Family has been sick, and speaking of sick...

By Wednesday, 3 out of 4 of my children were sick, excluding my oldest daughter.

I woke up on Thursday morning early (6:15am) so I sat down to wait for 7am at my computer. I knew something was wrong when nobody got up. Not my firstborn, not my wife, not even the baby boy. At 7:25am I crept in and saw the children all looked like they had sweated all night long. My wife was in similar shape, so I cleaned the living room and kitchen (save washing dishes, noisy dishwasher) and waited for 8:25am, at which point I called work and told Rich my situation, and to ask a manager to call me back if they'd like. I wasn't sick, and while my family could have survived without me, I would not have felt good about that.

Now here's the cool thing - I kept everyone hydrated all day, made the kids stay still (broke our TV rules and set up hours of Blues Clues and Azumanga Daioh for them, the latter of which I watched as my children can't watch any anime without me - not because I like anime, but because I know how quickly something inappropriate but funny to Japanese folks can crop up) - but it was the cleaning in the morning Maria Alejandra kept thanking me for at the end of the day.

Friday, I've done much the same, but they've been more self-managing. Jose Francisco still looks like he's in the process of turning into a vampire - his eyes are red, he has rings around his eyes, he holds his mouth open all the time, and his lips are flush and his face is pale. Vampirism! That's it!

Speaking of Sick...
I've had all the Supreme Commander I can tolerate in one single day, I think. Friday being easier, as I haven't had to ferry food and drinks to bedridden family members, but rather help Maria (well, both of them) with the kids.

The final game runs better, but 4 players with 500 units apiece still slows down Pharra. What I dislike, ultimately, is that it's not a strategy game, it's an arcade game. The only strategy revolves around what order you build things in and what units you produce. For all of Chris Taylor's boasting about it's strategy game controls, and it has the best I've seen, there's not much to do with that. You just overwhelm.

Sure, there's strategy in the rock, paper, scissors, air supremacy, naval supremacy, land domination game-play - but it's all about momentum. That's it. Just keep up momentum.

After a while, and many games, you come to see what is like in a thing - and it's the momentum, and I just don't care to keep it up - it's always the same.

RIAA debacle reveals hidden truth

Everyone knows:

1. File sharing copyrighted material is illegal.
   
2. You have to use a Peer to Peer file sharing program and send copyrighted files for the RIAA to go after you - though there are plenty of noted exceptions, it goes without saying: If every claim the RIAA made was totally specious, every defendant would hold their innocence and show up to court to avoid summary judgment.
3. The RIAA is attacking people with intimidation.

What's fascinating about this whole debacle isn't that the RIAA is ethically and morally wrong in how they attack people, making false litigious claims, suing whole families and so on...

It is fascinating that the Internet public at large has galvanized into a pure hatred of the RIAA, one that is not reflected in the outside world. Joe Schmo has no real opinion of the matter, or might even say "File Sharing is wrong!" Certainly Republicans with vast investments actually support the RIAA for supporting their interests as shareholders.

What this tells me is that the legal problems with the RIAA isn't really the issue: the issue is a kind of business/cultural revolution, one that only people involved in the Internet really have the ability to know about and partake in.

As I've pointed out before:

1. RIAA: Guilty of not following the market
2. One Man Understood What Market He Was In
3. Suing Innovation

...business models have changed, but moreover, how people want to interact with content has changed, and how they want to treat it. These things aren't going away with Fascist strong-arm tactics - at least not in this country.

So remember next time you hate the RIAA, remember your own hypocrisy: are you downloading free music, but smart enough to do so over encrypted bit torrent protocols? Realize what you are: you're a revolutionary engaged in an illegal activity, active in something that isn't recognized as a revolution (so you won't be treated nicely). calling something a grand revolution which isn't. It's just the standard, changing market, shifting to yet another piece of technology that changes the way people do things faster than business models, and laws, can adjust.

We are not idealic soldiers if all we do is sit back and download. We are opportunists, waving our fists in the air hoping one day we'll be legitimatized. As of yet, the market has not found an equilibrium, and sitting back and bit torrenting only helps further the need for change - it does not create balance and harmony in and of itself.

The Cutest Thing Happened Last Night

Jose Francisco is a very Latin baby boy. You cannot convince him of anything he doesn't already agree with, or decides on his own terms that he agrees with. This includes:

• Having fun in a bouncy air-filled gym with 40 balloons and his two little sisters already inside playing. He took 20 minutes to consider this before deciding it was good and had fun.
  
  
• Kissing anyone. My mom has gotten frustrated with him many times because he won't kiss her, which would be flat rude if it was me. I kiss anyone who asks for one (cheeks mostly, exception daughters, wife and mom).
  
  
• The last time I was smacking Dulce on the arm three times for shoving her little sister, he came running up to me and hit me on the leg with a fist.
  
  I decided the two smacks I already gave Dulce was good and made him feel that his bravery and confronting the most terrifying thing for a baby boy - an angry father - got him what he wanted: I stopped.
  
  I didn't leave him unscathed and I went "ARRGH" at him, to demonstrate I was mad and if he was going to fight, he had to be prepared for the target's reaction. His response was to go "UHN, UH!" at me and wave a hand, and I relented, and told Dulce to hug him.
  
  
• Absolutely everything else.

