Sunday roundup.

According to GameSpot [when was the last time I quoted that site?] I am nowhere near an extreme gamer.

The research firm went on to break down the US gaming population into seven groups, four of which use both PC and non-PC platforms. The biggest group makes up what NPD calls “Secondary Gamers” (33.6 million), mostly female gamers who play less than four hours a week and don’t own a console. The fastest-growing segment was the mostly male “Console Gamers” (32.9 million), who own at least one or two dedicated gaming machines and play around 12 hours per week. Next up is the shrinking “Heavy Portable Gamers” group (30.0 million), who own at least one portable and are the youngest group, with an average age of 19. The smallest section is the so-called “Extreme Gamers,” whose gaming habit takes up nearly as much time as a 40-hour work week.

I did not do the Fat Princess PSN thing, which may have been for the best. Qj.net reports all sorts of latency issues.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 T&A. This one from the examiner is hilarious.

And finally, kotaku figures roughly 11 million folks use PSN. That number does not completely suck.

Happy Sunday! Enjoy one (or three) last cold ones because Monday is coming. Fast.

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Wii wins popularity contest over the PS3.

I have never visited Helium before; I found this article via some obscure search looking for something entirely different than a combination PS3 vs. Wii article and poll.

Now consider the Wii. The Wii is the least advanced of the 3 major consoles on the market. Its dated technology means it cannot cope with today’s ever advancing games industry. Instead, it is forced to rely on a gimmicky gaming style. The Wii cannot handle the level of gaming that the PS3 does, so it instead has to turn to games in which the actual gaming experience is less important.

The style of games that the Wii promotes is not one that will last. Sure, the Wii can be very fun at first, but how long could you control Indiana Jones with nun chucks before you start to wish you had a proper controller, and a fuller, richer gaming experience? The novelty value of interactive aerobics and simulated bowling will soon wear off, and gamers will be left wishing for something more substantial. And substantial gaming is not something that the Wii provides.

Silly rabbit, everyone knows that the Wii, with great first party games from Nintendo, compliments a PS3 or Xbox 360. And I guess the writer has failed to notice that this casual gaming craze keeps on keeping on. iPhone games. Granny games on the Wii. It is kind of the Tetris phenomenon, minesweeper, or solitaire all reincarnated.

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WoW pushes towards the 12 million mark.

I think it is pretty damn impressive that the World of Warcraft (WoW) subscriber base is currently at 11.5 million.

Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard’s most recent World of Warcraft subscriber figures revealed 11.5 million users are signed up to the game, with those located in the US paying USD 15 a month to play online.

That is one hell of a cash cow. I have considered re-subscribing, but at $15/month I will probably not get value for my dollar. Not that WoW is not a fun game – it is highly addicting and fun to progress your character(s) skills. I had a great time with it when I did subscribe – I just never got into group gaming with random folks.

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T&A Saturday

I was going to save this one for the return of T&A Thursday, but this is just too good to pass up. Videogames and T&A go hand-in-hand, and to prove the point, Pixelatedgeek posted this nice photo gallery of Jessica Nigri as a poke-a-something-or-another.

Could you imagine if all pokemon looked this hot? Nintendo is missing out on so many opportunities. Once the series is all but tapped out with their primary audience, they could start peddling sort porn pokemon images to the horny teenager crowd, and the move on to full on T&A for dirty old bastards like your truly. The possibilities are endless!

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Final thoughts on my PlayStation 3 HDD backup and recovery adventure.

Over the last few weeks I have written a number of articles about my trials and tribulations with backing up my HDD. I was looking at the site statistics over the last week and noticed that I get a lot of searches and referrals to folks looking for info on backup up their PS3. I thought it would be useful to put together a “What did I learn?” type article. Enjoy!

HDD upgrades are easy
Upgrading your HDD is very easy. You follow a few simple steps to remove your original PS3 HDD, and replace it with a 5400 RPM SATA drive and you are almost back in business.

Follow the steps in the link for the replacement activates and then restore your backup to your new HDD and you are back in the game.

HDD backup is easy
The actual HDD backup process is easy. The PS3 has a system tool that will allow you to plug in a cheap portable USB HDD and backup the entire PS3 HDD. My 60GB HDD took about 120 minute to be fully backed up, and the restore to the new 250GB HDD also took about 120 minutes.

