, but they’re still wrong. The logic goes like this: “Well Sony says PS3 will last 10 years!”. Yes, and they said that about PS2, and that appears likely to be the case–but that didn’t stop Sony from announcing PS3 just 5 years after PS2 launched, and launching just a year later (that’s 6 years, folks, and if you use both hands worth of fingers to count you’ll find that 2012 will be-you guessed it-6 years after the launch of PS3-and Wii for that matter). Moreover, Xbox 360 will be 6 years old in 2011. Simply put, it’s not unreasonable to suspect that the next gen will launch-or at worst case scenario, be announced-by 2011-12.

While the present Toddlerific ages of the Current Gen consoles seem pretty young, reality is that technology moves at a breakneck pace and all three systems were behind the curve the day they launched (especially Wii when it comes to graphics processing). The advancement of technology waits for no one, but who will be first off the line with a new system? Will Microsoft follow the path of Xbox 1 and leap forward 4 years in? Given the success of Xbox 360, that seems very unlikely, and coupled with a weak economy the reasons against this notion are easily doubled.

Will it be Sony? Will they drop something more consumer-and investor- friendly on the market sooner rather than later? Given their problems with PS3′s sales lagging at a distant third behind their competitors’ one might be tempted to assume an anxiousness to get this embarrassing generation behind them. However, the state of their finances (they just announced an estimated 3 billion dollar overall loss) coupled with the enormous costs of developing and selling the PS3 (which has already devoured all of PS2′s profits for the last 8+ years) make it unlikely that they could afford to launch a new console early even if they wanted to. I wholly suspect that both Microsoft and Sony will wait until the last possible moment to launch their new consoles and that they will continue to sell their current consoles for as long as possible. PS2′s continued success in spite of being 3 years deep into the succeeding generation has proven that such a model can work.

What strikes me as far more likely is that Nintendo will strike first in the Next Generation console war, and there are many reasons to support this theory. We’ll discuss these reasons and think out loud about the games industry’s future direction in a series of articles beginning on Monday, January 26th, 2009. I hope you’ll join me for a little review and discussion, and if you really must, a flamewar in the comments section. Just try to be civil if you can, please

Windows 7-Personalize your PC goes Live

Jason Ward — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 23:33:04 +0000

As if it werent strange enough that Microsoft has publicly released the beta of the next version of Windows, possibly over a year early if their statement that “Windows 7 may not be out in 2009″ ends up being true, Microsoft has now announced that Win7s new Personalize Your PC website has launched. The new site (or Service, as the case may be) offers a variety of new themes, desktop backgrounds and gadgets for your desktop or Windows Sideshow (did that really ever materialize on any laptops?), all of which are, I suppose, geared toward making your PC feel more “you” centric.

And by “you” I mean “Me”, because we might as well just face it right now: this world revolves around me and should be personalized accordingly.