His oldest sister, my 10 year-old daughter, Maria de Guadalupe, is his little momma. He called her "Marr" until recently, now he also calls her "Lupe" (loo-pay).

Well he likes to go to sleep with his mother and he likes to sleep with Maria. Switching this rarely works - sometimes he likes to sleep with his mother, but he usually won't go to sleep with his sister. He will, however, wake up if she or her mother is not there.

Last night Maria was sleeping and he woke her up kicking her for space. He'd gotten himself splayed out on the bed such that he was taking up the whole thing. She gently picked him up to move him and he mumbed, in Spanish, "I love Maria" or "La quiera Maria..." or in Jose Francisco speak, "ra quira marr."

She didn't know what he was dreaming, but as, during the day, you're lucky if you can get a hug from him, she was touched, kissed him on the hair and went back to sleep but remembered the story to tell us in the morning.

He is a good baby boy. He loves his family, his sisters, his mother, his father, his grandmothers... but he doesn't show it like I do. You have to watch what he does.

Running up to a father who is holding and hitting his sister and attacking him? That's love, I think, and while the description isn't reality, from a baby boy's eyes it might have been closer to what he saw.

I feel sorry for my mom, of course. She's a sweetheart and loves demonstrative love, and Jose Francisco just doesn't have any of that to give. She said it right, once: "I love Jose Francisco, and always will, but I'm glad I had you (me) and not him for a son."

Maybe she should think what he'd do if I yelled at her.

How to Cure your Children of Wanting to Play MMO's

Answer? Let them play them. But make sure to

1. Be there with them.
2. Have them follow you and your guild members.
3. Give them enough rope to hang themselves.
4. Do everything you can to make their stay better, literally, that way they won't think you conspired against them, and on the surface, you didn't. You let the stress of the MMO and the Guild do it for you.
   

I got back on City of Heroes / City of Villians, though the latter wasn't part of the picture when I left, joining my friend Kevin in Virginia. After a few nights playing, my 10 year old daughter, Maria de Guadalupe, asked me if she could play with us. I realized the game came with a 14 day free trial so I said "Sure."

Now you might ask "Why is a father introducing his TEN YEAR OLD GIRL to the world of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games?!"

Here's why, and the result of the evening, in an e-mail I sent to my friend Kevin and my lovely Latin wife...

Last night was too much fun. And most of that was either

• Watching Maria become frustrated with MMO's or
• Watching my minions slay the enemy.

I genuinely wanted to give Maria de Guadalupe the chance - it was just like D&D, I just laid all that rope out there (the old adage of giving the D&D players enough rope to hang themselves and sitting back as the DM) and did nothing on my own part to make her time miserable, other than demonstrate how a team can be frustrated with another team member's ineptitude. After that, she, once again, got stuck on some stairs with enemies hitting her, and we risked ourselves to save her, and I'm sure she understood that. Nobody likes to watch their friends go through hardship because they did something wrong.

And, as I told you, when she wanted to watch her Spanish soap opera I reminded her that you and I had gone through a lot of trouble so she could play, and what were we going to do now that she's leaving? (Soap Opera: Not like the States, they last only 6 months a piece and this one is about an ugly girl who has the most beautiful personality and intellect, literally titled "The Ugly More Beautiful," or translated I would say "The most beautiful ugly girl." Sweet show, actually. Imagine an American Soap Opera that stars an ugly lead girl. The actress is kinda like Carrie-Ann Moss/Princess Leia: pretty only if you really truss her up, and they dressed her way down for this show - Like Carrie, she's the unbeautiful progeny of two other famous actors. Unlike Carrie, she can act very well, and has, up until winning the lead on this show, made a living in comedy shows.)

Anyway, so she got to feel

• "MMO's dictate when you can play them because of who you have to play them with."
• She got to feel "Pulls are bad."
• She got to feel "Not being able to navigate the world is bad."
• She got to feel "There are some real creeps out there." (Start area creeps trying to flirt with her father playing a girl character - she's 10, and she's a girl, she's not stupid, and she can read, and all she told me afterwards were there were some really bad people online.)
  

She also got plenty of good. She seemed to like seeing you, but she told me afterwards you didn't talk much. I told her "You weren't in the room with me, but you're right, he's kinda quiet. When he talks, it's usually interesting." That, she knows, is like her mother. She enjoyed our social RP before you joined us most of all, I think. I will never, ever show her Second Life. Actually she wouldn't like that either - too many creeps.

But... I'm glad. If she had liked it I would have kept playing with her and taught her how to be responsible concerning the time spent playing. Either way, as she likes her NDS and some PC games, I knew MMO's (as they are the future) were going to be in her life at some point, and I figured, opportunity knocking with her saying she wanted to play with us, there was no better chance to teach her the ins and outs.

Lastly, one day my 10 year old little girl will be reading Daddy's blog, and she won't mind coming across this. She knows I do lots of things like this to teach her about the world, rather than just try to tell her how it is.

RAIDEN III, Lord of the Rings, Left 4 Dead and Supreme Commander

The Lord of the Rings: Online Sucks. It's largely like the World of Warcraft; however, in this game, getting lost on your 3rd mission and wandering around for forty minutes is FUN. Apparently it gets worse.