Proprietary HDD format
If you plug in your portable USB HDD into your computer and attempt to read the contents of the PS3 system backup you will notice that the backup contains a series of files. The assumption I am going to make is that Sony uses some sort of proprietary compression format and encryption techniques. You cannot take the files in the full system backup and open them on your computer to play videos, view images, look at the contents of saved data, etc.

Failed backup
Full system HDD backups are not compatible across different PS3. This is where I ran into a lot of pain and suffering. My PS3 shows the same model and serial number information before and after the Sony repair service, however when I put my 250GB HDD back into the PS3, and attempted to restore my backup, I was told that the backup came from a different PS3.

Full system backup contents
In case of a system repair, what can be recovered from a full system backup? My full system backup restored my videos, images, themes, and user data, but the user data was under a generic name (i.e. user1). My previous reports said that I lost all my PS3 game profiles (i.e. high scores, time played, unlocked goodies, etc), but that was actually incorrect. I renamed the generic profile to be jcalvert and started exploring the contents – all of my game info was present.

Because my PS3 failed to realize that my backup was from the same system, or perhaps because Sony swapped out the guts of my system, only leaving me with the original outer shell, everything was not restored. System settings, PSN downloads (games and Qore episodes), game data (different from the game profile info), and PSX and PS2 memory cards failed to be recovered.

File-by-file backup
If I had it to do all over again, in addition to the full system backup, I would have spent the time to do a file-by-file backup of my memory cards and PSN downloads. Of course this process is an absolute pain if you have a large number of files to individually backup.

While the downloaded games and Qore episodes were easy to recover, it was time consuming. PSN downloads have never exactly been fast for me, so it took a while to go into the PSN store, select my previous downloads from the download menu, and then download all the stuff a second time.

I am still bitter over losing years and years of PSX and PS2 saved data. That one really hurt.

Sony should make this process easier
Sony should either allow you to key in your PSN user account and password info as part of the save and recovery process, or Sony should create a third backup and restore option that lets you select what you want to backup from a menu.

The former would prevent their fears over piracy, which I assume is why Sony will not allow you to transfer a HDD to a different PS3 system. In the end I was penalized for something that was not my fault. I thought I followed the backup and recovery instructions to the letter; it was only after I received my PS3 back from repairs that I realized that I was completely screwed.

The latter would be much simpler than spending time to backup individual files.

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Reviews for grannies.

Wii Sports Resort was recently reviewed at usatoday earning 5 stars (out of 5).

We tested this game with players across generations, including an 88-year-old grandmother and kids of many ages. And while not every game was a slam-dunk winner, every game was enjoyable to explore. No one ever felt like they couldn’t play (although the canoeing was particularly challenging for some) and all of our testers developed their favorites. All thought the archery game was impressive because it felt realistic (including having to adjust for wind), and everyone loved the one called “Frisbee Golf.” For families with young children, you might want to skip the swordplay as it has mild cartoon violence.

I have not seen any overly critical reviews of Wii Sports Resort. My kids finished up their summer sticker charts today, so Wii Sports Resort will be a weekend purchase.

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Spin game quickies.

I wrote early this morning about spinning the numbers. Here are a couple of interesting quotes from PlayStation LifeStyle. The writer believes that Sony has finally put itself in a winning position.

On face value this appears that Microsoft is still besting Sony for yet another fiscal quarter, but this may be short sighted, considering Sony’s momentum.

Forget for a moment that PS LifeStyle is a PS centric site. This is the first time I have noticed anyone using financial data and positive momentum for Sony in the same sentence.

The real winner here is Sony, who has driven more revenue, while selling 100,000 less consoles than its closest competitor. Profit on the other hand, is a different story, since Sony is allegedly still losing money on every console sold. Sony has already lowered some of the manufacturing costs with more changes in the pipeline. Once they lower the price, there is no stopping the PlayStation 3.

I guess that is one way to look at it, but sooner or later the red has to turn to black to prevent shareholder revolt. I guess if Sony can turn the PS3 into BigMacs then the write may in fact be correct, but I would hardly go out on a limb and say that there is no stopping the PS3.

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Tale of two contracts.

As we head into the opening of training camp for the Atlanta Falcons, I thought it was interesting that these two guys are going in somewhat different directions.

First there is this year’s first round draft choice Peria Jerry who just signed a nice fat juicy five year contract. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but according to the ajc:

Last season, Tennessee selected running back Chris Johnson with the 24th pick, and he received a five-year, $12 million deal, of which $7 million was guaranteed. Johnson had a base salary of $295,000 in 2008 — followed by $385,000 in 2009, $550,000 in 2010, $800,000 in 2011 and $960,000 in 2012.

