The unboxing process was nice enough but I wasn’t nearly as excited about this iPhone as I had been about the 3G, mainly because I didn’t expect this transition to be nearly as drastic. I was both right and wrong about this, in a good way, so let’s break it down:

Design

This – THIS – is what an iPhone should look like. I liked the original aluminum iPhone, and very much disliked the glossy plastic 3G and 3GS so this new design is a very welcome change.

Unsurprisingly, it feels great to hold – Apple has few peers in this area. In recent history their influence over competitors’ designs is somewhat obvious, but photos can’t portray just how big the difference in build quality is. At the risk of stepping into fanboy territory, it’s often the difference between buying a gadget and a functional work of art.

Interestingly, I did run up against what is mostly a psychological problem when setting the phone down. In a situation where I’m about to put the phone on a desk or other flat surface, I’d tend to hold it with my thumb on the left, four fingers on the right, and the screen facing up. The curved back of the iPhone 3G meant that the back of the phone would make contact before my fingers, so I could then release. The flat back of the iPhone 4 results in the opposite, meaning I either have to reposition my fingers or “drop” it slightly. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it an issue as it doesn’t result in any harm to the phone; it’s just an oddity.

Experience

I found the initial startup to be a little underwhelming, actually. I think there was a lot of buildup for the Retina display and at first I didn’t notice a tremendous improvement. It is definitely nicer – a little whiter and a lot sharper, but it’s something that requires a slightly closer look for me to really appreciate. Where the difference is most pronounced for me is the app icons, as some of them are still formatted only for the old resolution and are quite grainy as a result.

What I wasn’t expecting was for the increase in performance to be so noticeable. Everything is significantly faster than on my old phone, but for me the two most useful instances of this are:

1. The camera. It still takes a couple seconds to launch, but shutter actuation is much, much faster. It could still benefit from a bigger lens, but so could every camera ever made.
2. Wifi. Locking the iPhone 3G would result in a loss of wifi (understandable), but it would take its sweet time reconnecting when unlocked. Not so with the iPhone 4, which retains a wifi connection even while locked (presumably for short periods of time) or reconnects almost instantly when unlocked.

The wifi in particular is an example of what Apple does well: continually refining things that were already okay until they’re great. The 3G’s wifi performance was a little annoying at times, but it wasn’t a situation where identical behavior from the iPhone 4 would’ve prevented a purchase. The newfound responsiveness has been particularly useful when using Touchpad, the remote app for our Windows Media PC.

Gripes

I may be a fanboy, but I’m not so rabid as to admit that Apple’s devices don’t have their flaws. In this case, though, I think the nits I have to pick are mainly software-based except for two, both of which are self-explanatory:

1. More storage is always better.
2. The camera could be better still.

Even iOS 4 is pretty solid, in that it would take me a fair amount of time to remember and compile any of the complaints I would’ve had. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is with Apple’s implementation of Facetime. I certainly understand their reasoning for putting it front and center within the in-call menu, but they did so at the expense of the hold button. This resulted in a panic when I tried to put a call on hold the first time, and the end result was not pretty.

There’s been some coverage of this already, with the “official” response from Apple being that hold is just a glorified mute button. I get that, and now that I realize there even is a mute button I find myself a bit less peeved by the whole thing. The obvious question becomes: why did the two exist in the first place?

Also, I guess they’re having antenna problems or something? I wouldn’t really know as I haven’t experienced any.

And finally, still no 3G around here. Just go suck a dick, AT&T – you guys are terrible. On that note, though, I am now on the new DataPlus plan so I don’t feel like I’m being totally robbed every month. I guess that’s an advantage.

But you might be surprised to find that I didn’t join the masses today (or two weeks ago) considering my rabid enthusiasm for the newest iPhone. I toyed with the idea of preordering, but when the date jumped from July 2 to July 14, I figured that I’d be able to pick one up locally before then.

Yet this morning I got out of bed, did some work, ate a banana, went for a run, and came back here to write this. What I didn’t do was drive as fast as I could to Walmart (the only local reseller whose stock isn’t allocated to preorders) the minute I woke up, desperately hoping to get my hands on a shiny new toy. Don’t think that it wasn’t a major possibility.

In the last few days, though, I’ve been trying to pin down just why I so desperately wanted this phone that I felt compelled to inconvenience myself to acquire it. I couldn’t answer that question, beyond what I can only describe as a really strange sort of peer pressure, where by “peer” I mean “nerds and blogs”.

The only other explanation I can offer for this specific instance is that it’s the first time I’ve actually been eligible for a new iPhone at the time of its launch. AT&T didn’t even exist here when the first iPhone hit, and I was in the middle of my contracts for the 3G and 3GS.

But look! This is me, taking a stand.

I ordered one from the Apple Store while I was writing this.

• 940×640 HIGH-REZ “Retina” IPS display
• Front and rear cameras with flash and HD video recording
• A4 processor (like such as the one found in the iPad!)
• FaceTime video chat over wi-fi
• All-new (albeit unsurprising) industrial metal and glass case design

So basically, it’s everything that we all knew was coming, yet the fact that it is official and will be here soon (and on my half-birthday!) is no less exciting. It’s a home run in just about every way; I’m especially excited about the new optics. My entire list of gripes can be summed up thusly:

• Storage tops out at 32GB.

Given that iPhones have a tendency to catch up with the prior year’s iPod touch in terms of storage I didn’t think it was too far-fetched to expect the iPhone 4 in 32 GB and 64 GB flavors; instead they’ll remain the same as the 3GS which means they still can’t accommodate my entire music library (which currently weighs in at nearly 47 GB for those curious). But it’s a small sacrifice; I’ll be the first to admit that at least half of my library should never be listened to again, ever.

But the phone is just the first third of an all-important trifecta. There was a fair amount of talk about iOS 4 (formerly iPhone OS 4) as well; the iPhone demoed was clearly running that software which leaves me to assume that the new phones will ship with it later this month. I’m curious as to how that will shake out regarding the iOS 4 update for the current crop of devices.

And finally, AT&T may have actually made a decision that works out in my favor for once. Last week they announced a restructuring of their data plans for all smartphones, eliminating the $30 unlimited plan and replacing it with two new variations:

1. The “DataPro” plan gives you 2 GB of data per month for $25, with each additional 1 GB costing $10
2. The “DataPlus” plan gives you 200 MB of data per month for $15, with each additional 200 MB costing $15

It was difficult to determine how good of a deal this ended up being without first consulting my own usage records; as it turns out it’s rare for me to even come close to 200 MB per month. As a result, I think I’ll be able to safely downgrade to the DataPlus plan and easily knock $15 off of my current bill (and as I’ve mentioned before, price per month is much more important to me than buy-in price). And on rare occasions where I exceed that bandwidth, I’m still only paying what I was before, which is a fine compromise.

All things considered, I’m pretty pleased with this most recent round of iPhone news.

I’ll be honest and say that of all the headaches I’ve dealt with over the past few years, IE6 has decreasingly been the cause of them. I think more people are starting to come around to the theory I posted on Twitter this morning:

IE6 users either A) know their browser sucks and expect a degraded experience (corporate) or B) don’t know/don’t care (grandparents).

Everybody knows this is true. Any self-respecting nerd wouldn’t be caught dead using IE6 – we’re talking about software that:

1. is nearly 10 years old.
2. was never that great to begin with.
3. stopped being supported 2 versions of Windows ago.

All of which begs the question: why are so many people still using it? The obvious answer is because they can. Massive corporations insist that their websites continue to be IE6-friendly, which means there’s no incentive for the user (or the user’s IT department) to upgrade. And since they don’t upgrade, then massive corporations insist that their websites continue to be IE6-friendly.

Which is totally insane; the burden then falls on the developers to build websites that somehow feature the latest technology and run in a browser that was built before most of that technology was invented? I mean, we can do it, but we don’t like doing it because it encourages bad habits.

As developers we can only explain all of this to the client in the name of enlightenment, but If anyone can pull the plug on IE6 it’s the enterprises. Google, bless them, is leading by example and we can only hope others take notice. We’ve got to get the IE6 users potty-trained onto better browsers instead of coddling them into adulthood while they’re still shitting their pants.

After updating daily for six or seven months, I started to realize that I wanted this site to be something other than a daily photoblog. I’ve long been aware that I go though phases of creative output; sometimes it’s writing, sometimes it’s photography, and sometimes it’s just redesigning stuff. But as time wore on, my familiarity with the little Canon increased, as did my frustrations with its limits. I’d long since acknowledged that snapping off a few noise-free photos in less than ideal lighting was something of a pipe-dream; an acceptable sacrifice in lieu of the camera’s petite stature, but the image quality in general seems to be degrading as the camera approaches its fifth birthday.

Now What?

This left me in a sort of quandary; time for a new camera? Probably; but what to get? I’d long since had my eye on a digital SLR (also of the Canon variety) and even came close to pulling the trigger a couple of times, but could never go through with it. I had also been considering the Canon SX200/SX210, another point-n’-shoot. It was hard to argue with 14x optical zoom and HD video, but I just couldn’t bring myself to spend the money on that either. Another ELPH? None of them really got me excited like the SD400 did when I first saw it.

So I waited, and watched. And then I saw a Canon EOS 30D on Craigslist. And then I forgot about it for awhile.

Then I was driving and thinking that I really don’t have any good photos of my car, and that 30D popped back into my head. I scoured Craigslist and it was nowhere to be found. Defeated, I decided it wasn’t meant to be, and started looking at new Canons on Amazon. There were some alright deals, but I kept falling back to the same thought that has always kept me from buying an SLR: what if I don’t use it?

That’s why this 30D was so attractive to me: it was a minimal investment to dip my toes in the waters of more advanced digital photography. So imagine my excitement when it was relisted that same day. After some Twitter hemming and hawing, I decided that the extra cost of the XSi simply wasn’t worth it to me, and sealed the deal.

