The PlayStation 3 delay meme, part VI: Variety sez holidays 06

Posted Mar 6th 2006 1:12PM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Gaming

There isn't exactly a pull quote from Sony's head, Sir Howard Stringer (or Howie Stringy, as we like to call him around these parts), but Variety's latest profile on the man at the top pretty clearly states that despite Sony's claims to introduce the PlayStation 3 this spring, it'll be delayed into the holiday 2006 season -- and that's presumably for Japan, America could be any amount of time later than that. We've more or less come to terms with this as truth by now, we just wish Sony'd admit it or launch the PS3 already, and stop yanking our chains. So don't be surprised when, as usual, some Sony talking head chimes in about their sticking to their spring 2006 plans, and that so and so had this and that totally wrong about what they've got going on to launch on time. After all, a company like Sony just loves holding its cards to its chest, we know this, but did we mention we're already a month into spring? This concludes today's PlayStation 3 delayed post, everyone, thank you for your attention.

Solar USB drive and MP3 player to rise at CeBIT

Solar USB drive and MP3 player to rise at CeBIT

Posted Mar 6th 2006 2:17PM by Marc Perton
Filed under: Portable Audio, Storage

Taiwanese manufacturers A-Data and MSI plan to unveil solar-powered flash devices at CeBIT, though we're not quite sure either one is a shining example of bright new ways to harness the sun's power. A-Data's offering, the Solar Disk USB drive, is a fairly generic thumb drive with a solar-powered LCD that displays its available capacity. Given that USB flash drives with LCD displays are becoming fairly common, and that the use of a solar cell to power such a display isn't exactly earth-shattering (we seem to remember picking up our first solar calculator about 20 years ago), we can't exactly see this feature commanding a premium. Meanwhile, MSI plans to demo a solar-cell MP3 player. While that sounds like it could be promising, the solar cell won't be the sole source of juice for the prototype player; rather, it'll help charge a conventional lithium battery. And given the amount of time audio players spend in pockets, backpacks and purses, we somehow don't anticipate this giving the player much of a boost.

There were a few revisions to the script, so at times it seems disjointed, something I'm sure they'll fix in the editing process. The film opens up with a fight scene featuring the latest heavyweight champion, Mason "The Line" Dixon taking out another inferior opponent. The crowd is disgusted. It seems there's no one left for this man to fight and it's become tiresome (irony?). This is all written as if our ADD-riddled country is still interested in boxing. Don't get me wrong, I loved "The Contender" last year simply because it was real and bloody. But I also know why it failed.

Cut to Rocky, in a graveyard, mourning. Who's dead, you ask? Probably whoever said no to this project (see Talia Shire). Yes Adrian (that's how Sly spells it) is dead and Rocky makes periodic visits with a lawn chair to sit at her grave and talk to her. This was all probably dialogue that was supposed to be interactive until she declined involvement. He also drags Paulie along but he hates it. Surprisingly, Burt Young was available! Not only was he available, but he also gets more screen time in this film than he did in any other outing. Is this a good thing?

So Rocky owns a Philadelphia restaurant and basically every night people want to hear Apollo Creed stories. I, myself, would rather hear Mr.T stories because that was a better movie, but that's another story. Meanwhile, Rocky's son, Robert (oh no! shades of Rocky V!) is kind of embarrassed by him and keeps his distance. This puzzles me because who wouldn't want this guy for a dad?

Meanwhile, the rocket scientists at ESPN have designed a computer program that pits current fighters against the classics. After using CGI to pit Mason Dixon against the Philly slugger, 'analysts' realize they have a great fight on their hand.

Back in Philadelphia, Rocky has befriended a single mom. She has the obligatory, disgruntled son who also doesn't care for Rocky. If you've seen a movie before, you can guess how that relationship develops.

After hardly any prodding, Rocky decides to fight Dixon and re-applies for his license. There are subplots about Dixon arguing with his manager because he's too good to fight a has-been and Paulie and the meat factory (he's still there??).

Actually, the script's not as predictable as you think and I don't want to give away too much more out of fairness to the filmmakers and Mr. Stallone, a man whom I admire and respect very much. His success story in Hollywood is legendary. I will tell you this- I am going to be there on opening day exclusively because of the last shot in the film, which I won't give away. It's so good that it gave me goose bumps and made me wish that the rest of the script had lived up to its ending. Honestly, as a screenwriter myself, I don't know how I would or could have effectively revived the series. You have to be true to the franchise and basically the idiots that make up Middle America like their stories simple and spoon-fed to them. So, get ready for Dukes of Hazzard II, coming soon to push all the intelligent films out of the theater. This is Tregs, see you in 2007 (why?) when this movie comes out.