Like I said. A nice fat juicy contract. I hope Peria does well and anchors the d-line for years to come.

And on the other end you have 2005 first round draft choice, Pro Bowl wide receiver Roddy White. He wants some more duckets.

White’s position is that he could suffer a career-ending injury, and there are no fully guaranteed contracts in the NFL. He said during the offseason that he wanted to have his contract situation resolved before the season started. What wasn’t clear was whether White meant the start of training camp or the start of the regular season.

However, the Falcons are under no duress to complete an extension. White is under contract for the season and could become a restricted free agent for one year because the NFL owners opted out of the collective bargaining agreement with the NFLPA, the player’s union, and could face “uncapped” salary requirements next season. White would lose the leverage that comes with entering unrestricted free agency when his contact expires.

I can understand White’s position, but one year does not a contract make. I hope he reports and does not try to hold the Falcons for ransom. I do think that White can become a premier receiver, so I hope they work out the details behind the scenes and everyone lives happily ever after.

Hot damn, Falcons training camp opens tomorrow!

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Spinning the numbers.

Console sales data is always a hot topic at N4G, so it is no surprise that this article from Gamezine [UK based] is burning up the charts. What I find surprising [actually this should come as no surprise] is the ridiculous spin everyone puts on this type of data. For example,

Although it’s odd to tout that the PS3 wasn’t that far behind the Xbox 360 during the quarter, it’s surely relevant for those who toot the horn that the Xbox 360 is beating the PS3 with a stick.

Microsoft’s console only sold approximately 100,000 more units than Sony’s PS3 (since the numbers are rounded to the nearest 0.1, the difference could be as little as 20,000 units) and though neither have had a great quarter, the differing price points for the consoles might raise some questions for Microsoft.

Compare that to this article from Gameplayer [an Australian based site] that takes the same data and comes to a somewhat different conclusion.

While Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft all reported a fall in total profits, it was only the latter that still showed a year-on-year increase in the sale of its console. Where 8.7 million consoles were sold during the same period in 2008, 11.2 million made it out the door in 2009. By comparison the once dominant Wii has seen sales more than halved in Q1 of 2009, dropping from 5.17 million units in 2008 to 2.23 million this year. The PlayStation 3 followed suit although not as dramatically dropping from 1.6 million sales, to 1.1 million in a Q1 comparison.

No matter how you spin things, the Wii still has a substantial market share, the 360 is still dominating the next generation market, and the PS3 is still in desperate need of a price cut.

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Ferrari announces Schumacher’s return!

I was looking for a good link to talk about Michael Schumacher’s return to Ferrari as Felipe Massa’s replacement and just could not find what I was really looking for in a story. Then I remembered my mate from across the Pond; a good bloke that contributed in the early days of CG. Adam’s recent Petrol Head post puts some nice flavor on Schumacher’s return …

It has been suggested that getting Michael Schumacher to agree to a brief comeback must have taken the hardest of hard sells from the Ferrari top brass. Really? Getting him to retire in the first place must have taken some doing, since when he stepped out of his car in the Interlagos paddock in October 2006 he was a driver still at the top of his game, with plenty of driving left in him and, to the eyes of the distant observer, being sidelined against his will. “Any chance you could leave us the keys, Michael? It’s just we’ve got this Finnish bloke coming to have a look at your car…”

I for one am excited to see what Schumacher can do with this current generation of F1 machines. Should be good times all around, and with a little luck maybe Schumacher can help get Ferrari back to the top podium spot.

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kotaku on lightish PSP Go.

I continue to soak up all the PSP Go goodness that I can find; both the good and the bad. kotaku (via N4G) has an interesting article about how light the PSP Go is compared to the iPhone. All that is well and good, but I thought this part of the article was interesting.

For many of the vocal readers on this site, the questions that linger about the PSPgo are the price and the system’s support of existing disc-based games, particularly those that prospective Go buyers already posess. The Sony rep I spoke to in New York stuck to the comments chief U.S. PlayStation marketing man Peter Dille gave Kotaku during E3, that the October 1, $250 unit is priced for early adopters.