The Setup

Photo-nerds are probably wondering what I’m shooting with so far, so here’s the list:

• Canon EOS 30D
• Canon EF 50mm f/1.8
• Canon EF 18-55mm f/3.5 IS (soon)

It’s a short list, but a solid start. The first time I looked through the viewfinder on the 50mm, I was amazed at how narrow the viewing angle is, and it made me immensely glad to have won the 18-55mm on eBay that morning. Even so, I’m very pleased with the purchase, especially taking into account that what I’ve spent so far on everything is only slightly more than a new XSi body.

We played through the first world last night, and looking back I think I enjoyed it. The game looks great, and we did a decent job of remaining alive (a definite plus) and so I hope that trend continues. Similar to 2006′s New Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo DS, this game is a spiritual successor Super Mario Bros. 3 from the NES days. A prime choice; I consider SMB3 to be the pinnacle of Mario side-scrollers. So all is great, right? Well… no. While the game in and of itself has a lot of potential, there were also some attributes that really felt detrimental to the whole experience.

The big news in NSMBW is that you can play with up to four people simultaneously – no waiting for your turn; everybody’s on the screen, all the time. Except when they’re not. Unfortunately, it is possible for players to find themselves scrolled right off the screen, which can be overcome but may also result in death if they’re beyond the threshold of what the game decides is “safe”. Fortunately, the deceased player will quickly return in a bubble that you need to pop to get them back into the action (imagine Baby Mario in the Yoshi’s Island series).

Player interaction is another iffy item. For better or worse, your characters cannot all occupy the same space at the same time. This becomes problematic when two overzealous teammates decide to tackle the same obstacle simultaneously and instead end up as obstacles themselves. You can overcome this by constantly trying to call out your plans (“okay, now I’m going to jump on this Koopa”) but that seems like a strange thing to need to do for what should be a relatively casual experience. At the same time, it really does add to the atmosphere of the game and make it more interesting.

The biggest problem with this game, though, is where it is. My opinion is and always will be that the Wii platform is a hinderance to “normal” games. The controllers suck, not only in a physical sense but in an “it takes me 5-10 minutes to even get them to work” sense. By the time I’ve gotten the console to function I’m already beginning a game with a feeling of disappointment. Maybe it’s a repetitive fluke (oxymoron?), but how can Nintendo expect the console to appeal to non-techy casual gaming types when they can’t reliably sync their controllers to their consoles?

And while I realize that motion control is the Wii’s bread and butter at the moment, I think it’s ridiculous that they feel obligated to tack it on to every game just because it’s there. Making the game rely on motion control means that we are stuck with the basic Wiimote turned sideways (ugh, just like Super Paper Mario) instead of being able to use a Gamecube controller, the Wiimote/nunchuk combo, or the classic controller.

And that interface! Still so terrible.

Through this point everything remained fairly manageable. Thanks to the terriffic Twitter Tools plugin I was able to easily turn those tweets into “real” posts. But recently I’ve become smitten with a new (to me) service that leaves me wondering where to go from here: Tumblr.

I’ve been playing with Tumblr for a week or so, and I’ve found it to be a neat bridge between WP’s long-form posting and Twitter’s extreme short form, text-only entries. I like Tumblr’s versatility when it comes to handling a large variety of content types, and it seems to have just the right amonunt of meta for such things.

The problem is, I still like WordPress. I’ve built a nice little home with it over the years, and for longer pieces (like this one), it’s pretty darn great. Plus it has comments, although I’m just not sure how important that is to me anymore.

So given my current situation, it seems I have some figurin’ to do with regards to what andylaub.com actually is. The ideal for me would be to treat posts from Tumblr similar to how posts from Twitter are handled in that they’re imported into the actual WP database and join the archive. From there it’s safe to assume I could use the associated meta to manipulate the various sorts of posts as needed. Honestly I would love to see the same behavior with Flickr.

Currently, though, it doesn’t seem that such a plugin exists. I’m about 99% positive that I’d prefer to avoid the opposite approach (RSSing WP into Tumblr). The other option is to break everything apart completely and then reaggregate it into one central location, but that too seems like a huge compromise.

You’ll probably see me messing with this issue over the coming weeks; alternatively I may lose hope completely or go completely crazy and try to replicate some of Tumblr’s functionality within WP. Time will tell, but ’till then I’m certainly open to suggestions.

I’ve had a Gold account basically since the day I bought my 360, but truth be told, I wasn’t always convinced that it was worth the money I spent to keep it going. I realized that I really didn’t enjoy playing online competitively, because I basically suck at games (relatively speaking). I don’t have the patience to commit a huge span of time to getting good at Call of Duty or Gears of War, because it’s not even fun – it’s just work.

But recently so many of the games I’ve been playing have been offering some pretty attractive online co-op options. Fable 2 and Saints Row 2 both have modes for jumping into a friend’s game and playing through it, the same as you would when you’re alone. Then there are games like Valve’s Left 4 Dead, in which a single-player mode exists but really is not the point of the game at all – I’ll come back to this shortly.

With so many interesting games out there, my other frustration was that I had nobody to play them with. I am pretty shy about just jumping into games (well, any situation, really) with some random strangers, and that is another big factor that has prevented me from just randomly playing online. There was the occasional game with someone on my friendslist, but for the most part we all were emerged in completely different worlds, and they rarely intersected.

Something seemed to click, though, earlier this year. My BFF Jill (srsly) picked up a 360 in the spring, and so we started to play some stuff together. Then I started to become friends with her friends, and suddenly there were eight of us playing Team Fortress 2 and we all actually knew each other and it was amazing.

What’s even better is that Live now has something called parties. You can start a party with another friend, and it basically opens a voice chat session between the two of you. More interestingly, your other friends can look at their friendslist and see that you’re in a party with others, and join in if they’d like. If you’re all playing together in the same game, this doesn’t function much differently than the lobby of the game itself – and in some cases (such as team-based competition) that’s a more practical solution.

Where parties shine, though, is in their ability to unify two people who may not even be playing the same game. Single player games are still my preference, but if I’m working through some levels in Prince of Persia or blowing through some races in Forza, I can open up a party and talk to my friend who’s playing Portal and we can bitch about our respective challenges. Or there was that one time where three of us were trying to see who get through Half Life 2: Episode 1 the quickest.

Epilogue: Left 4 Dead edition

Left 4 Dead is a game about zombies. This in and of itself is not particularly enthralling to me. What makes L4D unique is its near insistence on playing with others in the campaign mode. The game puts you in control of one of four survivors, who are working as a team to escape the zombie hordes. Interestingly, you will always be working as a team of four – the only variable is what percentage of that team is real people versus AI.

As I mentioned above, you can play the game alone, and mechanically it’s very good. But it’s not really any fun. Much better to save the (only) four campaigns for nights when you and a couple of friends are all in the mood for some zombie hunting. Those are the times when the game becomes truly special and suspenseful.

Nothing that happens in L4D comes across as particularly scary – the game only has so many weapons in its arsenal in the form of a few specialized zombie classes. The real action happens when you or one of your allies gets pinned or knocked down, and you have to figure out how you can rescue them without getting taken down yourself. When you’re playing with the computer, you only want to save them because you need the firepower. But when you’re playing with friends, you want to save them because you feel bad – you’re emotionally attached by default, and that’s where the game really succeeds.

Imagine then, going back home, and trying to enjoy Super Mario Bros on the original NES. It wasn’t bad by any means – it just wasn’t “special” anymore. Mario World boasted multi-tiered backgrounds and sprites bigger than anything I’d seen before – remember the giant Bullet Bills? It had amazing new environments! It had Yoshi!

What’s interesting, then, is that no 2D platformer came along after Super Mario World that really made it look outdated and stale. The next huge Mario game was Super Mario 64 – and while it’s notable for the fact that it brought a third dimension to the Mushroom Kingdom, comparing it to any Mario game that came before it is basically apples and oranges.

An eternal plus for Mario is that the game was never meant to be photorealistic; so even today the NES and SNES titles manage to keep some freshness. The original SMB is a little flat, sure; but Mario 3 will always be an exceptional game. While the graphics in this day and age could easily be surpassed by my phone, it doesn’t matter, because they were what they were. They were, and always will be, classics.

Where am I going with this?

I just finally got around to playing Indigo Prophecy. It’s not a new title, having seen release on the PS2 and Xbox a few years ago. My curiosity was piqued during a discussion about it last year, and recently reinvigorated by the news on the developer’s follow-up title Heavy Rain.

My point here doesn’t require me to go into too much depth regarding the plot of Indigo Prophecy, so suffice it to say that it was in their best interest to make things look as realistic as they could. That is an admirable and common goal among a good portion of games nowadays. And I suspect had I played the game 3 or 4 years ago when it came out, I would’ve found it perfectly acceptable.

However, I have been playing games almost exclusively on the Xbox 360 for nearly three years now; games that have truly raised the bar in terms of what video games should be. It’s not really a stretch to say that these games have spoiled me with their bright colors and slick graphics – that’s kind of the point.

So from the minute I put in Indigo Prophecy, the deck was stacked against it. It probably didn’t help that I had just finished Prince of Persia, one of the most beautiful games available on the current crop of consoles, the night before. Everything about Indigo Prophecy was blocky, muted, flat… stale.

The thing is, I’m not convinced that these modern 3D games can ever be enjoyed the same way classic 2D games can. Why would I want to play the original Gran Turismo when I know that Gran Turismo 5 is even closer to the game Polyphony Digital really wants to make? I think that when the paradigm of game design shifted away from traditional 2D, sprite-based platforming games towards 3D polygonal mishmash, all of the 2D games that were great at that time (Mario, Metroid, Zelda) were immortalized.

