Category: Archive

Archives – the Good, the Bad, and Ugly pre May 31, 2015.

PSP Go Cash Cow for Ports?

So now that Sony is going down the digital download only route with the PSP Go, how does Sony fill up PSN with suitable content? Ports, baby, ports. ThePortableGamer has an great article advising Sony not to throw caution to the wind.

What Sony doesn’t need to do is start pulling existing developers and tell them to port their games to the PSP Go. It would be nice to see a dedicated Sony-brand application store rather than having to go through PSN or the PC to get games on the new system. Given the number of applications on iTunes, Sony could be relatively successful in grabbing the best of the bunch to port their games. But there lies some honest truth, Sony wants quick cash.

There are many gamers, this one included, that would be happy to have a full back catalog of PSX titles available for download, along with a steady stream of original IP, assuming the price per download is reasonable. With that said, I also know that we are going to see a rash of iPod ports; not such a happy situation. Hopefully PSN does not get flooded with a bunch of crap, because the PSP Go should be for real gaming experiences, not some nickel and dime store iPod crap.

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Friday Stuffs

Because it is Friday. And I have stuffs to discuss.

She’s a good hearted woman…
Happy b-day T! You’re still the best!

Many happy returns.
I never could get Sony’s online repair system to tell me squat about my PS3, but last night I received noticed that my PS3 just left Laredo, TX. It looks like it is due to arrive July 21. After going so long without playing, I am surprised how much I miss the little bastard. Cannot wait to play some more Ratchet & Clank.

That did’t take long.
July 4 I wrote a bit about the Braves making a bid for the NL East. So much for that. At the time of that article, the Braves were 2 GB, 1 under .500 (39-40). Today? Atlanta is still 1 under .500 (44-45), but they are now 6 GB. Sell, sell, sell!

Beckham madness over?
I never thought I would see the day that Beckham was ripped on ESPN, but it looks like that day has finally arrived.

In his first match since the Italian League’s season finale on May 31, Beckham was often behind the play and seemed winded. He had no free-kick chances near the goal, didn’t make any crosses that created threats and didn’t even take all the Galaxy corner kicks while he was in the match.

While this is not exactly a total bitch slap, the article was surprisingly overly negative towards Beckham. I agree with the overall assessment in the article. The Beckham buzz is done. Make of it what you will, but times, they are a changing.

Numbers game.
This article from EndSights (via N4G) contends that the latest NPD data shows that Microsoft is kicking Sony in the crown jewels. Actually, the author is trying to make a point that Sony fans are loyal, but the PS3 base is so much smaller than the 360 that the 360 will always have higher NPD numbers.

When you think about it, this is a bit of a head scratcher. I am not sure what loyalty has to do with it, right Sega fans?

Two of the biggest releases in June were Prototype and Fight Night Round 4, and both sold, in pure units, better on the Xbox 360. Prototype in particular was extremely pronounced, with the Activision published title selling 600,000 units between the two platforms, with the Xbox 360 accounting for close to 70 percent of those units — selling through close to 420,000 units. Fight Night Round 4 wasn’t as drastic. The title sold an impressive 471,100 units between the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, despite only being on retail shelves for five days. The Xbox 360 still represented the bulk of those sales, however, selling through 260,800 units — or 55.3 percent.

Despite the apparent dominance in the software sales chart by the Xbox 360, which, on one level, is an undeniable reality for Sony, also provides some rays of hope for the PlayStation 3 going forward. Conventional wisdom would say that Microsoft has a better hold on the hardcore gamer, as shown by their software sale dominance. Instead, if the June NPD numbers are any indication, it’s not software that Microsoft dominates — it’s hardware.

The whole system race (hardware game) is all about installed base. Grow your install base and make a cut off of each game sold. License fees and royalties rule.

All for now. Happy Friday!

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NCAA Football 10: Reviews that suck.

I could not help myself; I had to go hunting for NCAA Football 10 reviews. Look on the bright side, you guys get a new, albeit short, blog entry.

I understand that gamedaily is not going to focus on a sports game, so it is expected that their NCAA Football 10 review would be rather short. Maybe even simple and to the point. I am not exactly expecting details on DB AI coverage patterns, QB accuracy rates, and how the AI performs in the closing minutes of the game. However, I was expecting just a little bit more than this …

Aside from those new features, this year’s NCAA offers the same gameplay and presentation from previous installments. Because of this, what could’ve been a five-star prospect quickly became a solid backup. Unless you’re a college football fanatic, we suggest waiting for Madden NFL 10.