I downloaded Raiden III and am in love with it - I might acquire the PS2 version. Dual player support on one input device is supported in the PS2 version, and perhaps the PC - I can't read Japanese. At any rate, it's really a remake of Raiden II in 3d with modifications, and that's grand. It has replay modes that show you Seibu Kaihatsu's best playing through the mission you completed in one life, and demonstrates how to beat bosses and evade their attacks. The greatest thing about the Raiden Shoot-'Em-Up series is that if you play correctly, there is always a way out - you are never hemmed in by shots until you are dead unless you just aren't playing well. Actually Raiden III was developed by MOSS, licensed by Seibu Kaihatsu. I just thought it sounded cooler.

I want Left 4 Dead to come out.

I got Supreme Commander as well, but haven't installed it yet. So many games.

"Super Gas Chamber Tycoon 1943"

This post against the post that supports the "Super Columbine Massacre RPG" has the funniest quote I've seen all day.

Next I want to see "Super Srebrenica Massacre RPG" and "Virginia Tech: Perfectly Executed".

At least "JFK: Reloaded" waited, you know... a while.

Lord of the Rings: Online

So I downloaded that and tried it - there are 6 days left. I'm on the Vilny server, top left option. It appears to be an RP server, as I saw only one name that wasn't RP, and saw several people use "OOC:" in their chats.

Executive Summary
The game leaves me unimpressed. It is a very good WoW clone. That's not exactly a compliment. It is artistically pleasing, and the first MMO with that distinction since WoW that I've seen.

Accessibility
It's not as user friendly as WoW and that might really kill it. In WoW, you pick up quests that are clearly identifiable and immediately do them. You can pick up several and accidentally do them. In this game, I spent two hours and didn't get near as many quests done, nor could I follow them as easily as in WoW. Hard to explain, but it just happened that way - I was a member of American Mensa, so I don't think it's because I'm just dumb. That said, it wasn't boring or punishing, because I kept playing.

To do anything with your levels you have to find a trainer, which is kind of homosexual, but expected. Perhaps I'm just used to WoW's inventory system, but I like it better than LotR:O. The inventory system appears to be a functional copy, without directly copying - I'm sure Blizzard has patented something.

The game does not assume you know about the lore of the Lord of the Rings, and each race lets you choose a nation / land of origin, which alters what color hair and skin you can have. Making a red-headed Pharra required that she come from Rohan, not Gondor, which I thought was cool.

Graphics
The graphics are incredibly good and smooth. The bad part is that everything is easy to see even in the dark, so nothing is very scary. I did experience the "Dread" effect when I saw a Nazgul though, my screen got dark and contrasty and my vision blurred - that was disorienting so I backed off quickly. Neat, but I haven't seen it used since.

Combat & Classes
The combat feels kind of like WoW with a Warrior, having played around with a Guardian and a Champion (Warrior Tank / Warrior DPS).

I must say that the LotR setting has hurt the game classes, although I'm sure it will save the game as far as people actually joining it. I'm sure it will be a commercial success, a viable game, but not a killer MMO.

The reason? Well since The Lord of the Rings canon says there were only five wizards during the end of the Third Age, "Lore Masters," "Minstrels" and "Burglars" all suffer. We have three classes that are really "Warriors with different skill trees" in WoW:

Captain - a Warrior who handles group buffs and agro.
Champion - a Warrior who hurts things.
Guardian - a Warrior who handles agro and tanks.

That's really a whole lot of warriors.

Other than that, there's a Hunter! Which is really a ranged Warrior.

Perhaps, at higher levels, the differences will be more pronounced, but there's a 15 level cap in the BETA (out of 50) and this is what I've seen so far.

Minstrels heal, supposedly, as does the Lore Master class - which is "NOT A WIZARD!" but pretends to be. How... strange.

Split Servers
All of that said, it is better than I expected, and should be a viable game. Once again, the game is split into servers, which is homosexual, so you can't play with your friends like you can in Awesome Guild Wars, which is un-awesome in about every OTHER aspect, if you're holding it to the MMO candle.

Lifetime Membership and stuff
For $199 you can get a lifetime membership if you order now, and pre-ordering gives you rights to $10 a month instead of $15 forever, if you don't opt for big bucks.

It Will Probably Sell
Given the licensing and the setting, I think this MMO will not die horribly. It will probably find its niche, like City of Heroes, etc., and do well.

Remember, Dave hates MMO's, with a Passion
Also, bare in mind, I hate MMO's. I hate their repetition, the way they force you to play them, the way you can't tinker with a darn thing, etc. I hate that I can't hear a cool story from Dove or Kevin and go home, fire up the game and go meet them, lose interest and do it again in a few months. All I can do is live vicariously, and I'm content with that.

Lastly, I'd Like to Play it More
The terrain is really neat and I was really surprised about the names given to the characters. None of this "Prestochango" the Druid shit, or "Idoitfrombehind" Rogue bullshit names. I'd like to see what being in a Fellowship (party/guild) is like. But unlike City of Heroes, other than the setting, I can't think of why I should.

Oh yes, you can inhabit Monsters starting at level 10 and use them to attack other people in certain "free" zones where this is to be expected. From what I've read - you get the option to buy non-reusable buffs for your character for your trouble. Yay. Not. But nifty idea otherwise.

PS3: What, no jokes anymore?