I don’t think we’ll see that sort of phenomenon again for awhile, what with the massive leaps in technology happening so frequently. Look at Grand Theft Auto IV, versus Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, versus Grand Theft Auto III. You’d expect the differences between this and the previous generation to be pronounced, but even the two games on the same console are worlds apart after only 4 years.

This is going to end in one of two scenarios:

1. Games will continue to develop and advance, graphically, until they can’t go any further. We will have games that are truly photorealistic to the point where the only way to improve is to increase the scope of the game and continue to expand the player’s environment.
2. Console games as we know them will phase out due to some dramatic shift in technology. True, immersive 3D, I suppose. A sort of holodeck type of thing? Once this happens, it will basically render the current types of games moot, leaving the last of their kind to become legendary like some of the great SNES games have become.

So basically what I’m saying is that I like new games, and I like old games. It’s the in-between area that fails to light my fire.

The List

I have my phone divided into four pages, plus the typical quick launch bar at the bottom (Phone/Text/Safari/Mail):

1. Primary Apps (11 + Settings)
2. Secondary Apps (16)
3. Games (8)
4. Web Shortcuts (3)

I’ve decided to include arbitrary ratings for usefulness (how good it is at what it does) and frequency (how often I use it), 5 being the highest.

Recommendations

I’ve already covered Twitteriffic, TWC, and WhitePages Mobile; my reasons for liking them still stand. But here’s a quick rundown of the others:

• CameraBag is a nice little filtering app that makes the photos taken with your phone not look quite so lame. You can either shoot directly from the app itself, or edit photos after the fact. Here’s a quick example: before and after.
• Delivery Status Touch is the best package tracking app I’ve found with support for every delivery service imaginable. As a bonus it’s updatable from the web.
• Aurora Feint: The Beginning is a really fun game, when it works. It used to constantly throw out errors when it couldn’t talk to the server, to the point where you couldn’t even resume a game you were playing. It looks like the original free version had been removed from the store, replaced by Aurora Feint II; perhaps this newer iteration works better.
• Sol Free Solitaire is solitaire, with a few variations. Go play Demon – I’ll see you in a few hours when you realize what time it is.

Copy and paste is a welcome addition, obviously, as is MMS for those that actually use those. The additional calendar protocols are nice to see, although Google Sync addressed that issue a month ago. I don’t know how useful Spotlight will be, as I don’t think I have a lot of things that I have lost on my phone, but it will be fun to mess with.

But two features stood out and have me eagerly awaiting the magical summer day when I plug my phone into iTunes, and after it stalls and I have to restart it one or two times, I can finally download iPhone OS 3.0:

• Landscape Mode for Mail, Messaging, and Notes
  Just, seriously, duh. I never really understood why Safari was the only app to make use of the big horizontal keyboard; especially since that is not where a typical person would be doing the brunt of their typing. So I am really glad to see that option proliferate to the other apps that badly need it.
• Note Syncing
  Assuming this is implemented well, I am excited about it. I don’t use a ton of notes, but I really like the option to sync them from my computer. Now that I think about it though, a wireless sync would be even more useful than having to deal with iTunes just to update my grocery list. Oh well, we’ll see.

All in all, though, I can’t complain too much because it’s all free and it only makes the iPhone better.

However, there are some decisions that can be subjectively classified as missteps on their part. The new iPod shuffle is a demonstration that maybe not having any controls on the device is an idea that should’ve remained on the drawing board. I can’t say for sure as I haven’t played with one (and probably never will), but most of the complaints I’ve heard thusfar have centered around the decision to take the controls off of the device and make them part of the component that you’re more likely to replace or lose (the headphones). I don’t disagree with that particular sentiment, as having to carry specialized headphones for two different devices (iPhone and shuffle) is a concept that seems vaguely, uh, mentally deficient.

The one-button mouse, while an Apple icon, is another great example of their overzealousness for simplicity. The Mighty Mouse is a drastic improvement in terms of functionality, but only when you compare it to their previous offerings. Beyond that, it doesn’t offer much that can’t be found in even the cheapest optical scroll mouse. The scroll ball is nice – until it stops working, as it has now in every Mighty Mouse I’ve owned.

But the device where the button shortage bothers me the most is the iPhone. I pretty much despise the whole “slide to do whatever” mechanic – I would love to have the option to turn that off and just use some combination of the hardware buttons to bypass it. I’d even be fine if they used the Accept/Decline buttons that are present when the phone receives a call while unlocked. I don’t enjoy sliding my fingers around the screen for no reason; especially when it’s in an attempt to accomplish something that’s more easily achieved by pressing a button.

And that’s the crux of the matter. There’s no question that Apple makes some amazing products, but sometimes it seems they favor perceived simplicity to actual simplicity.

Except the content providers always seem to ignore that it’s not black and white. My viewing choices aren’t limited to “watch it on Hulu” or “watch it on live TV”. They also include “don’t watch it at all”, “torrent it”, or “watch it on TiVo and skip the ads”. So are those zero-revenue choices (admittedly I’m not sure about the TiVo one) really preferable to the revenue from Hulu’s ads?

1. Spin – Lifehouse
2. 100 Years – Five for Fighting
3. Mandy – Barry Manilow
4. Toxic – Britney Spears
5. Trouble – Pink
6. Na-NaNa-Na – Nelly
7. La La – Ashlee Simpson
8. Little Girls – Oingo Boingo
9. Livin La Vida Loca – Antonio Banderas & Eddie Murphy (Shrek 2)
10. Invisible – Clay Aiken

Terrible music aside, I Twittered recently that it would cost me $135 to upgrade my purchased iTunes music to iTunes Plus. In news that’s both depressing and reassuring, that number has since climbed to $153. Imagine my relief when I read today that iTunes is now offering a la carte upgrades, so I can upgrade the stuff I’m actually glad I bought the first time without having to deal with the guilt that would stem from paying yet again for the shitty songs.

As a bonus, I’ve been able to recover a few songs here or there that managed to lose themselves in my computorial transition last year. The ol’ Powerbook was easily confused and ended up occasionally trying to put music on its internal drive instead of the external where it belonged, and that music was lost when I formatted the machine. I was able to recover a good portion of it either from CDs or off of my iPod (SHHH IT WILL BE OUR SECRET) (also this is why I demand an iPod that will hold my entire library), but upgrading filled in a couple of the gaps that still remained.

Achievements & Landmarks

What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?

Lost weight on purpose. Went into debt for a car that I fell in love with.

Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I guess so, and probably not. They were always a half-hearted promise to eat better and take better care of myself. Also I’m pretty sure I was resolving about a Mac Pro heavily at this time last year.

Did anyone close to you give birth?

Uh, our neighbors? Or did you mean emotionally close? Then no.

Did anyone close to you die?

Sort of close. It would be wrong to say we weren’t close at some point.

What countries did you visit?

This one.

What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

Patience.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I don’t think there’s one big thing that stands out, but I’m really proud of the work I did on Over the River and Through the Woods and Sweeney Todd. And losing weight counts as a major thing for me.

What was your biggest failure?

I let things fall by the wayside that shouldn’t have, and got angry way more than I should have.

What was the best thing you bought?

The Mac was the most practical best thing, and the Miata was the least practical best thing.

Whose behavior merited celebration?

What? Not mine, that’s for sure.

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

People I thought I could trust. Myself included.

Where did most of your money go?

Toys. Lots of toys.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Grand Theft Auto IV. Driving stick. Singing in public.

What song will always remind you of 2008?

Monsters, by Matchbook Romance. Lame, I know, but it got me stoked for rides at Nine Mile.

Compared to this time last year, are you:

Happier or sadder?

Sadder, but I shouldn’t be.

Thinner or fatter?

Way, way thinner.

Richer or poorer?

Richer.

Miscellany

What do you wish you’d done more of?

Enjoying myself. Letting things go.

What do you wish you’d done less of?

Worrying. Spending money.

How did you be spend Christmas?

With people whose company I enjoy.

Did you fall in love in 2008?

Only on stage.

How many one-night stands?

None.

What was your favorite TV program?

I enjoyed SNL, as usual. Surprise second goes to Prison Break for no reason whatsoever.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Yeah.

What was the best book you read?

I don’t know – something that was on the bookshelf.

What was your greatest musical discovery?

Stephen Sondheim. The man is a genius.

What did you want and get?

Dollars, which enabled me to get many other things that I wanted.

What did you want and not get?

Resolution. Recognition.

What were your favorite films of this year?

Iron Man, easily. Dark Knight was also enjoyable.

What did you do on your birthday?

Complain. It was a tough day for me this year. That’s what I get for being born on Christmas Eve.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?

“Hey, this fits me now!”

What kept you sane?

The internerd. Driving. Acting.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Obama would be a logical answer.

What political issue stirred you the most?

Obvious also starts with an “O”.

Who did you miss?

People I could only talk to online.

Who was the best new person you met?

Somebody who helps keep me sane.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008:

Let. It. Go.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

I don’t think I can. That’s pretty lame, even for this.

It’s a Blu-ray player!

Everybody knows this about the PS3. And that’s because Sony has been shoving that information down your throat since well before it launched. But if you’re going to send your console into the world masquerading as a home theatre component, then the very least it should be able to do is conform to the standards set by other components. If you have to sell a proprietary remote for it because other “universal” remotes don’t work, that may be a hint that you’re doing it wrong.

As someone who is enthusiastic about home theatre, it strikes me as an obvious omission. No matter what I do, I can’t avoid having two remotes on the coffee table – one for the PS3, and the other for everything else. Even the PS2 gained an IR port in the middle of its life, and the Xbox 360 has had one forever.

Fortunately the PS3 is a stationary item with ample USB ports, and one would think it’d be relatively simple to design a small USB dongle with an IR receiver. Of course, Sony won’t do it because they don’t care.

It’s a phone…?