Podcast en Dixo.com

En fechas recientes he estado escuchando mucho podcasts, los de Engadget me parecen geniales, me puse a buscar algunos en español, afortunadamente hay más de los que yo creía, desafortunadamente muchos son muy malos, me tope con este sitio DIXO.com, donde hay blogs y podcasts, algunos bastante amenos y otros que aunque están bien producidos son muy malos, el peor es el de un tal sopitas, raras veces logra decir algo coherente y generalmente debe recurrir al recurso de las groserías, que no espantan a nadie, pero que en su caso son como una herramienta, existen bastantes de tecnología, hay uno realizado por Adrián Carbajal muy bueno y otro mediocre de la revista sputnik, pero el tal Eduardo Arcos es nefasto, tiene un tonito de "yo se más que tú" y "escucha como exagero mi pronunciación" que hacen que parezca que el tipo quiere esconder que siempre se le oye nervioso, muy ansioso (!!Esta grabado¡¡) !¿Acaso portará el micrófono pegado al cuerpo?¡.¿tendrá Asma?

Por último, hay uno muy interesante por un tal Abel Membrillo (que yo decía:"¿quien es este canijo?", ya luego me informaron que es la voz de Otro rollo (¿Será que no veo TV?) de repente aporta cosas buenas, no esta exento de una que otra grosería, pero en él no es sistema y muchas veces ponen "rolas" "chidas".

Dense una vuelta por la página.

Si quieren podcasts chidos de tecnología, ENGADGET, no hay más.

Forget Film, Games Do Sci-Fi Best

Commentary by Clive Thompson

Ah, the subtle pleasures of intergalactic fascism. My flotilla of TIE fighters swarmed through space like locusts, picking off rebel troops at will. My mammoth Star Destroyers had reduced a rebel base to a smoldering hulk, and Darth Vader had personally blown up Millennium Falcon and killed that jackass Han Solo -- twice.

As you might have guessed, I was playing Star Wars: Empire at War, the latest strategy title from Lucas Games. And something quite rare was happening: Even though I was deep inside a George Lucas creation, I was having a total blast.

Normally, I cringe whenever Lucas launches another movie. Ever since the Ewoks appeared in 1983's Return of the Jedi, his films have steadily tobogganed downwards into a vale of unwatchability. It's hard to figure out what Lucas has done worse: Is it his increasingly Disneyfied characters? His wooden scripts? Or the plots that, having been carefully denuded of action sequences, instead focus on, y'know, trade disputes?

Which brings me to my point: In the last 20 years, Lucas' vision has arguably been far better expressed in video games than in movies.

For me, this epiphany began back in 1998, when Rogue Squadron came out on the Nintendo 64 -- a note-perfect evocation of in-flight combat. I played it nonstop for four months. Then every year or so, another superb Star Wars title came along to get me addicted, from Knights of the Old Republic to Jedi Starfighter to Battlefront. Each time, Lucas did a much better job of recapturing the original spirit of his universe: A mix of campy voice-acting, moral dread, and -- most of all -- pell-mell action.

Why were the games so comparatively good? A cynic would say it's because Lucas probably isn't as closely involved in the games, so his young designers aren't hampered by his inane creative decisions. But I actually suspect it's deeper than that. I think it's because games are beginning to rival film -- and even eclipse it -- as the prime vehicle for sci-fi and fantasy.

After all, there have been vanishingly few original, mass-market, sci-fi or fantasy movies in recent years. We had The Matrix and then ... what? (I said "original" movies. Stuff like The Lord of the Rings, I, Robot and Minority Report were all based -- however loosely -- on pre-existing books. The shining exception is Joss Whedon's superb Serenity, a movie that, sadly, tanked at the box office.)

In contrast, the game industry has produced dozens of worlds as lovingly rendered and lush in detail as a Bruegel painting. Think of the weird, vaulting steampunk buildings of Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, the operatic scope of the Final Fantasy series, or the calm beauty of Ico.

Perhaps this shift is taking place because games have an inherent affinity with sci-fi and fantasy. Those genres are based on what-if premises; they're the literary version of the Sim, the author as world-builder. Part of the fun of watching a sci-fi movie is mentally inhabiting a new world and imagining what it feels like to be inside. But now there's a medium that actually puts you in. It's why I reacted to Rogue Squadron with such a jolt of déjà vu: As a kid, I'd fantasized about flying my own X-wing fighter -- and suddenly, bang, there I was.