Two important things to notice:

1. Folks aren't bashing the PS3 as much lately on the Internet.
2. The 20GB model PS3 has been largely discontinued.
   

I've noticed that folks on the Internet aren't bothering to bash the PS3 as much anymore (heck they aren't even searching for it), and that while Sony dropped the lower-end PS3, Microsoft never had to drop their bottom-of-the-barrel XBOX 360. Why?

Well, the answer is related.

As a friend of mine pointed out, we mock the things that we are afraid our friends might buy, but consider ourselves as having enough knowledge to think that we know something they don't and should warn them. That's something humans do. We don't bother mocking things we don't think our friends will buy - for example, nobody is going around mocking Betamax today, or the NCage.

The PS3 has passed that critical point where the hardcore (those of use who read everything, delve into everything about our hobby) feel that the PS3 is no longer a viable alternative that their friends might pick up.

The thing nobody says about the 20GB PS3 being discontinued is that it's the beginning of the end for the PS3 itself. The XBOX 360 Core model never went out of production because it kept selling, even though any gamer worth his salt would go for the XBOX 360 with a Hard Drive in it.

The PS3 is pretty much the same, only those who were going to buy PS3's, have largely already done so, and the whole crowd that would make up the "core system" buyers can't, or won't, because of the price.

The PS3 is dead. It is doomed. It is on its way to Saturn land. I am no longer sure it will limp by like the N64 or the GameCube; it's possible, but the future is unclear.

Update:
Dove just made a point: developers can't make games for the PS3 and make a profit. The flagship titles that the PS3 currently has use only 20% of its power, another 80% sits idly.

To the end consumer, what they see is 80% of what they paid for - does nothing.

In order for developers to make games that used the system, they would have to spend a solid year just on development of an engine and charge up to $100 per game to the consumer.

I update my prophecies to "The PS3 will not slide by" for the simple reason that the N64 (I think) and the GC (I know) did not operate at a loss per unit. Sony has over-extended themselves, and that would have worked if the system sold, or wasn't a billion dollars, or both. And so they eat cost, and eat even more for unsold units.

Random Updates

God of War II versus Greek Mythology (PS2)
Take a multi-part online video look at the mythos behind God of War II.

Rainbow Six: Vegas cooperative mode (PC)
This game is incredibly fun. So far, I'm good at blowing myself up with hand grenades, as is my friend, Kevin. When not enjoying the thrills of bouncing our grenades off of steel railing back at us, we enjoy ducking behind doorways, cars, walls, and arcade systems for cover, and killing the enemy. We use Teamspeak to communicate via voice.

Armed Assault (PC)
I'll mention it again, this is the seminole military simulator. My friend Dennis is hooked on this. Jock hates change - all change, even good change, like High Dynamic Range (HDR) lighting, because "it makes things harder to see."

Well - duh. That's what happens in real life. But he plays the game anyway.

Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords

Review of the Game
Fantastic game. There are four classes and four portraits for each class (two girls and two guys each). You collect items and equipment which affect how the game plays. The game is simple: a puzzle board wherein you move one piece at a time up, down, left or right and try to make a vertical or horizontal row of three or more of a kind. Each colored gem represents a kind of Mana (magic) that you can use for different spells that you have. Some are direct damage (skulls) instead of Mana, others are gold and experience point gems.

So, you can set whether or not you have a time limit to make a turn, the difficulty of your opponent, and go to town. You can buy a mount, capture prisoners and make spells - but only if you have the right buildings built in your citadel - you'll need stables and dungeons and mage towers for those activities. Plus you can have companions, apparently, but I haven't gotten there.

Leveling up seems fast with my Paladin (they get bonus XP) and good with all other classes.

Bugs!
The thing that troubles me is that console games are now coming out with BUGS, not just your minor glitches, but fucking obvious ones like "The game crashes after a match" which is rare, but taken in total across the Internet, folks talk about it, and it happened to me once.

Buried in the 2nd page of a thread on DS version bugs in "Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords" I posted this:

We're getting off-topic with the ROM morality debate; however, everyone please clarify if you are using a ROM or a Cartridge, because there can be issues with some games (Ultimate Spiderman loves to play poorly with MOD cards).

I am using a ROM (forget the dump team) and a G6 Lite MOD card with a Passcard 3.

Bugs I have found:

1. Crash after Victory Bug: (Multiplayer Local Ad-Hoc game) Upon my daughter, Maria de Guadalupe, beating me, her NDS went black and crashed. Upon reloading, we couldn't tell if it had saved her progress or not before it crashed.
2. Spell List Bug: The spell list you see is not the one you are trying to click on ... I was playing with my 10 year-old again and noticed I had a new spell after my level up, so I clicked "HELP" and tapped on the new spell, but nothing happened for it or the 2nd to the bottom spell. Clicking on my upper spells told me the stats to my daughter's spells, not mine. I eventually figured out that, while I was seeing my spells, the game thought I was tapping on the Spell List that wasn't there, namely, her spell list, not mine. To see mine, I had to switch to her spell list and then click where my spell would be, even though she had less spells this worked.

Bugs In Total:

1. Something about leveling up while mounted.
2. Restarting multiple times makes the gems randomize themselves.
3. AI seems to get really lucky as to what falls down - I have noticed this too, but I don't think it's a bug - I think it is the game's way of making sure the AI has mana to give it a chance against the power of the human difference engine (brain). I tend to plan my moves out 2 to 3 turns if I can, so I can get something better than just the gems I'm moving. The computer does this too, but sometimes it seems more due to what drops after they make a move, rather than how the existing pieces fall.
4. ...
   