For those keeping score at home, let’s recap this review. Opening paragraph about three new features: Coke Zero Season Showdown, Road To Glory and Team Builder modes. This is followed by a brief paragraph on each of the features. And the review finishes with the dribble I quoted above.

Seriously. That is the entire review, which awards the game a 7 out of 10. For what it is worth, their review from last year gave the game a 7 out of 10.

So nothing has changed? Are the bugs from last year still present? Does the CPU put up a decent challenge? Is the game fun? What is Madden 10 better? Good grief. Remind me not to go to gamedaily for sports game reviews.

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Screwed up Amazon system. Or Madden 10 preorder adventure.

Last weekend I finally broke down and preordered Madden 10 (PS3) from Amazon. I figured I would crumble into the pressure sooner or later, but Amazon was running a special deal that would also give me a $10 Amazon gift card. OK, nothing really special, but I was game. Besides, they did this same deal last year, so it was expected. Call it tradition!

I wanted to make sure I got the game on release day (Friday, August 14) so I selected Next Day shipping [$3.99 for us Prime suckers]. Imagine my surprise when the order shows me that I will get the game on the 18th. F that noise! I emailed Amazon customer support and basically told them to F-Off; WTF happened to the “release day guarantee” offer/option?

Apparently this option was not available when I placed my order, because Amazon only makes this option available when they can confirm availability of an item. WTF? Madden. You have got to be kidding me. As if. There are going to be copies of Madden 10 sitting on shelves across the country for the next 18 months. Good grief!

I was told that I had to cancel my order and place a new one. Screw that; did not want to lose my $10 gift card. I attempted to place a new (or second) order, but the “release day” option was still not being offered. This sucks. So much for Amazon Prime shipping. I may as well break down and go to a … real … store. Scary.

Just for shits and giggles I was on Amazon a little while ago and noticed that the “release day guarantee” option was now available for Madden 10. I went to my order, updated the shipping option, and selected “release day” and much to my pleasure [something like that] I am now due to receive Madden 10 on August 14th. Plus I get the $10 gift card. Plus I now do not have any shipping charges.

Happy days!

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Benjamin Sheridan Marauder @ Straight Shooters

It has been a while since I have posted anything airgun related, so how about this tidbit I received via email from the good folks at Straight Shooters.

We just finished the Our Take testing on the new Benjamin Sheridan Marauder and we were very happy with the results. It was a little difficult to decide how to test the Marauder because it is optimized from the factory for 2500 psi air fills. Yet with a little “tuning” the gun can be filled to 3000 psi which would likely yield a few more shots. After some discussion, we decided to use the factory optimum which is 2500 psi. Our reasoning is that most shooters will probably never tune their gun and will use it just the way it’s set right from the factory.

An interesting feature of the Marauder is that the “tuning” can be done at home as the tuning tools are provided with the gun and instructions on how to do the tuning is shown in the manual. Bottom line though is that the power at 2500 psi proved to be just about ideal for the pest control/plinker type of shooter. Check out the numbers by clicking on the following link and you’ll see what we mean.

In addition, I can honestly say that the gun was a pleasure to shoot. It is a very quiet gun and functioned flawlessly. We think this gun will be a steal for the price.

If I had the time, energy, and inclination to go to the dark side, I think the Marauder would be a worthy pick up. I am still kind of sitting on the fence on the whole PCP thing. If you get one, order from Straight Shooters; Kevin and Craig are first class!

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Why not Intellivision?

If you are going to go old school, and release games for the PC Engine (or TurboGrafx-16), why not do this retro game thing justice and go for broke? Yes, we have all been there and done that with Intellivision Lives, but why not release a virtual Intellivision, Colecovision, or C-64 console? According to andriasang.com, PSN is now offering some old non Sony content.

Bomberman ’94, New Adventure Island (Takahashi Meijin no Shin Boukenjima), Sengoku Mahjong, and Devil Crush are available starting today, priced at the standard Game Archives going price of ¥600. The games are playable on both PlayStation 3 and PSP.

Not sure where Sony is going with this, but obviously they cannot call on Nintendo’s back library. Maybe they go for Sega next, but I still say go for the good stuff. Give me Seven Cities of Gold and Elite for the C-64 and Treasure of Tarmin for the Intellivision.

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Going, going, gone. Or another story on how Sony sucks eggs.

The only reason I am posting a link to this story from the escapist is because their content is always well written, provoking thought, and of course entertaining. But really, do we need another “Sony lost, blah, blah, blah …” story?

Only the Game Boy kept Nintendo in the race, while Sony led two hardware generations. It seemed immovable.