The reasoning in the iPhone’s case is not so obvious. I don’t know how many current phones have IR these days (is it even a “thing” in phones anymore?). But wouldn’t the iPhone be the most amazing universal remote ever? Plus, it has Bluetooth, so it could even talk to the retarded PS3.

1. No more monsters jumping out of vents
2. I can play another game without feeling guilty

I had initially started playing Far Cry 2 while in the midst of Dead Space, and all the freedom it offered had the interesting effect of making me long for the more structured missions of the very game I was avoiding. I managed to put about five hours into it before giving it up and returning to the land of linearity.

And so with the conclusion of Monster Zombies in Space™, Far Cry was forgotten in favor of a new contender: Metal Gear Solid 4. I’ll be honest; I didn’t have high hopes. I’ve played games in the series before and not done overly well, but given that this is the flagship game for the PS3 and beat out my favorite game ever for GameSpot’s Game of the Year, I expected that it would at least provide for an interesting and entertaining experience.

I was not wrong.

Like other games in the Metal Gear Solid line, MGS4 has a healthy serving of dialogue and cutscenes to accompany the gameplay – there’s a pretty good chance you’ll be watching just as much as you’ll be playing. But the Metal Gear universe is so deliciously convoluted that every bit of dialogue becomes important to understanding just what the hell is happening. Before playing through I had only a passing knowledge of the series, and even I wasn’t completely confused.

That’s not to say it’s brilliant or clever; more appropriate descriptions would be weird, or twisted, or just plain crazy. Still, it’s definitely interesting and keeps you intrigued. And you’re rewarded for your wait with some really good gameplay. Metal Gear games have always relied heavily on stealth elements, and while this one certainly is no exception, you’re provided with adequate firepower from the get-go that will make the occasional skirmish less of a punishment.

There’s not much else I can really say about this game except that it’s really fun, and you should play it if you have a PS3. After a stream of averageness, this is the first game I’ve played that really gives me hope for the console.

Why did I buy this game in the first place? I am not sure. I hate horror anything. I dislike being scared. Playing through Bioshock was a stretch for me. And yet, I elected to spend money on something that I knew – knew – would not be a good fit for me. The problem is, the game is good, both technically and creatively. It’s so good at what it does that I don’t want to play it anymore.

I am trying to force myself through at least a chapter a day (I started out strong, hitting the first 7 chapters on Thursday and Friday, and I’m up to chapter 10 now), and then when it ends I can finally play something I actually want to be playing. Everything about the game is too stressful for me. I’m not a fan of scary alien combat. I’m not a fan of not being able to find enough ammo. And I’m definitely not a fan of non-regenerative health, which shouldn’t even be allowed in a shooter in this day and age.

Seriously, give me a damn break. I am stuck on this mining ship, 600 years in the future, wearing what is some sort of incredibly advanced armor that allows me to store a ridiculous amount of weapons and ammunition (if I can find it) without weighing me down, but the same suit can’t restore my vitals over time? To me that just smells like an arbitrary way to make the game harder – it doesn’t really add any enjoyment or value. Alternatively, as you upgrade your suit throughout the game, make it an unlockable ability. But really, health packs? So 90′s.

So yeah, Dead Space – once it’s done, it’s done.

I find the concept fascinating, and it hits close to home for me. When I reached a point where I became self-sustaining, I started to adopt the philosophy that if I’m going to buy something, I might as well do it right the first time. Otherwise I know that I’ll just regret it down the line, and eventually buy it again. Since then I’ve still found myself burnt on occasion, but that’s not what this post is about. Nope – I think it’s time for a good old-fashioned meme:

• I love my iPhone. I am convinced it is the best phone in existence for me. I realize this is not the case for everyone, but regardless, something you use every day should be something that works with you, not against.
• Intel Macs are phenomenal. I can’t see a reason to go with any other brand for day-to-day computing.
• Get the biggest, nicest, highest-resolution LCD you can afford. There’s no such thing as too much screen.
• High-speed internet should be obvious.
• One year I spent my tax return on a really nice office chair. It’s a Herman Miller Mirra, and it’s awesome. I can’t say that it’s the chair for everybody, but everybody should have a chair that is equally awesome for them.
• Dyson vacuums suck so hard. In a good way, though. Especially the ones with The Ball™.
• The filtered water from our GE Profile refrigerator is the best water I have ever tasted.
• If you’re into TV, then you should have some sort of DVR. We went with TiVo, and will probably be shopping for a TiVo HD shortly. But it’s so nice not to be chained to your TV (or worse, a VCR).
• On that note, Hulu and friends are awesome, but they’re even better when you can watch them on your TV. There are a ton of approaches to this, so whatever works for you. But the ability to lay on the couch and watch the internet go by is key.
• Finally, one of the best things about no longer living in an apartment is a garage. Especially in snow country – I think I cleaned my car off a total of 5 times last season, and I can live with that.

Those are a few that came to mind as I was vacuuming this evening (ha!). What do all y’all think?

Which is a good thing, because that means I can save all the complaining for whatever that crap is that I see every time I power on the Wii. Honestly – Nintendo can do product design. They can do packaging. Even the DS GUI isn’t bad. So how did the crapshoot that is the Wii dashboard even happen?

I admit, this started out as some sort of diatribe but turned into an excuse to play with FancyZoom.

I was happy to learn that the two iPod docks were basically interchangeable, which meant that the older one always stayed at work while the newer lived on my desk at home. But what makes me even happier is that the iPhone 3G works in both, in addition to its own. This is good news, but it’s not without its hangups:

• The “work” dock was plugged into a wall charger – the FireWire charger that came with my first iPod. It always worked to charge the two iPods, but will not charge the iPhone – you’ll need a USB charger for that.
• My stereo at work is unshielded, which means some nasty GSM buzz in the speakers every so often. This isn’t a symptom of the dock so much as two incompatible technologies having it out, but it’s worth mentioning. I’m still trying to figure out how I want to approach that.

Still though, it works out nicely – for whatever it costs me to buy a new USB cable I can now have a nice charger for my phone at work, and there’s no additional unplugging going on when I need to sync the iPhone or the iPod at home.

AIM (Free)

Having any instant messaging app at all is nice, as it doesn’t use up my allotted text messages. And at least a majority of my contacts are on AIM to begin with. But here’s hoping for Adium mobile.
Download →

Calendar (Included)

I was a little hung up on how I was going to handle calendars on the iPhone. The built-in calendar works well, but I’ve been using Google Calendar now for about a year and really appreciate its across-the-board accessibility. The problem is that Google Calendar on the iPhone SUCKS and is extremely limited in its functionality. Then I stumbled on this article pointing to a site called NuevaSync, which basically keeps your gCal in step with your iCal. Phenomenal – it’s the best of both worlds.

Mail (Included)

It’s email. Having email on a phone is nice.

NetNewsWire (Free)

I’ll be honest – I’ve never been much of an RSS user. But on a mobile platform it makes so much more sense than accessing sites one by one. NNW has been great in this regard. The only problem is that I haven’t seen a way to add feeds through the app itself – you have to manage them through NewsGator’s web interface. Not a big deal if you’re adding feeds at home, but if you’re out and about and only have Edge, then have fun hoping the page will load. Once it’s done though, it’s fantastic.
Download →

Safari (Included)

It’s the internet. Seriously, I’m not sure what else to say about it, but I love the internet and therefore I love Safari. Duh.

TWC (Free)

It’s The Weather Channel, on the iPhone. Much nicer interface than their website, and loads faster too. Great for checking out the forecast as I’m getting out of bed.
Download →

Twitterriffic (Free)

A nice free Twitter app for the iPhone. Ad-supported (by The Deck), but it works extremely well for the cost of zero dollars.
Download →

WhitePages Mobile (Free)

Why in the world would you not want a built-in phonebook on your phone?
Download →

You may be surprised to learn that I was not among the desperate (this time). My 2 years is up come December, and I didn’t feel like arguing this with a Sprint rep, something I’ve tried before to no avail. But the article did pique my curiosity – when would my contract lapse, exactly?

So I logged on to Sprint’s customer service chat to find out:

Andy: I need to know when my contract expires.
[Rep]: I am showing your contract will expire on 12/17/08.
Andy: Okay – so is 12/17 the earliest I can close my account (I am planning on moving to a different carrier)
Andy: (without an ETF, I mean)
[Rep]:I am showing you will not have an ETF from this day forward.

Wait, what?

Andy: From 12/17?
Andy: Or from today?
[Rep]: From today on, you will not have an early termination fee.

So for whatever reason, my contract expired a month early. Which is why, since last Monday, I’ve been glued to my new iPhone 3G.

My final Sprint bill was for $4.04.

But after spending a couple of days with the new dash it’s safe to say that it’s a solid improvement over what was there before, both visually and functionally. They took a page from Sony in terms of an overall metaphor – both the NXE and Sony’s dash, the Xross Media Bar (XMB), use one axis for your main navigation and the other for sub navigation. That’s pretty much where the similarities end, as the PS3′s nav stretches horizontally across the screen while the 360′s scrolls vertically.

They both seem to operate in a reasonably snappy fashion – there was a bit of slowness (mostly in the marketplace) when the NXE launched, but now it performs at a speed that feels faster than the original. Even better, it doesn’t feel like an afterthought anymore. It’s clearly intended as part of the dashboard instead of feeling like an added application on the PS3. It matches everything around it and makes great use of the new interface.

But what about the other content? The NXE presents the information in big bold boxes, so there’s rarely any guesswork to be had as far as what exactly you’re getting into. The information is the hero, and it’s provided in easy-to-read type on a pretty blue gradient. It also just seems to relish the ability to give you that information. Sony opts to use small, monochromatic icons for most functions, which doesn’t really hinder anything, but it doesn’t really make things easier to find either; I sense that most either rely on labels or memorize the icons that they most frequently use. It’s kind of like comparing Web 2.0-style information delivery to that of a 1337 Flash Developer from the early 2000′s.