Summary about Puzzle Quest: Warlords
This is the first game I have really super liked on the Nintendo DS since Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, which I beat recently (most folks beat the game at level 35, I beat it at level 65 - Dracula can't be brute forced, but being his match helps).

Yu-Gi-Oh on the NDS

I liked Yu-Gi-Oh: Nightmare Troubadour, but the cards were blurry and worst, you could only sort all 1,148 card types in your inventory by one criteria, and filter by one other criteria, which made creating decks by reading the cards in the game impossible.

So I tried Yu-Gi-Oh: Spirit Summoner. That version had much better card textures (not blurry) and you could filter by any combination of filters you wanted (say, all trap/spell cards of a given color), which was glorious.

Unfortunately, the new music is hideous and you can't turn it off, and the control system for using the cards has changed so that everything involves one extra click, and all of the buttons are now tiny. You have to click on a card, then click a tiny button (one of two) to sway what you want to do with it. Before, this was one step.

Summary
So Yu-Gi-Oh didn't kill Yu-Gi-Oh, the sequel did. It was so much better (creating decks, which is essential to play the game), but so much worse (music and a control system that kills interest in the game).

Sony, Microsoft have Barred the Gates

Sony and Microsoft have effectively barred the gates from people buying their consoles, because they have tauted the HDTV capabilities so much, the average consumer thinks he needs an HDTV (a whole new expense factor) in order to enjoy an XBOX 360 or PS3.

As an employee at a video game store, I get questions asking about the graphical differences between the current and next-gen consoles occasionally.

Every once in awhile, a customer will try and "confirm" with me that you can't tell the difference between current and next-gen games without an HD television.

It comes in different forms but it is a perception among some uneducated casual gamers that you need an HDTV to enjoy the 360 or PS3. They're wrong of course but it is something that has been created amongst some because of all the "HD" marketing of the 360 and PS3.

[source] Around 30% of the TV owning populace have some form of HDTV now, which is not a lot. I know that one thing that has occured to me is that if I got a PS3 or XBOX 360 I would have to hook it up to an LCD computer screen, because there's no way I'm paying thousands more for something else that doesn't last as long as a computer LCD display, or a $2,000 LCD TV. And I'm not sure PS3's hook up to computer LCD's...

The Wii, meanwhile, has stayed accessible - possibly too much. Many Obsessive / Hardcore Gamers view it with distain, but others are jumping in.

What are Hardcore and Casual Gamers?

Folks assume that the hardcore is all that matters, or that the hardcore is all that can support the videogame industry, but the changing market tells us this isn't so, as well as some basic math and common sense. Avid moviegoers do not outnumber casual moviegoers, nor can our numbers save movies we love (Serenity) compared to the all powerful might of the masses. This same truth of human nature (obsessives versus casuals) is true in gaming.

Games Sorted by Score on Metacritic

• Wii 9 bad, 28 okay, 8 good.
• PS3 2 bad, 12 okay, 20 good.
• XBOX 360 9 bad, 80 okay, 80 good. (Odd, same number good and okay, but I double checked, and that's accurate)

What These Figures Mean
I find it interesting that the XBOX 360 has racked up as many bad games (listed in Metacritic) in 16 months as the Wii has in 4, and that the PS3 (which has been out almost exactly as long as the Wii has) has 60% more good games than the Wii, and 22% of the Wii's bad games amount.

My theory is that game developers are having an easier time grappling with familiar (traditional) consoles, and that the casual games coming out for the Wii are ill received by hardcore gamers. Basically, developers are still figuring out how to use the Wii's control scheme to make fun game and nobody has made a Wii game that can keep the Hardcore Enthusiasts happy, except Nintendo with "Zelda: Twilight Princess."

Now the inevitable question comes... "If the Wii is doing so poorly with its games, why does it continue to sell so well?"

The Answer Is:
The answer isn't "People are stupid and they'll wake up soon and the Wii will die." The answer is "Because there are so many more casual gamers than hardcore gamers like to think, it really doesn't matter. They are legion, and they will crush you."

The Reason Behind The Answer Is:
Casual Gamers are those that buy 4-6 games a year on average. Hardcore Gamers are those that, as soon as they beat one game (which takes them little time), they buy another, and so they buy 12 or more games a year. If you buy this much, you are hardcore. If you would buy this much but you have to eat, you are hardcore. If that really seems like a waste of money, but you love a good game, you are casual. If you can spend 100 hours on one game you love, but you don't bother reading about every new game that comes out, you are casual. If you read exhaustively everything about games even if you don't own a system (or exclusively read about every game for "your" console), you are hardcore.

Wake up, my fellow Hardcore, we are only about 15% of the gamer population.

Hardcore Gamers versus Casual Gamers... Casual Wins:
Lets take 100 gamers. 15 are HARDCORE, and 85 are casual. Over the course of the year, assuming each HARDCORE gamer buys 12 games, and each casual gamer buys 5, what do we have?

• 15 HARDCORE gamers out of 100 total gamers will buy 180 games in one year.
• 85 casual gamers out of 100 total gamers will buy 425 games in one year.
• HARDCORE gamers account for 34% of all games bought in one year. Casual gamers account for 66%.