So if you were a creator wandering around Los Angeles and hankering to forge a new universe, why do a movie? Why not try for a game? For today's youth, the go-anywhere, exploratory feel of immersive worlds is where the cultural mojo resides. Even the few popular fantasy stories in the mainstream today borrow from this vibe. When J. J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof were writing Lost, they explicitly modeled it on a video-game world: An overarching mythology and a cohesive world-picture, slowly revealed through creepy exploration by the main characters.

Of course, assuming I'm right about this trend, it's not all good. There's arguably something lost when games become the central site for flights of fancy. Even the best "narrative" games can't replicate the emotional undertow of a good film. When I wander through Shadow of the Colossus -- or even the old Myst series -- I'm filled with a sense of awe. It's like visiting a breathtaking Renaissance church; I'm struck by the beauty and the neoclassical detail. But it doesn't drag my heart along a path the way a plain ol' linear movie does.

Then again, when's the last time Lucas did that on the silver screen? So I take what solace I can. I boot up Empire at War again, join the dark side, summon Emperor Palpatine, send another couple hundred TIE fighters off on howling suicide missions. Plenty more where they came from, m'lord. My training is complete.

- - -

Clive Thompson is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, and a regular contributor to Wired and New York magazine. His blog is www.collisiondetection.net.

The Xbox 360 vs. the Public Good
Is the Xbox 360 hurting the gaming industry?

by Nich Maragos 2.25.2006

It would be hard to get Peter Moore to admit it, try as you might, but it's pretty clear that the Xbox 360 launched a little bit before the system was ready. The certification process for 360 games came right down to the wire, in some cases leading to games being pressed before they had technically passed. Manufacturing rates for the actual consoles weren't at the level Microsoft had wanted, leading to shortages that are still in effect as of this writing. And depending on who you believe, the early launch means that the system's specs are below the PlayStation 3's -- although, given how long it takes for developers to get comfortable with a new hardware generation, whatever differences exist likely won't become apparent until well into each system's life span.

More important, though less remarked upon, is that the Xbox 360 was also launched before the industry was ready. If you pay attention to companies' end-of-year financial reports, which I'm sad to say my job requires me to do, one thing that stands out in the postholiday reckoning was the statement, again and again, that the Xbox 360 launch had hurt sales across the industry.

A few examples: Electronic Arts CFO Warren Jenson says he doesn't "see getting to the installed base numbers we expected & causing some people to stay on the sidelines."

Faster! Faster!

Atari chairman and CEO Bruno Bonnell notes, "As we anticipated, during the holiday season the industry felt a depressed demand for current-generation titles at retail and, as a result, publishers will need to strategically address the marketplace, balancing titles across multiple consoles as well as portable devices." NPD Group numbers for the year indicate that current-generation game sales were indeed down 12 percent, bearing out the executives' claims.

The clearest voice articulating the effect is Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter, who went on a doom-tinged tear in January, claiming that 2006 game sales would be off by 3 percent in part due to Microsoft's lunge. "Most troubling to us was the fact that the rate of decline was especially acute, down 21.6 percent, during the September-to-November period, a time that coincided with the hype surrounding the launch of the Xbox 360," says Pachter. "We believe that sales may have been even worse in December had Microsoft continued its marketing push, and believe that sell-through was helped in part by deep discounting of new releases during the month."

So it's fair to say that Microsoft's early launch had a negative effect on the industry as a whole. Which raises a question: Was the rush to market irresponsible, or just good business? After all, the likes of J Allard, Peter Moore, Steve Ballmer, and other Microsoft/Xbox higher-ups have frequently said that the "first-to-market advantage" is a major piece of the company's arsenal against Sony in this round. Indeed, one reason the company was constantly playing catch-up during the current generation was because Microsoft's system wasn't even announced by the time the PlayStation 2 had wowed everyone with its Japanese launch -- so getting the jump on Sony and beating it at its own game was important in the establishment of the 360.