While that my sound like an insult, I think it’s just very indicative of Sony’s style of doing things. They’re giving you an icon and a title; consider it a bonus if you get more information than that as it would be an aesthetic sacrifice to do so. Microsoft clearly doesn’t think that way, and never has. Their information delivery has always been dictated by space on the 360, and now they’ve given themselves much more flexibility in that regard.

All in all, I think Microsoft hit it out of the park here, and has the best dashboard experience of any console.

The game plays decently well – controls are straightforward as one would expect for a platformer, although the surface that you’re moving along generally has 3 different “tracks”, for lack of a better description, ranging from closer to further away. Obstacles and platforms respect these tracks which makes for some interesting little puzzles (moving things in the foreground and the background and then using them as steps, for example). And while I respect the idea and agree that it adds to the gameplay, sometimes moving between the different lanes can be difficult or impossible for no good reason. And sometimes you’ll find the opposite is true – you’ll have switched lanes unintentionally, causing you to end up somewhere you don’t want to be.

But overall it’s good. Customization and creation are the true driving factors here, and the options abound. I haven’t been overly compelled to create any kind of level yet, but the stuff that you can do is truly epic. I am pretty sure that all the different elements within the actual game levels can be recreated with the level editor, which is impressive. What I’ve been enjoying is the levels that people have already created and shared online – my favorite so far has been a marathon level that starts you in a prison cell and lets you gradually work your way out, ending in a police chase! The only major fault I ran into (and I believe Sony has acknowledged this) is that playing online with other people in the same level is incredibly laggy, to the point of being essentially unplayable.

Unfortunate

One of the few other games I’ve been looking forward to trying was Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. I was happy to find a demo available for download, and in retrospect it saved me a bunch of dollars. The game plays fine – there’s not really anything technically wrong with it – but it just felt off. So for now I’ll continue to chip away at LBP when Abe has free time, and explore the user-created stuff when I’m on my own.

Super Summary

The PS3 is a respectable piece of hardware with some really cool and impressive features and interesting games that I still wouldn’t pay $400 – $500 for. That money would get you much farther if spent on an Xbox 360, which has many of the same games and more attractive exclusives.

Making Connections

Today the HDMI cable and adaptor that I previously mentioned arrived, so I could finally see the PS3 in all of its 1080i (that’s the best we can do right now) glory. What a difference! Text is crisp and clear, and everything looks so much more right. Another side note – I had originally ordered the component cables from Walmart using the gift card that came with the PS3 – but when I returned them they gave me cash; I found that odd. Great, but odd.

I also picked up an ethernet hub, as our router is completely used up when it comes to wired ports. Everything worked immediately as it should on both the 360 and PS3, so I was happy not to have to play network troubleshooting.

Customization

I still have not played any games, but I downloaded some themes. Like the 360, you can change the backgrounds and such to better suit your mood, but the PS3 takes it one step further and includes a new icon set with each theme as well as some wallpapers. And like the 360 (again), you can mix and match somewhat, so you can have a certain set of icons tied to a different background image.

Even better, you can download images via the web browser and use those as your backgrounds – there’s a whole Flickr group dedicated to it.

Life With Playstation

There’s one other interesting tidbit, and then I’m off to play some Little Big Planet for the first time – Life With Playstation. Picture the channels that the Wii has – weather, news, etc, and you’ll already have some idea of what this is. There are two sections right now – the Live Channel, which provides a global view of weather and news headlines on a regional basis (served by Google!), and more interestingly, Folding@home, which adds the PS3 to Stanford University’s Distributed Computing Project, intended to “research protein folding and misfolding to gain an understanding of how these are related to disease.”

As weird as that sounds, it’s really quite an amazing feature to include in a video game console. I’m not sure what the project has accomplished thus far or will accomplish in the future, but the fact that Sony has contributed to the effort with the PS3 is really pretty cool.

So when WalMart in all of their WalMartiness offered a $100 gift card with the purchase of an 80GB PS3, I jumped on it. I opted to order it from their website rather than drive out to the store (which is kind of a lose-lose, really) and it arrived yesterday, in the midst of a million other things I really should be doing instead. So far I’ve only spent about an hour with it, but it’s such a different feel from other consoles I’ve experienced that the initial impressions are probably some of the most interesting.

Packaging and Pack-ins

Since this is just a base-model, 80GB unit there’s nothing really to write home about. It includes a DualShock 3 controller (finally) and… not much else. There’s no power brick as there were with the Wii and 360, which is nice, but seriously, Sony? Composite cables? Those are worthless. I initially decided to get the component video adapter ($20) since our TV doesn’t have HDMI, but I remembered that it does have DVI, and so instead the plan is to use a DVI/HDMI adapter with a standard HDMI cable – it’s about half the price and we can continue to use it when we upgrade to HDMI eventually. The cables are all still in transit, which means that all of my experience thus far has been through the included cables.

Setup

Physical setup: no different than any other piece of hardware, so it’s worth skipping. Except that when you first turn the unit on you have to plug in the wireless controller… okay, whatever. The initial startup process begins with an orchestra tuning their instruments (this is the startup screen?), then guides you through establishing the date and time (can’t this be pulled from the network?), giving your name, and optionally connecting to the internet. Nothing particularly difficult, though it felt more tedious than setting up the 360. Or a computer, for that matter.

Which brings me to an interesting point. The moment you’re launched into the dashboard (Sony calls it the Xross Media Bar, or XMB), you’re bombarded with stuff. Not visually – the layout is very clean, but there are sooooo many features and they’re all much more apparent than on the current 360 dash. It seriously does feel like Sony was out to design some kind of living room computer and decided that they might as well add games to it and call it a PlayStation.

After this, I left, because it needed to download a software update (140MB!) and I had an appointment. An interesting side note here: you have the option of downloading the update on your computer and sticking it on a thumb drive for the PS3, instead of getting it on the machine directly. Anyway, when I came back, it was done, and I only had to spend 5 minutes scrolling through the EULA to get it to install. Then I created a PlayStation Network account (for free, which is great), where I had to do the same thing. I was almost worn out from all the scrolling, but then I got giddy that I could actually use the unit and not have to install anything further (for now).

It still looks terrible, thanks to the composite cable. Type is blurry, and it’s just not the crisp HD that it wants to be. I’ve played with the XMB with a proper video connection and it’s downright gorgeous. It needs to be that when you first turn it on. But other than that, it’s fine for now. Like I said before, it’s very computer-like, which means there’s a LOT of stuff there. Some of the options in the settings, while nice to have, would benefit from a line or two of explanation.

Surfing the Net on the Information Superhighway

The PS3 includes a web browser. I like this. I was anxious to find out if it would work for the only things I would really use it for – watching videos. So I tested it with a couple of sites, with cautious optimism:

• Adult Swim: Because I never know when I’ll need to watch some Aqua Teen Hungerforce or Superjail. It works!
• Hulu: Because watching Prison Break and Chuck when they’re on TV is too much work. It works! (I think)
• YouTube: Because the world needs kitten videos. It works! (Probably)

Everything seemed to be functioning. I want to go back and play with it some more once I have it on a proper ethernet connection, and then I can give final impressions. But still, I was delighted to see that Hulu apparently works, because we had been debating the purchase of a cheap media center PC for similar purposes.

And that’s all I know. Next time: I don’t know yet. Maybe the PS Store or something.

I was pretty excited when I found out that the new iPhone will start at $199, but that feeling quickly dissipated when I found out that it would cost an additional $15 a month ($75 vs $60) for what basically amounts to the same service (except it’s faster, I guess?).

Bloggers everywhere were quick to point out that these actually will end up costing more in a typical two-year contract despite the lower cost of entry, and I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m not even going to go so far as to say it’s unfair – I mean, the monthly charges are the same across the entire AT&T line (since all the devices are now 3G).

But at the same time, I don’t think I can make an additional $15/month commitment for such an intangible feature (which would mean a $35 increase over my current $40/month plan – nearly double!), which leaves me in sort of an awkward way; I could:

1. Suck it up and buy an iPhone 3G in December (when my contract lapses).
2. Scour eBay/Craigslist for a used-ish current iPhone and hope that the $60 is still available in December.
3. Scour eBay/Craigslist for a used-ish current iPhone and switch now, paying the ETF for Sprint.
4. Other.

None of those choices stands out as a clear winner, so I suppose I’ll just be hanging out until December and seeing what happens. What I’m hoping is that the initial fuss about unlocked iPhones will die down, and I’ll be able to find one for a reasonable price, and AT&T will be nice enough to put me on the non-3G data plan.

But still, get ready for six more months of phone-related posts.

One of the factors that has made GTA such a compelling series of games is Rockstar’s persistence in getting the environment just right. Not just in terms of buildings and appearance, but overall feel – sounds, conversations, advertising, and more. The PS2 generation of games were amazing for their time; everything felt so lush and fleshed out. The veneer has since worn a bit, mostly thanks to the huge leaps with this generation of consoles, but you can still pop in any of the games and appreciate the effort that’s gone into them.

But let’s talk about this generation. I’ll admit, I was a little let down when I learned (last year) that Grand Theft Auto IV would be set exclusively in Liberty City (same location as Grand Theft Auto III, but there’s little to no resemblance). I had been spoiled by the vast environment of GTA: San Andreas, spread over three cities and an entire state. But Rockstar had their reasons. Instead of simply making GTA IV larger, they wanted to make it deeper and more detailed. And considering the game was delayed by six months, I’d imagine trying to model another city with the same depth as Liberty would’ve added even more time. And finally, disc space was already at a premium, at least for the Xbox 360 version.