It will remains hard to assess the true cost of that $250 price until Sony explains how gamers will or won’t be able to play the many disc-based PSP games on the disc-drive-free Go, via data transfer, some sort of trade-in system, re-purchasing discounts or whatever. As of yesterday, that plan remains to be announced. (Going forward it does seem that major releases will be released digitally for the PSPgo, as Sony has previously announced. The timing of those releases remains unclear, though, as, for example, a LucasArts rep at the Sony event was not able to say whether the downloadable version of the upcoming Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron would be released the same day as the disc game hits stores or a little before or after.)

At this point I do want a Go, but I am having a hard time justifying the price. There is nothing wrong with my PSP-1000; being old and heavy as a brick, it still works fine. Football season is about to start; I need a new tailgating grill and the Webber Q220 is about the same price as a Go.

If I go with a Go [I know, the pun sucks] I will want to replace my UMD library, using my PSP-1000 for some homebrew fun. I wish Sony would publish WTF they are planning to do for a UMD trade in program, but for now it looks like we will just have to speculate.

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And so it begins. PSP digital distribution.

First let me say that I understand why Sony is going to push for digital distribution. Right now I do not have the time to publish bullet point for bullet point why I think Sony is going in this direction. Second let me say that I still have not clicked “order” from Amazon for a PSP Go.

With that out of the way, check out this article from the Official PlayStation Blog about Unbound Saga being available via digital distribution only.

But why would Vogster, or any other publisher for that matter, buck the trend and do something as radical as bypassing brick-and-mortar? What do we have against the good people at Gamezoinks? Nothing at all, I assure you (In fact, we just made that name up.). But the benefits of digital distribution cannot be overlooked. For the consumer, digital download offers unparalleled convenience. If you want it, you can have it NOW, regardless of weather, bus schedules, gas prices, etc. RIGHT NOW. In fact, I just bought the first three seasons of Dexter from the PlayStation Store while writing this. My fingers barely left the keyboard. How convenient is THAT?? It also guarantees availability. It would have stunk to drive all the way to the mall for that set of DVDs only to find they were sold out. Well, the internet is never sold out, and it is open 24-7. How ‘bout them apples?

I actually have no interest in this game, but considering folks are already busy downloading PSN only games, it is surprising how hard Sony is trying to make digital downloads sound not so frightening.

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Tomorrow is the big day.

It is hard to believe, but finally, after a long, long wait [you got me, it was not that long a wait] the Madden 10 PS3 demo is finally here. And something about a Fat Princess.

This can only mean one thing. It is time for the weekly PlayStation LifeStyle PSN rumor post. Tomorrow will be a big day.

Can you believe that I actually did not pay extra, preorder from a special location or any other nonsense just to get the Madden 10 demo a few days early? Just for the hell of it I am not even downloading the Madden 10 demo. I say screw ‘em! That’s an attention-getter.

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Wii Sports Resort?

My kids want this game. In fact this afternoon they told me that they wanted this game for completing their summer sticker charts. First a little digression is in order. My oldest son went to a private school for kindergarten through second grade. When it was time for my second born son to start school, my wife and I gave it careful consideration and decided that she would try home schooling both of the boys. My wife is not only a very brave lady, but a saint. There is no way I would have the patience for being “stuck” [my word, not hers] with the kids all day. Not only does she do a good job, but they are about to start home school year three in a couple of weeks.

That is a lot of digression to say that during the summer break my oldest son earns some stickers for math activities, while the middle guy gets stickers for reading activates. Last year they decided to double team mom and dad, complete their charts, and ask for Mario Kart Wii. This year they have decided that they want Wii Sports Resort. As a gaming dad it is kind of hard to say no to this type of motivation. Do good in school and dad gets to play a new game? Sounds like a great use of a motivational sticker chart to me.

This brings us to GamerDad. It has been a while since I linked to one of their articles, but their review of Wii Sports Resort has me convinced that I will enjoy this game. Rather my kids should earn this one for completing their sticker charts.

If my overly glowing review hasn’t convinced you to try the game out, there’s very little I have left to tell you. It is definitely a casual game and not one that has deep strategic decisions or require hard core gaming skills. However, all the games present an enjoyable activity to learn and master, and players who simply must have a challenge can try to perform well enough to acquire all the stamps. Perhaps the only negative I can find to say about the game is the lack of online support in any manner. However, this style of game is far better suited for head to head competition when players are in the same room. In a typical Nintendo fashion, the game is not groundbreaking in what is presents, so much as how final result is a polished and fun game with a strong appeal to a wide audience.

Seems like good clean fun for the boys (and maybe they will let dad in on the action).

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