Then, a series of events brought Sony crashing down to earth. Microsoft released the Xbox 360 at the end of 2005 and enjoyed a full year as the sole next-gen console. When the PS3 eventually arrived, it did so practically in tandem with the epoch-making, zillion-selling, game-changing Wii.

On the handheld front, Sony’s attempt to remove Nintendo from its portable stronghold was equally disastrous. The PSP went head to head with the DS and came off far worse, hitting 50 million unit sales earlier this year as its rival reached 100 million.

Then the iPhone came along, but we won’t talk about that.

The article then goes on to talk about how news of the PSP Go was leaked prior to E3 and explains that third parties could give a rats ass about Sony. All true? Probably.

I did a write-up on this many moon ago; will have to see if I can dig up the original article. If anyone wants to write about Sony’s struggles, just lament back to the days of 3DO. The hardware was ahead of its time, and the price point was into the stratosphere as far as the average Joe was concerned. Oops, Sony failed to learn from history.

Playing second fiddle to Nintendo’s DS variations probably sucks for Sony, but when you consider the number of PSPs sold is 50+ million, that is a lot of opportunity to make some money. Even if the PS3 stays in third place for the remainder of this hardware generation (however that is defined) at some point I assume that Sony wins the high-def format war. Sony gets a little slice of paradise every time you double dip and purchase a Blu-ray upgrade to your DVD library.

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Monday news, notes, and recycling

Other than wanting to get a cold one I do not have a lot of junk to spew about tonight. Actually, before we get started I have to admit that I am a little bit pissed off that there is no update on the Sony site about the status of my PS3 repair. The site says to “please allow 1-2 business days for your unit to be assigned to a Service Agent once received.” Hmmm … I guess there must be some sort of backlog of broken PS3.

Price cuts by October?
This article from VG247 shows that the price cuts are coming, just in time for your holiday shopping pleasure.

Wedbush Morgan super-analyst Michael Pachter has predicted that Sony will cut PS3’s price before October 1 if US hardware sales continue to slide.

“It is likely both manufacturers [Sony and Nintendo] will cut by $50, with Sony making up any lack of increased demand with a software bundle.

The article basically states that hardware sales suck [stagnant is probably a more profession description] and that there will be price cuts all around. Everyone is looking for a $100 PS3 price cut from Sony, but I guess $50 is more reasonable. To be honest, once I saw the $249 price point for the PSP Go I figured Sony was going to go for a deep PS3 price cut and try to recoup PS3 losses on early PSP Go suckers [I mean adapters].

PSP Homebrew Stuffs
If I get a PSP Go, I am going to consider bricking my PSP-1000 into a homebrew system. In anticipation of this event, I have been looking at different homebrew options. QJ.net seems to be a decent news consolidation point for all things PSP homebrew related.

PSP-3000 vs. PSP Go
Click here is an interesting article comparing the PSP-3000 specs to the PSP Go.

NCAA Football 10
I have not budged. Have not started checking for the “I have it posts” or looking to see how much the game “rules or sucks.”

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NCAA Football 10 – Prerelease post.

I am trying not to second guess myself about not preordering NCAA Football 10, and more importantly, abstaining for this year’s release. Since my PS3 is off in unknown parts of Texas getting repaired it is a lot easier to show will power. Or is it?

I keep trying to talk myself out of getting the PSP version. That one does not really count, does it? When I made my declaration of “no NCAA Football this year” I was really talking about the big brother version, right?

Oh well, just a day before the pending release, there are several things I am not doing …

  • I am not looking at the “I got it early” threads.
  • For that matter, I am not even visiting forums of any sort.
  • I am not looking for early reviews.
  • I am not looking for bloggers with hands-on day one type impressions.

When I think about it, I find it rather amazing that I am actually sitting on the sidelines waiting this one out. I almost do not know what to do with all this free time on my hands. With all that said, at the very least I am damn curious about the PSP version, and since my current PSP library is down to exactly zero sports games, I may have to take a couple of sneak peeks later in the week.

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Throwing out history with the bathwater.

Yesterday I was doing some belated spring cleaning and finally decided to turn towards the old bookshelf. You know the one with old college text books and programming manuals and books that time forgot?

  • Programming Windows 3.1 Third Edition Charles Petzold
  • Advanced Windows Third Edition Jeffrey Richter
  • Microsoft Foundation Class Bible 4

I started to keep these three books for prosperity or something. The only reason I have been hanging on to them was for sentimental value. I spent a lot of time with these books early in my career, but it is time to move on to other adventures.