Given all this information, you get a sense that Rockstar really has their priorities straight. And when you play the game, your suspicions are proven correct. I could write pages about all the aspects of this game that I love, but to sum it up, I appreciate that they’ve given you a protagonist with a tangible background, and logical motivations. Then they’ve created a cast of interesting, funny, and sometimes annoying supporting characters and then wrapped that all up in a compelling story with many twists and turns. They’ve given you the opportunity to make some of your own decisions this time around, and while they don’t necessarily affect the story as much as you might expect, they’re still interesting and some will really have you digging deep to determine what decision you’re more comfortable with.

Visually the game is everything you’d expect. The surroundings are beautiful in that gritty sort of way; perfect in their lack of perfection. The vehicles this time around are especially nice. There were lots of oddly-proportioned cars in the previous games, but at the very least these cars are good-looking, if not downright sexy. The audio is up there as well, with the perfect amount of ambient noise, interesting pedestrian voices, and radio with humorous dialogue and well-chosen music. I especially enjoyed the cameos from Bill Hader, Jason Sudeikis, and Fred Armisen from Saturday Night Live.

The only thing that I had issues with at first was the updated control scheme. GTA IV introduced a new cover system and slightly different shooting mechanics. They also tweaked the handling of the cars to be slightly more realistic. I’m still getting used to the new controls, even after having spent nearly 100 hours in the game, but I do like them significantly more than I did when I started. Ars Technica’s Ben Kuchera summed the game up perfectly in his review:

This is not a game that instantly impresses, and the more time you spend seeing what surprises the game holds for you, the more you will be drawn in. By hour five you’ll be happy, by hour ten you’ll be impressed, and by hour thirty you’ll be blown away.

Plus, it’s the highest-rated game on Metacritic and holds the title for the biggest video game launch ever.

If it were to resurface, I have a sneaking suspicion that it will decide to do so on the morning of April 29th which would easily be the worst possible time. Given this, I have mentioned (only half-jokingly) that I have a requisite amount of dollars set aside for a replacement should the need arise.

However, this would result in two Xbox 360s, and technophilic as I may be, that’s just silly. And redundant. And unnecessary.

So instead, an emergency trip to Best Buy WalMart would be in order to procure a replacement of a different kind. I am terrified of this Plan B. I hope dearly that it doesn’t come to this.

Impressions

I like it, obviously. It’s fast and more than capable of handling everything I give it. I no longer dread working on print-resolution Photoshop files, and I can actually browse Flickr without locking up the browser.

The new keyboard takes a little getting used to but it’s very nice. The decision to move the hotkeys around is kind of strange, especially since the keys used by the volume controls are also the keys used by Expose and Dashboard by default, a problem easily fixed by reassigning the Expose keys. Still though, it’s a strange decision because they overlap and impede functionality in a way not everyone would know how to overcome. With the recent Macbook revisions, all of the keyboards now follow this standard, so maybe we’ll see this addressed in a software update.

Beyond that, there’s not much to say. It’s like my old computer but better in every way, and I can run Windows on it. I’m not sure there’s a downside here once you get past the price.

While both of these games seem about as different as can be (and gameplay-wise, they certainly are), they share a common thread in that their graphic design has been impeccable. This is more readily apparent in DiRT, as you’re enveloped by Helvetica as soon as you load up the game. I’m serious; be prepared to budget an extra ten minutes or so just playing around in the menus; they are amazing. My favorite part has quickly become the metallic sheen on the gold/silver/bronze portions after you win races. There’s something remarkably special about it, and the menus as a whole are the icing on what is already a very strong game.

You’ll have to look a little further to be truly amazed by Call of Duty 4. Once you get to the cutscenes and mission intros, you’ll be treated to some blockbuster-quality footage. Honestly, and this may not sound great, but think of a Michael Bay movie. Not the blowing-stuff-up parts, but the exposition parts. And also Enemy of the State, that Will Smith movie. It’s just incredibly high-caliber work, and all I can think when watching is that Infinity Ward (the developers) must have been chomping at the bit to make a game that wasn’t set in 1945. Boy, did they kick some ass. All of this after the relative disappointment that was the previous installment (from a different developer), and the result is a disc full of awesome.

There seem to be an awful lot of those lately, and as a gamer, it delights me to be living in a time where games are becoming more and more powerful as a type of media. I love that so much effort and time has been into delivering not just good gameplay, but a good experience as a whole.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go fire up the 360.

The big difference, and the big handicap on the PS3′s part, is that effing controller they insist on rehashing. I’ve complained about it before, and it’s still terrible. As it does on the 360 DiRT relies on the bottom shoulder buttons (L2 & R2 on the PS3; LT & RT on the 360) to control your brake and throttle. While this works great on the Xbox (thanks to .25-.5″ of travel on each trigger), the whole thing feels ill-suited to the pre2k stylez of the SIXAXIS. This is all exacerbated by the fact that now the technology is on a console that’s “next-gen” and costs $400 instead of $150.

The Playstation controllers used to be pretty decent. The PS1 controller looked like a mutation of the Super NES controller. Nothing wrong with that; it was more ergonomic and boasted two extra buttons. All this while Nintendo went off the deep end with the N64 controller; I don’t know why it looks like a trident. I don’t really care at this point.

But anyway, the analog sticks soon made their appearance and that’s where Sony’s been since, barring minor alterations. I have a feeling we’ll still be seeing this same basic design in 20 years, kind of like Eames chairs. And just like the Eames chairs, they’ll be increasingly expensive and “classic” but still not so hot ergonomically.

Here are the three things that need to happen for the DualSho… er, SIXAXIS to be a contender:

1. L2 & R2 need to be triggers, not just big buttons.
2. The left analog stick needs to change places with the direction pad; analog is now the primary method of control in games; the d-pad is ancillary if it’s used at all.
3. Rumble.

That sounds like… the 360 controller! I guess somebody’s been taking notes, at least.

But not for me.

My big hangup was that I already have a not insignificant sum invested in my current display. I like my display, and so the iMac would have to function as an addition and not as a replacement. While it’s more than feasible technically, it leaves many things to be desired aesthetically. And the more I thought about it, I started to long for more RAM slots, room for more hard drives, and a design that I fell in love with the day it was introduced in 2003.

I will own a Mac Pro.

Personal experience with both of these within the last twelve months is enough to make me rethink my buying strategy, as twice now I’ve bought a game in the hopes of a new yet familiar experience, only to conclude that that once was probably enough.

The Benchmarks

Last year two franchises came into my life that I had not previously had an interest in playing. Both were launch titles for the Xbox 360, and both are remarkable games. It didn’t take me long to play through either of them, and I was impressed by the entire experience in both cases.

The Successors

Something got broken in the transition to the newer titles. One sequel was handled by a different developer, and while I’ve heard great things about the multiplayer, I think the single player experience suffered for it. Everything was mostly the same with small changes that seemed more like they were different for the sake of being different than anything else. I bought it right after finishing the previous title and forced myself to complete it before I could move on to other games, but I haven’t touched it since.

The other game showed a lot more promise, and I was genuinely excited for its release. There were some really great features promised, and upon playing through I can’t argue that they weren’t delivered. But at the same time, they again seemed to make some arbitrary changes, and the game lost some of the slickness that I liked so much about its predecessor. I think about the day I bought it. I needed to use some about-to-expire Best Buy offers, and so it was between this, Bioshock, and Halo 3.

I should’ve waited for Orange Box.

The Conclusion

You may be wondering why I haven’t mentioned titles. I’m not convinced it’s really relevant; despite the fact that I was disappointed by the games in this context, they are both quite good. I guess they just weren’t what I was hoping for.

I think it’s a decent package, but not one that will appeal to the target 360 demographic since that person would probably prefer a hard drive. But I suspect that it will be the last bit of activity we see in the 360 lineup for a few months (at least until after the holidays). What sort of activity?

• Spring 2007: Xbox 360 Elite released
• Summer 2007: price drops across all three SKUs
• Summer 2007: HDMI quietly added to all SKUs
• Fall 2007: Xbox 360 Halo Edition released
• Fall 2007: MS announces Forza 2 & Marvel: Ultimate Alliance will be added as pack-ins to Xbox 360 Premium (“Pro”)
• Fall 2007: Xbox 360 Arcade replaces Xbox 360 Core

That’s quite a lot of rearranging. It makes me a little relieved that I picked up my 360 a good 6 months before any updates started happening; that was enough of a bubble to cancel out the buyer’s remorse phase. I probably would’ve been willing to shell out an extra $80 for an Elite, only to be disappointed when the prices all dropped three months later.

Worse yet, the price drops were publicized, but the addition of HDMI was not. So if you walked in to pick up a 360 at that time, you could’ve ended up with either unless you knew to take a close look at the box.

And even then, you confidently buy the $350 model, confident that this is close to the best deal you’re going to get aside from the crazy post-Thanksgiving promos, only to have them announce $100 worth of free games a month later.

It was not my intent to single out Microsoft. I’m well aware that they’re not the only ones playing this game. What is nice is that when you look at all the updates this year, you can basically pare it down to two basic choices: HDMI or not? Everything else can be added as needed. The games can be bought separately, as can the hard drives, wireless controllers, and memory cards.

One of my main reasons for enjoying console gaming is that compared to PC gaming, it has always been easier to work with from a hardware standpoint. Consoles are a very Apple-esque approach to video games, as the main manufacturers (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo) are the ones controlling everything. Combine that with a need to only really do one thing well (play the games), and you have a much simpler experience.

That was the case for quite awhile. Sega went through three versions of the Genesis, and Nintendo did two each of the NES and SNES, but underneath the hardware and experience were the same. Where Nintendo really did a number was the Game Boy, which received incremental updates nearly every two years for its entire existence. There was never really a great time to buy a Game Boy, as you could never be confident that a better one is not right around the corner.

That mentality is basically universal now. There are rumblings that calendar year 2008 will see some major hardware updates for the 360 in the form of new processors and potentially HD-DVD integration. I’m not sure what we’ll see out of Sony; 2008 could be a quiet year since they seem to have hopefully worked out all their SKU issues this year. I honestly don’t know what to expect out of Nintendo. The Wii and DS are both selling well, but I wouldn’t put anything past them.