The Myth that there are More Hardcore than Casual Gamers is a Lie Because:
Now, my math is fictional. I don't have the exact ratio of HARDCORE to casual gamers. But think of cars - some people are seriously freaked out about their cars. They buy chrome parts, wash them and take them to shows, read car magazines, collect car memorabilia and watch car shows. Most people just drive their cars, or love the one car they are in. What is their percentage versus the car enthusiasts?

Human nature stays constant over the course of our short lives - evolution takes longer. It follows that gamers show a similar trend of obsessive gamer and casual gamer as car lovers follow a similar trend of obsessive and casual car lover (versus people who, you know, drive something). Most people who love their cars don't subscribe to car magazines, let alone anything else.

Hardcore Gamers is a bad term, we are Obsessive Gamers:
We aren't hardcore, we are obsessive. That is what we do. Hardcore just sounds cool, and casual doesn't, hence my homo-italics. By definition, the obsessives of any product industry are not the majority, we are the overly vocal minority. Up until now (the Wii), most game systems have completely catered to the obsessive gamers, and now they have figured out that casual gamers make money too.

Does this spell DOOM for the obsessive gamer? Not really, because games casual gamers like, obsessive gamers also tend to like; however, an obsessive gamer needs deeper layers in a game to keep him busy and coming back for more, but both appreciate an approachable game.

Summary:
Hardcore Gamers are really obsessive gamers, and Casual Gamers outnumber them. We are witnessing a changing market, and no matter what vitriole we spew out, it's going to keep changing. I hate to use the pun, but the revolution is here, and now that companies have seen money, it's not going to stop.

PS3 Dominates Folding@Home, but that doesn't mean what we think it does

The Folding@Home numbers (which show the PS3 as accounting for 2/3rd of all calculation power when it numbers 27,000 to almost 200,000 computers) imply a fallacy.

According to Folding@Home, GPUs account for the greatest amount of calculations (while CPUs are necessary for others). But the only GPUs supported are flagship tier ATI 1900XT & 1900XTX (presumably 1950XT as well), not Nvidia nor 1800XT's.

This makes the PlayStation 3 greatly weighted against the PC, because not only do they have seven Cell processors (GPUs, in Folding@Home's eyes), but most PC's don't have the required videocard to even try to take on the PS3.

This makes the PS3 seem to dominate computers, when the reality is that it's not an even playing field.

PS3 sales 165k in two days in UK - but what does that mean?

In two days, 165,000 PS3 units have been sold in Great Britain. Record breaking, they say. Kevin and I decided to test that theory, but seeing what happened in Japan on the first two days, both comparing the sales figures, population of the two countries, and number of games at the launch.

Population:
60,609,153 (UK) is 47% of 127,463,611 (JAP)
UK has almost half the population of Japan.

PS3 Hardware Sales:
81,639 (JAP PS3) is 49% of 165,000 (UK PS3)

Launch Titles:
However, the PS3 launched in the UK with 22 titles, and only 5 in Japan. 5 is 23% of 22.

There are two theories to this:

1. The UK sales are a product of having more games, and this makes the UK sales figures less impressive.
   
2. Same as the above; however, this shows that the PS3 still has hope if it just gets enough games, because games drove the UK sales.

Background Data:
UK sold about 51% more PS3's than Japan did in its two day launch window. In order to match the UK sales, Japanese gamers would have had to buy about 84,150 more PS3's; however, that doesn't take into account there are twice as many Japanese, just how much it would take to make each country's sale ratios equal.

If UK has half the pop of Japan, and bought half more PS3's than Japan... then that would mean that Japan would have to by TWICE (100%) more PS3's to match the "Desiration Factor" of the PS3 in the UK. We aren't factoring in price, because while we think the UK PS3 is more expensive than the Japanese PS3 (British pound versus Japanese yen), we're not sure.

Europe World Population: source
Japan Population: source
Great Britain Population: source
Japan PS3 Sales in first 2 Days: source
Japan PS3 Launch Titles: source

One Man Understood What Market He Was In

Satoru Iwata is CEO of Nintendo of Japan, the mother company of Nintendo of America, and the lead behind the Wii.

What he said in a recent interview which named him one of the world's leading CEO's, was telling:

"We are not fighting against other companies—we are fighting against ignorance of video games."

The RIAA is guilty of more than suing American families, it is guilty of not understanding what market it is in.

"The RIAA is the "recording industry" and they represent the interests of the record labels who, while they may claim are in the music business, appear to believe they're really in the "music selling business" rather than (as they really are) the "music entertainment business." They believe their job is to distribute music, promote it, and get people to buy it. They make money by keeping that system closed and locked down. If they recognized they were really in the "entertaining people with music business" they should only be ecstatic about new technologies and services that make their job easier."

This is profound because there is a similar fallacy in the Gaming Industry has: that great graphics motivates gamers, rather than appeases them. This is why games come out early and buggy - because distributors think that once a game's graphic engine is done, that is all that is needed. If a game has crappy graphics, we are not pleased, but if the game is itself is not fun, all the graphics in the world won't save it.

The ignorance of the Gaming Industry is that they think are in the Videogame Graphics Market, not the Videogame Entertainment Market, which is their actual market as evidenced by the Nintendo Wii.