Shed no tears of sorrow; all these books served me well. Now off they go to the local Goodwill for someone else to enjoy.

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More PSP Go dribble.

It is a slow gaming news day, so I went hunting for PSP Go news. I am still very much on the fence about getting one of these systems, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Last week RPGamer posted some E3 hands-on impressions of the Go. Not a lot of new nuggets here, but the article is worth a read if you are pressed for PSP Go news.

The battery life on the Go is a bit of a disappointment. Many people, including myself, thought that with the exclusion of the UMD drive, the battery life on the Go would be much longer than the current PSP’s 3-6 hours for games and 3-5 hours for video playback. Unfortunately, the PSP Go has nearly the exact same battery life as previous PSP models. This is a concession to the Go’s smaller form factor. It uses a smaller battery at 960mAH while the previous PSP-3000 used a 1200mAH battery. Technically, the PSP Go is far more energy efficient because even though it has a smaller battery it can achieve the same battery life as previous models. To be honest, that is a very small concession since functionally, nothing has changed.

I still do not understand how Sony failed to address battery life; 10 hours should be the minimum that engineers should strive for with a portable gaming system. At least with my current PSP-1000 brick, I do have two batteries, so I can always keep one changed. If the PSP Go has an internal battery, we are all F’ed if we expect to take this thing on a long flight.

Still not convinced that you need to spend your hard earned duckets on a PSP Go? Neither is TheSixthAxis, but they tried to come up with some reason to go with a PSP Go.

Let’s face it, many people who buy a PSPgo will likely be buying it simply because it is new. With the technology and gadget loving crowd if they are not considering buying it because they themselves always like to have the newest gadget they may be considering it just for the cachet that comes from showing their peers that they have bought the latest technological bling.

So this is what happens on a slow news day. You have to read me droning on and on “will he or won’t he” style about the PSP Go. Part of me wants one – my PSP 1000 is a brick and if I get a PSP Go, I can turn my PSP 1000 into a homebrew system.

I keep saying, “screw it, I am heading to Amazon to preorder” then at the last minute I cannot justify $250 for this minor PSP upgrade. Besides, I cannot make up my mind on the Black or White decision. If I can find $175 worth of crap to throw up on eBay this afternoon, I think I will take the plunge. Stay tuned.

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Funny D&D + LOTR webcomic.

I am really now sure how I came across The DM of the Rings comic strip, rather webcomic, earlier this week, but OMG, this thing had me LMAO. At times it was so bad that my wife would look at me in bewilderment, and finally pat me on the head and say something along the lines of “I am glad my little geeky nerd is enjoying that stuff.”

So here is the deal, if you grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons, or at some point were a fan of D&D, AD&D, the various derivatives over the years, debated the merits of 1st Edition vs. 2nd Edition vs. whatever came next; and you take your Tolkien not too terribly seriously, this webcomic is for you. It has been around for a while, but if you missed out on it, check it out now!

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FOX, thanks for taking my Nurburgring away.

Another F1 race, another FOX tape delay. These things suck. It is bad enough that FOX will not play the race until later this afternoon, but WTF is wrong with SPEED TV? I love how SPEED TV offers its own replay at 1PM this Wednesday. Seriously, whoever signed a deal for me not to be able to watch live F1 races can just F Off!

Looks like SPEED TV does not pick up a live race until Aug 23, the European Grand Prix.

Welcome to Sunday. Don’t let my grumpiness prevent you for having a good one. Happy Sunday!

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Myst baby! Myst!

My second “Holy Toledo Batman!” moment of the morning, and in my dotage, it is much too early (dare I even say exiting!) for me to take this sort of news. What to do? What to do? According to GamersDailyNews at long last … wait for it … sit down and take a deep breath … Myst is coming to the PSP! You know you need to get you some of that!

As part of a publishing agreement with Cyan Worlds, Myst will be released on Thursday July 16th through the Playstation Network.

The game takes advantage of the PSP system’s glorious 16-million color 16:9 screen as it catapults the player into a universe of mystery, discovery, and mind-bending puzzles.

Utterly alone and without encountering another single living soul on a mysterious island, the player sets out to explore its grandeur and unlock its secrets. A chilling tale of injustice unfolds, expanding beyond all boundaries of space and time. Quickly, though, it becomes clear every action can somehow help unfortunate individuals trapped somewhere in a parallel dimension. The Myst adventure is like no other, tantalizing with its unique combination of lavish environments, puzzles, mazes, and a sizzling underlying drama which steadily reveals itself to the player

Just you wait and see. This sum bitch is going straight to the top of the PSN download charts.

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