It’s unfortunate that buying a console in this day and age is not something one can do with 100% confidence. But that solid black PS3 is hot.

With the release of the new iMac today, it’s safe to reason that none of those potential issues have been addressed, since the new iMac is essentially the old iMac, but thinner, faster, and silver-er.

That’s not to say it isn’t dead sexy. JB said that he thinks this is one of the best-looking Macs ever made, and while I’m not ready to give it that, I will say that it is one of the nicest Macs in a long time in terms of actual beauty. If you think about it, Macs of the most recent generation wear very little jewelry, content in their aluminum and plastic skins while iPods and iPhones are allowed a little more flash. This newest iMac is a slight departure (I see a lot of iPhone influence), and I wouldn’t be surprised to see typical iMac reactions go from “where’s the rest of the computer?” to “wow, that’s really cool”.

And at the same time, it feels a little derivative to me, both of the G5/Intel iMacs and of every single modern TV made. Rounding the corners made it apparent that it’s something different, but the black bezel/silver base motif is one that’s been popular for years now. But considering the materials used (glass and aluminum vs. plastic) and the fact this is a full computer and yet remains similar in size and depth to those TV’s, it’s still impressive.

I think the new keyboards introduced today are without a doubt an aesthetic improvement over their predecessors. I’ve been quite pleased with the feel of the current/old units but disappointed in the unparalleled amount of dirt they’re able to accumulate, and I hope that these new models are easier to clean. I like the clever integration of the USB ports (wired) and battery chamber (Bluetooth), because it’s a great example of function-inspired design that only a few companies do really well.

It’s pretty easy to conclude that while the new iMac really doesn’t offer anything beyond the expected evolution in functionality, the added shininess will ensure that it remains a strong seller for Apple. They’ve got a buyer in me as soon as Leopard rolls out, and if I can figure out what size to get.

Mistake.

The alarm went off in the morning as it usually does, and I glanced briefly at the time before hitting one of the side volume buttons to silence it as I always do. Then I fell back asleep. Then I woke up 35 minutes later, panicked and wondering why my alarm hadn’t gone off again. I opened it, and things became clear.

When alarms occur on a Motorola phone, they go into a sort of queue and await your attention. The “missed call” message was in this list, as was the “new voicemail”. And because I never cleared these notifications (since I closed the phone upon hanging up the previous night), the snoozed alarm fell inline behind these other 2 less time sensitive items.

So that’s how I overslept because of bad UI design.

Then there were the times where I’d try to open the phone as it was ringing, which normally isn’t an issue. Every so often though, I can’t open it on the first try. Again, not normally an issue, but the way the hinge is designed, it snaps the phone shut before you can try to open it again. The problem here is that opening the phone the tiniest bit answers the call, and that snap shut is enough to disconnect, leaving the caller to think that you’ve hung up on them.

Finally, there’s the fact that it doesn’t get a signal in my basement. Nor does it always work with the stereo headset. And it isn’t very good at playing music. And there’s a piece of tape on the battery to keep the cover from falling off.

But it hasn’t scratched, so there’s that, I guess.

As if that wasn’t enough, the 360 has returned as well (as of Tuesday), and proven that it truly is capable of playing the copy of Crackdown that had previously been its downfall. Suddenly I’m left with more games than I know what to do with, all before a weekend where I’ll be away from gaming (which will hopefully be replaced by biking).

So that leaves me with the formidable Wii60 combo, as the cool kids call it, and playing the two back to back reveals an almost polar opposite in their philosophies. But there are some similarities as well in that they both are, uh, white. They also play discs, use wireless controllers, have online stores for more games and/or content, and offer some capabilities beyond just gaming.

The Wii is a great console at a great price point. It’s pleasantly compact and the process of creating a Mii is pretty dang fun, and the experience of seeing your Mii’s emulate your actions on screen is even better. But my favorite part about the Wii, the “wow” moment, was watching my avatar follow my moves through whatever sort of dark magic Nintendo has used to accomplish this. It’s incredibly fun to play a game of bowling or baseball (well, Hitting & Pitching would be a better title) and actually be moving instead of pressing buttons. It helps that Wii Sports is the best bundled game to ever come with a console (that the console actually includes a game is something to be excited about), as it provides an excellent way to orient yourself with the world of motion-based gaming.

But that’s pretty much it. It will be interesting to see how many more games are released with the same appeal of Wii Sports, because a game like Super Paper Mario doesn’t make me think “boy, I’m glad I have this square controller in my hands instead of one of those newfangled ergo-thingies.” So while the idea behind the Wii seems to be gaming oriented, it doesn’t seem to work spectacularly well, neither in graphics nor control, in more traditional games.

That’s where the 360 comes in. Microsoft may try to sell you on its prowess as a media center, but this box plays games, and does it well (except for the part where it broke). 720p beats 480p every time, so the 360′s graphics look great. Additionally (and somewhat surprisingly) the Xbox 360 boasts a menu (the Dashboard) that’s leaps and bounds more intuitive and usable than the Wii’s. We’re talking at or above Apple level here, a feat they can’t seem to duplicate on any of their other products.

Furthermore, while wireless is quite handy, the Wii’s secondary remote seems to disconnect whenever it feels like (namely when exiting or starting a game), while the 360′s behavior is much more predictable; as in, not turning off until you turn it off.

To conclude, because I’ve gone on waaaay too long, the Wii brings experiences to the table that the 360 can’t match, and is a great “supplemental” console. But I’d be hard pressed to call it my favorite; the 360 still takes that title.

Saturday was a whopper, requiring the transportation of two desks, two beds, an enormous bed frame, a heavy but delicate (horrible combination) mirror, and other things that I’d rather not lift again for another 5 to 10 years.

Additionally, the first floor is pretty much arranged save for some random boxes and as-yet-unpurchased furniture, while the basement is on hold until the carpet is installed, so no Xbox 360 for me for a couple of weeks.

On the plus side, ethernet connections mean no more dropped wireless on my laptop, and we can use USB for the printers so the Airport Express becomes available for music streaming duties in the living room.

Also, we have a garage (yay) and a driveway (yay) and it has snowed every day since Saturday (boo). At this part I would say look for photos soon, but seriously, don’t. I’ll get to them when I get to them.

2005 was better. We got the iPod shuffle and the Mac mini (after the obligatory hour-long iApp speech). 2006 was even more interesting, marking Apple’s first entries into the Intel arena with the Macbook Pro and the iMac. And the hour-long iApp speech.

But this year. Wow. Again, I’m in the market for a new machine, but nothing happened. It started off great. A few minutes on sales figures (doing great!), 15 or 20 minutes on Apple TV (interesting name, but whatever. Did they really need to write “TV” on the unit?). 11:30 or so, iPhone. Awesome, getting out of the way for the good stuff. Not to say the iPhone is bad, since it’s exactly what I said it should be. 12:00 rolled around, I went to lunch. 12:45, I return from lunch, refresh the browser and they’re still talking about the damn phone. Wait, is this keynote 2 hours or 3 hours? It’s only two, and John Mayer – again – is there, playing the soundtrack to my disappointment.

No Leopard preview. No new Mac hardware. Not even a look at iLife 7 (if it even exists?). But they did drop “Computer” from their name, so uh, that’s comforting. Even better, the products they showed aren’t even available yet! Awesome! I feel bad for the people watching the keynote coverage, car keys in hand, ready for a run to the nearest Apple store. Sorry losers! You get nothing!

I perked up when I read later that Apple (finally) updated the Airport Extreme; maybe there’s more news in the pipeline? But unfortunately, even that is flawed with its obvious omission of Gigabit Ethernet, a standard that Apple itself has been touting for years.

So let’s see; two products that I have no use for (even so, the iPhone should be sold unlocked, not tied to Cingular) and one that is missing a key feature… yep, this was a bust.

Here’s hoping that MWSF is better than that.

If the “iPhone” does come to fruition, I’m hoping it will be as a worthy entry into the smartphone market to compete with the likes of the BlackBerry, Samsung’s Blackjack, and the Motorola Q. This seems to be a much more logical point of entry, considering it could fill the void of both a mobile phone and the PDA that Newton fans have been clamoring for since the 90′s. Additionally, as good as the current smartphones are, there’s certainly room for improvement in both functionality and form, two areas in which Apple’s a force to be reckoned with.

I’m not sure what else to expect from this keynote. Maybe we’ll see some incremental updates for other machines (I’d have no problem with a speedbumped iMac), and maybe Apple’s got even more surprises. We’ll know in a week.

The first thing you’ll want to do when you unbox your new friend is get your contacts on there, right? Assuming that they’re living in your Address Book, you can use iSync to do this. The first thing you’ll want to do is make your phone discoverable using the Bluetooth menu, then find it using the Mac’s System Preferences. You should be able to pair the two without issue, but you won’t be able to do anything beyond that, so don’t worry about it yet.

Instead, go here for instructions on how to modify the file to work with your phone. If you’re on Verizon, you’re done. But if you’re on Sprint, rather than searching that entire forum, just go here for the code you’ll need to paste in.

In theory the SLVR should work just fine as well, using this, but I can’t verify since I don’t have one.

After that whopping 10 minutes of work, your Mac now decides that the Moto is cool enough to share contacts and calendar entries (but not to-do items) with.

The next challenge: how to transfer music and other media back and forth? BitPim is the answer. After downloading, follow these steps for setup (via the forum linked above:

1. Start Bitpim
2. Plug in your phone
3. Go to preferences
4. As phone select “other cdma”
5. for the port [click "browse" and] use the first one that says “usb device – vendor motorola…”
6. press ok and ok again
7. click on the filesystem
8. drag the bar on the right of where it says file system to make the filesystem more visible

One note; by default the “Filesystem” option is not turned on, so you’ll need to check that option in the “View” menu.