The question ties into the concept of "public good," an intangible that's balanced against "private good" in decision making. Writer David Foster Wallace explains it in his essay "Host," which is about right-wing talk radio, like so:

"Suppose that I am the conservative and rabidly capitalist owner of a radio company. I believe that free-market conservatism is Truth and that the U.S. would be better off in every way if everybody were conservative. This, for me, makes conservatism a 'public good' in the Intro Econ sense of the term -- i.e., a conservative electorate is a public good in the same way that a clean environment or a healthy populace is a public good.& In other words, I alone would have paid for a benefit that my competition could also enjoy, free. All of which plainly would not be good business & which is why it is actually in my company's best interests to 'underinvest' in promulgating ideology."

In this case, Microsoft is underinvesting in the public good of maintaining a stable and growing market in general -- something that its rivals Nintendo and Sony could also benefit from, resulting in resources spent to further its competitors' goals -- and putting its own interests first.

The move seems to have worked. Sony talked at E3 2004 about its desire to create a 10-year life span for the PlayStation 2, following the successful eight-year run of the PS1. After all, the PS1 was originally introduced in 1994 in Japan, and it wasn't until 2002 that the Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine proclaimed The Italian Job "the last great PS1 game." But Microsoft's eagerness to abandon the current generation in favor of getting everyone on board its next-generation console has short-circuited the natural life of the PS2, and already this month OPM is asking if Black is "the last great PS2 game?" a mere six years after the console's debut.

General Pyrrhus sez: Think carefully about winning at any cost.

You can't really fault Microsoft for that, because that's capitalism for you -- a deeper-seated issue than this essay has the scope for. But I submit that the rush to a new generation was a bad idea anyway, not so much because it weakened the market but because it weakened its own position. Microsoft, after all, was also a victim of the market -- those were Xbox titles suffering right alongside the PS2 and GameCube games on shelves. Furthermore, the 360 production issues caused by the rush to launch have impacted the one reason Microsoft had for going ahead with it in the first place: that key first-mover advantage.

As Michael Pachter says, "In our view, Microsoft did a phenomenal job of marketing the Xbox 360 and created unfulfilled demand for several million hardware units over the holidays. As we move into 2006, we think that consumers will begin to consider deferring purchases of Xbox 360 units once a launch date for the PS3 is announced (we expect an October launch)." In other words, the longer it takes for Microsoft to deliver more product onto shelves, the easier it'll be for all those consumers to just wait a little bit longer until Sony is ready.

The console war is an all-out fight, not an honorable duel at 10 paces, and Microsoft has to grab every advantage it can if it wants to win. But if it's going to change the rules and spin around after the seventh step, it had better make sure its powder is dry, because the element of surprise only lasts so long before Sony begins returning fire.

Mexico mine rescue is abandoned

The rescue effort at the mine lasted almost a week

There is no chance of survival for 65 miners trapped underground in northern Mexico for almost a week, the mine owners have said.

It had been hoped some miners, most trapped at least 2km (1.25 miles) inside the mine, might have survived if air pockets were present.

But now the mine company has told relatives there is no further hope.

Grupo Mexico, said tests of air in the mine showed there was not enough oxygen for anyone to survive.

The men were trapped early last Sunday, when a methane explosion brought down debris and cut them off.

Ten men who were underground escaped safely, and another 12 were rescued, suffering from burns and broken bones.

But nothing more was heard from the larger group further along tunnels, 150 metres below ground.

'Nothing to be done'

Mine director "Ruben Escudero told us all the miners were dead," Juan Hernandez, whose nephew Margarito Zamoran is one of the missing at the Pasta de Conchas mine, told the AFP news agency.

For relatives of the miners, all the waiting has come to nothing

"There's nothing more to be done," Mr Escudero had added.

"We are moving on to the hard task of the physical recovery of our miners so the families can start their mourning," said Xavier Garcia, a senior executive at Grupo Mexico, according to Reuters news agency.

However, he said that it might be two days before rescuers could safely return to the mine.

'Tricked'

Operations were halted on Friday because of the risk of further methane explosions. The gas also made breathing difficult for the 100-strong rescue team, as methane is lethal when it forms more than 15% of the atmosphere.

Rescuers were unable to used heavy mechanical equipment for fear of sparking new explosions, but moved more than 800,000 tonnes of debris in days of digging.

Relatives were angry at what they saw at deception and raising of false hopes by the mine's management.

"They tricked us because they knew from the beginning how the mine was," said Aida Farias, whose husband, Elias Valero, is one of the missing.

"They played with us like puppets."

Union leaders have alleged that Grupo Mexico ignored safety concerns, and Labour Minister Francisco Salazar has said an investigation is to be carried out.

Grupo Mexico says it will pay compensation of about £70,000 for each of the dead miners.