Understanding that their market is not limited to hardcore gamers with large pockets is costing not only Sony, but Microsoft.

Games Crossing Borders

Real Real Estate Agents sell Fake Property
Ummm, Coldwell Banker sets up to sell Second Life property. "Fascinating, Captain." as Spock would say.

Movies become Games, again
300 Director co-founds Movie-to-Videogame development company.

Lets not forget, World of Warcraft is being made into a movie.

Next Generation News

Sony PlayStation 3

• PS3 selling well for price? Why February's NPD numbers don't condemn Sony's PS3.
• PS3 power shines a bit? The PS3 owns Folding@Home distributed processing.
• Sony wasn't trying to call Americans "cheap."
  

Nintendo Wii

• Wii has already passed 5 million mark in only 4 months - This puts the system at about half the install base of Microsoft's 360 in only 4 months.
• Wii bowls over retirees - My personal take is something different; note that throughout the article, only WiiSports is mentioned, yet the media carefully points out:
  

  While those rivals focused on cutting-edge graphics and high-tech bells and whistles, Nintendo focused on making game play easier, more intuitive and more appealing to a mass market.

  That bet paid off.

  Clearly, the Wii is the media's favorite child, not the XBOX 360 or PS3, which are machines they cannot understand.
  

Nintendo DS

• Heroes of Mana coming to the U.S. in Summer - it's a strategy game, not like Seiken Densetsu 3 or Secret of Mana (SD2) in the U.S.
• The one intelligent thing said in the Bright and Shiny Future of the PSP is about its competition: "DS may be missing a few voice-overs and some more expansive game concepts, but it has wooed away from consoles the epic Dragon Quest IX -- the shock that gamers expressed at that news showed that millions still didn't know that handheld gaming is no longer just Pokemon and Tetris."
  
  Everything else said is moronic, right down to "Sales have tipped in Nintendo's favor, but those numbers aside," uhh... what?

PC

• Guild Wars 2: Notable? This one has a persistent world, and still no monthly payments. Presumably they are trying to solve the "pure instancing outside of towns" problems that make it difficult to socialize, but ArenaNet folks don't give a clear answer of how the new system solves it, other than to make what you do in instances affect other areas and players.
• One item of interest is that the level cap will either be set at 100, or be removed altogether. I'd like to see the latter, at which point, I'd be interested to see how that works out.
• "Events will also offer a way for players of different levels to keep interacting in the persistent world - which is crucial, since right now, ArenaNet is planning a very high [100-plus], or possibly no level cap" Good idea; I hope they implement it well.
• My favorite might be "'Click to move' will be abandoned in favor of a more freedom-rich control scheme, including 'jumping, swimming, and sliding'."

There's a thread on this at Guild Wars Guru.

Suing Innovation

This is what I was talking about earlier with the RIAA - the idea of using litigation to try to block a changing market. Protecting your investment, at that point, should really come down to "changing with the market and using existing power to make the transition easier and better than the little guys nipping at your heels," but nobody thinks to do that. That would be, you know, a risk - one which is actually lesser than obsoletion.

Ending the Wii is analogous to the Dreamcast debate

My words are in green. I am attempting to end the "The Wii is analogous to the Dreamcast" debate between myself and my very smart best male friend. Because this research represented an investment of my time, because my mind cannot keep track of factual details while his can, I didn't want to simply e-mail the work to him and have it be lost, so I present it here.

From Wikipedia:

Sixth generation

Main article: History of video game consoles (sixth generation)

This era began with the launch of the Sega Dreamcast in November 1998 in Japan and September 1999 in the U.S.. However, the impending and much-hyped PlayStation 2 competed with the Dreamcast before it was even released;

This is something the Wii did not face, because the XBOX 360 had already come out and failed to wow gamers because it was more of the same - graphics. The old industry illusion that graphics, not content, sells games, which is why games get released before they are ready - they are released as soon as the graphics engine is done (Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2, countless other games).

Also, the Wii's controllers created enough buzz that, along with Sony's Ross Perot messages concerning the PS3 (faltering, changing, unclear), the Wii surmounted this issue that the Dreamcast faced.

this, combined with Sega's tarnished reputation among Saturn owners and third party developers limited its adoption.

Again, the Dreamcast released with hardly any games, and it was 9 months into its life before it even had as many games as the Wii.

For more, see the Dreamcast launch.

The release of the anticipated Playstation 2 in March 2000 in Japan and October 2000 in the U.S. meant that the Dreamcast no longer enjoyed its status as the sole next-generation console. The brand Sony had established with the original PlayStation was a major factor in their victory, both in terms of securing a consumer base and attracting third party developers;

Here the tables are reversed: Sony is becoming the Sega Saturn - the system that is too difficult to program for (cell processors on the PS3 and badly meshed dual cores on the Saturn), too expensive ($400 Saturn versus $300 PlayStation), while the Microsoft XBOX 360 is enjoying developer support, entrenched console sales over 16 months (which effect game sales) and great games (such as Gears of War).

the gradual increase in one tending to reinforce the other. The PlayStation 2 was able to play DVDs and was backwards-compatible with PlayStation games, which many say helped the former's sales. Any user considering buying a DVD player or PlayStation could view the PlayStation 2 as a cost-effective alternative, and the system effectively had a back catalogue available before it even went on sale. The Dreamcast competed with the PS2 for several months however eventually Sega's financial troubles left over from the Saturn's failure began to really show themselves and the Dreamcast was discontinued by the time the console war proper began.