With that, you’re now able to transfer ringers, wallpapers, and other media to your phone without having to use an uploading service (=bandwidth). I used Audacity to record the ringtones from my old Samsung, exported them as mp3′s, and then transferred them over because the KRZR didn’t have any good (plain) tones.

This is going to be my mantra for the new year. It doesn’t make much sense out of context, so here goes:

My last two real posts have dealt with my trials and tribulations of finding and choosing a new phone to go with my two-year contract renewal with Sprint. At the outset, this really shouldn’t be that big of a deal. It’s only a phone.

And yet, I’ve written no less than six times about it over the past year. This event has achieved monumental status, my excitement and anxiety growing as The Day drew ever closer.

I’ve had battles of historic proportions raging in my head between the Samsung A900/M and potential contenders, and each time the Samsung had managed to overtake its opponents. Then Motorola had to step into the ring and open my eyes to the magic of media card slots. Well gosh… maybe 50 megs of storage isn’t enough? Was the RAZR a better candidate?

Then I was wooed by the Samsung M610, promising to be all sleek and cool. And expensive; let’s not forget expensive. But it just *had* to be unattainable.

Salvation came, or so I thought, in the form of the Sunday Best Buy flyer. $79.99 KRZR’s for everybody! Get ‘em while they’re hot. Temptation took its hold, and I caved. I became… a Motorola owner. It’s not such a bad deal. Choosing the KRZR (terrible name; I prefer K1m) over the M610 saved me $100 (at least). And now I have a phone that I can actually sync contacts and calendar entries to without having to call in some sort of voodoo, uh, person.

I thought I was done, and then the phone started to irk me. Was it too heavy? Were the side buttons too hard to press? Would it damage too easily? Was I happy?

Hi, my name is Andy, and I have gadget-induced neurosis.

I ended up at Best Buy again tonight, seriously considering trading the KRZR in for a SLVR (similarly equipped but in the candy bar form factor). But I resisted. I went out there to look, and that’s all I did. I left with my phone still in hand, feeling a little better. Either phone is a winner, but there is nothing wrong with the one I already bought. It’s only a phone.

Here is the simple procedure I went through to not get my phone!

1. Went the local Sprint Store. Phone (which is currently online) not available until “after the holidays.”
2. Called Sprint. Started ordering phone. Phone is not in the system (yet they knew how much it costs? They must have web access too.) and will not be until “after New Years.”
3. See step 2.
4. See step 2.
5. For good measure, see step 2 one more time.
6. Went to a Sprint “Express” Store. Phone will not be available “for 3-6 months; try a metropolitan area.”
7. Gave up and tried to order phone online. Thwarted by seemingly innocuous¹ credit card errors. On two different cards. Then my computer blowed up. I had to go to the library to type this.
8. Okay, that last part was a lie.
9. But seriously, this is ridiculous.
10. Live-chatted with a CSR. Told to call Order Support. Not open until Monday. More waiting. Wheee!

Maybe I should just settle for one of those other phones after all…

1. Quote, for whatever it’s worth:
   

   Sprint is preventing any further orders for the M610 by putting a phony ” Your card cannot be authorized!” message when you try and submit the order.

Of course, they both had their disadvantages; the A900M suffers from only 50MB of internal, non-expandable memory and I’m just not that fond of the RAZR in general now that they’re everywhere, especially not with Sprint’s 2-tone color schemes.

So where did that leave me? Like I said, hopping back and forth over the proverbial phone fence like a caffeinated jackrabbit. Well now I say no more hopping. I have an answer and it is none of the above.

Sexophone: The Samsung M610

The solution to the problem, as is often the case, was to throw more money at it! I say that only somewhat sarcastically since it is true in this case, but the phone I’ve settled on is the newly-minted Samsung M610, or as the marketeers like to call it, The thinnest clamshell phone in the US of A.

Thankfully, mercifully, Samsung has managed to integrate the best features from both the A900M and the V3m. A short list:

• Brand new Tron-esque UI (light on black background; totally hot).
• 2.0 megapixel camera.
• Micro SD expansion slot.
• “Less is more” design philosophy. I’m digging the mini monochrome display on the lid instead of the ridiculous color screens that are so common these days.
• Estimated 3.5 hours talk time, 2.5 days standby.
• It’s a Samsung, which means I’ll have the same ringtones as my current phone.

Best of both worlds? I’m certainly hoping so. I want to actually play around with the phone before I commit to it so I’m waiting for them to show up locally, but I have a much better feeling about the M610 than I did about either the A900M or the V3m. Or any of Sprint’s other recent offerings.

Anyway, rather than get all up ins with the ols and the lis, I’m turning this into my Christmas letter to Apple, of sorts. Everybody know that that they have the best gifts anyway. Aside from the Wii, but that’s neither here nor there.

No, what I want from Apple is a new computer. If MWSF comes and goes with little or no significant news than there will be a shiny 20″ iMac on my desk by the end of January. But as great of a computer as the iMac is, it’s not what I want.

What I do want, Apple, is essentially a headless iMac. An excellent reference point would be the handsome but short-lived and overpriced G4 Cube. Let’s take that form factor, remix it into aluminum, poke some holes in it a la the Mac Pro. Then take all the stuff currently in the Intel iMac and stick it in the cube. Replace the iMac video card with one that has two DVI outs. And you’re done!

We’re left with a machine much more powerful than the mini and much more desktop-friendly than the Mac Pro. Heck, if they announced one, I’d buy one right away after the requisite first revision and another monitor to boot.

I don’t disagree with this; the flash-based market is massive right now. But I don’t think Microsoft would’ve been able to pull off any sort of nano-esque form factor while retaining the functionality that they’re hoping will set the Zune apart. Case in point is, well, the Zune. At 30 gigabytes, it’s already larger than the 80 gig video iPod, so trying to cram whatever it is that’s making the Zune that large into something even smaller, even with flash memory, is probably a challenge.

Plus, the nano doesn’t play video, which in and of itself isn’t much of an issue, but that’s currently how Microsoft justifies the need for a larger screen (another Zune selling point). Without video, I just need hear the music and know what I’m listening to. Nothing else matters.

Apple has this figured out, so rather than add unnecessary features, they make the device smaller and smaller. Again, not overly practical once you get past a certain point, but that’s where the ooohs and aaahs come from. I don’t want a nano, but I’m still impressed by them. They are eye candy, and Microsoft, because of their feature-driven agenda, can’t quite measure up.

This time though, everything’s all crazy. the PS3 isn’t even near my list, and I hope it stays that way. Whereas Nintendo and Microsoft (seriously!) both seem to care about putting out a product that makes people happy, Sony seems content to stuff their console full of the newest (unproven) technology and assume we’ll eat it up at any price.

I really, really hope this doesn’t happen. I’m not going to go spouting a bunch of factual and technological jargon; rather, I’m just going to say that Sony has made me feel worthless as a potential customer by putting their interests ahead of my own. All this time they’ve been pushing Blu-Ray and 1080p (the “real” high-def). Blu-Ray is nice because you’re looking at something like 27 gigabytes of storage on the low end, so I can understand the decision at that level.

At the same time, it’s that technology that’s pushing the PS3 into prohibitively expensive territory for some people. Also, remember that this is Sony, king of the proprietary media format (Betamax, MiniDisc, Memory Stick, UMD) and so the new Playstation feels more like a weapon in a format war than a game console.

I also don’t understand their logic for pushing 1080p as hard as they have been. I’m glad the hardware supports it, but that’s about it right now. They can’t even tout this as an advantage over the Xbox anymore since Microsoft added 1080p support with the latest Dashboard update.

Then we get to the SIXAXIS – Sony’s moniker for the new controller. It looks almost exactly like a PS2 controller, except this time it has less cords and more lights. Also, it has motion sensing, at the expense of the rumble feature. To me Sony’s motion sensing seems tacked on (as a response to the Wii), and the loss of rumble for whatever reason pretty much kills it. Well, that and the price. And the fact that it’s the same controller I bought in 1998.

But let’s forget the hardware side of things; all points above notwithstanding, the PS3 still has the potential to be a very good machine. That’s where Sony’s attitude comes in! Some choice quotes:

Sony has “built up a certain brand equity over time since the launch of PlayStation in 1995 and PS2 in 2000 that the first five million are going to buy it, whatever it is, even it didn’t have games.” (Source)

(on Microsoft) Every time we go down a path, we look behind and they’re right there – we just can’t shake these guys. I wish that they would come up with some strategies of their own, but they seem to be going down the path of everything we do. If you look at their strategy in other business areas as well, they tend to do that. (Source)

Oh, like Xbox Live? It’s a good thing Sony doesn’t copy others’ ideas! You know, except for the portable gaming thing or the motion sensing controllers thing or the rumble thing. Wait; didn’t Nintendo do all of those first? Finally:

So are you saying that not having an exclusive on Grand Theft Auto doesn’t hurt you at all?

No, I don’t think it hurts us. No, I really don’t. (Source)

Let’s step back and look at that last one. That nugget of wisdom was courtesy of Jack Tretton, o-chief operating officer of Sony Computer Entertainment America. Given his position, it’s only natural to take everything he says with a grain of salt, but it does bring me back to one important factor: the games.

First, let’s take a look at the list of franchises that made me buy a PS2 in the first place:

• Grand Theft Auto
• Gran Turismo

I can imagine that a lot of people had lists that looked like that. I’m not saying those were the only games I ever played, but those were the clinchers for me; that was why I bought the PS2. Now, one of those is no longer a Playstation exclusive. The other is being re-released in “HD” for the PS3, possibly without any cars or tracks. Furthermore, Forza 2 is coming next year and that’s more game than GT could ever be, which brings my list of must-have franchises for the PS3 to zero.

And finally, as if Sony hadn’t irritated enough gamers already, there’s this.