Nintendo does not have this massive debt problem.

The Xbox, despite the formidable financial backing of Microsoft and despite being more powerful than the PlayStation 2, has failed to significantly threaten the Playstation 2's place as market leader.

Has this changed? Possibly? Of course the PS3 is dying and the XBOX 360 is growing strong. The Wii, basically, needs only to see more games mature.

However, it has attracted a sizeable fanbase in the United States and Europe and has become a recognisable brand amongst the mainstream. In Japan its sales are far poorer, possibly due to the physical size of the console, and Microsoft's inability to acquire many major Japanese developers for their franchises as exclusives for the platform (contrast with Microsoft's multi-million dollar acquisition of UK developer Rare). However, there is a niche fanbase, particularly as the online services for the console, " Xbox Live", offers more to users than Playstation 2's non-centralized online system and Nintendo GameCube's near total lack of online games.

Nintendo struggled with their own brand images, particularly the family-friendly one cultivated during the 1990s.

While this is still the case (in fact, submit that you still have an anti-Nintendo bias as much as I do concerning their childish games), Nintendo is spinning this old, unshakable image to say "We're for casual gamers, not these elite hardcore bastards who give you all a hard time." The latter is never said, but every time you see a Nintendo ad showing people playing together in the same room, they are proselytizing the exact opposite of traditional, anonymous, abusive online play.

The bottom line is their old image is keeping away many of the same kinds of gamers the Wii wasn't specifically designed for anyway, and at this point, Nintendo's only major error is placing too much weight on casual gamers, and not enough on the grazing herd.

Nintendo's franchises and long history in the industry are failing to give them an advantage against the Xbox and PlayStation 2 . However the GameCube's low price point and the release of The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition has kept it competitive. Nintendo GameCube is in second place in total console sales in Japan, and in a close third place in the United States and Europe.

World wide sales figures

• Nintendo GameCube: 21.52 Million as of December 31, 2006 (Japan: 4.02, The Americas: 12.74, Other: 4.76)^[5]
• PlayStation 2: 115.36 Million shipped as of December 31, 2006 (Japan: 24.76, USA: 46.53, Europe: 44.07) ^[6]
• Sega Dreamcast: 10.6 Million as of December 2004 (Japan: 2.30, Other: 8.30 )^[3]
• Xbox: more than 24 Million as of May 10, 2006^[7]

The PlayStation 2 beat the Japanese school uniform miniskirts off of every other console and then savaged them mercilessly. Put together , every competing console only accounts for 48.65% of console hardware sales.

I submit that, like the SNES and Genesis days, this current war will not have a clear winner, but rather a market where two consoles will survive nicely, just as the Genesis and SNES did (see the History of Videogames Part 3 which details the SNES and Genesis battle) .

Sales as of March 2007:

Console	Sales
Xbox 360	10,400,000
Wii	6,030,000
PS3	2,150,000

I'm not sure where they get these numbers, as VGcharts' worldwide graph conflicts.

Hopefully I have put to bed the comparison between the Sega Dreamcast and the Nintendo Wii. While the Dreamcast was considered "ahead of its time", this was more due to coming out between the window of the current generation and the next; the PS2's power overshadowed it.

The Wii may well be ahead of its time, but that is because of its controllers, and there is no game in town to threaten this - you can't wait and buy an XBOX 360 or a PS3 with controls like the Wii, and the SixAxis controller has met with as limited success as I first thought. The SixAxis is gimmicky, a Nunchuck and a Wii Remote put together is a different control scheme altogether.

Key points:

• Wii has no impending (or existing) console attacking its intended market (casual gamers and people who can't afford pricey systems). This brings up an obvious counter-point as to how many games casual gamers and poor folks buy, but it shows that the Dreamcast and Wii are not like.
  
• The Dreamcast was launched with next to no games, 4 months earlier than planned, the Wii was launched with a record-setting 17(?) games (as of records for this generation).
• Brands are something the Dreamcast battled, but the Wii only has to fight it's own brand - literally, Nintendo's childishness, which has been spun as "games anyone can play," every commercial showing adults or families. The Wii, unlike the Dreamcast, is not facing an impossible behemoth; that enemy has slain itself (Sony), so it has a unique window of opportunity the Dreamcast never had.
• The Wii can't be one-upped by hardware, while the Dreamcast was. The Wii is known to be less powerful, but it's got it's controllers and its price point, and this perception that filters through the New York Times to TV to word of mouth and blogs. The Dreamcast was never viral outside of the traditional hardcore.

If anything, the only relevant similarities I see between the Wii and the Dreamcast is that they are both less powerful than the Sony and Microsoft consoles, and it ends there.

Will EA abandon the Wii? No, because the Wii means money, and EA never leaves money. Why does the Wii mean money when the Dreamcast didn't? Because the trump factors the Dreamcast faced, and EA saw on the horizon, don't exist here.

Even EA said they don't expect to outsell Nintendo's 1st Party line, but plan on being a healthy 2nd place (I read this on Gamasutra, I think, but I can't find the article).

We may be back to discussing the future impact of the Wii itself, but we can at least close the analogy between the Wii and the Dreamcast failure.