Dear Sony

Dear Sony,

After purchasing your expensive blu-ray disc player (known simply as the PS3) about a year ago, I’ve had only one complaint about the system.  It seems that even though you touted the fact and used it as one of the many reasons to jack up the price to a god-awful amount, the built in wi-fi adapter suck major donkey parts.  Aside from jacking in directly to my broadband connection, I can’t rely on a stable (when I can get one) wireless signal via the PS3 blu-ray disc player that I payed $499 for. 

Sony, shouldn’t it be able to connect to the Sony Store every single time I attempt to?  Shoudln’t I be able to access BD Live features without having to wait forever?  Should a simple trial game download take an hour or more to download just so I can decide if I want to purchase the game or not? 

Now, being Sony (or a fanboy of such) I’m sure it’ll be blamed on my router, my connection, one of a million things Sony has nothing to do with.  But, let me assure you completely that I have no problem with any other wireless device in my house.  My laptop connects fine, as does my Zune, DS and my only video gaming console, the Xbox 360, which required a seperate adapter be purchased (and which works great, thanks).

In closing, Sony, I’d like to suggest that, if you’re going to include a feature that works only half the time, if at all, please put it in for free, don’t use it as an added excuse to create the most expensive gaming console of all time.

kthxbye,

James

Kindle 6” Price Reduced, Again?

Major Nelson recently tweeted that the Kindle price had been dropped again.  This time, the beautiful e-book reader was dropped to $259.00 from $299.00.  This is fantastic news for me, since I’ve been wanting to get my hands on one of these suckers for awhile. 

The confusing thing is that when you click on the link to “buy a Kindle,” it takes you to the newer $279 version that features U.S. and International wireless access.  So, maybe this is a limited time offer until the “new” model arrives.  Either way, this baby is falling into my price range just in time for Christmas!

One Word Replies or “I Don’t Understand, But I’ll Post Anyways.”

I am at a loss for words when anyone, myself included, makes a post via Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, a forum, etc, only to get that infamous one word reply.  “Huh?”  “What?”  Even worse is when you make a simple statement, as I did earlier tonight, and the question you on it.  I wasn’t asking for comments, although I know that this is the internet and you are open for them …  But still, one of my old high school friends felt the need to question me.

James: “Sometimes I forget, but I have the best wife, awesome son, wonderful friends and family and 2 great jobs.”

Friend: “How do you forget something like that, especially the 2 great jobs?”

Well, first of all, I was referring to the fact that even something as great as family can be taken for granted.  Sure, maybe I should have elaborated on this, but 140 characters isn’t a lot of space to go into detail.  Perhaps I should have even said, “take for granted the fact,” but, there you go again, you’re using up characters!  So, thanks to the limitations of messaging services, I get asked a question that I never intended to be asked. 

So then I make a post concerning my “World of Warcraft” warlock and how I am beginning to create his backstory in my head just as I did my hunter.  Again, same said friend comments: “Huh?”  and follows up with, “Are you speaking geek now?”

My final action was to just delete every cotton-picking thing I’d written.  Even the post that wasn’t commented on.  I don’t go around commenting on every worthless piece of information other folks care to share.  Like, “Oh, I have the greatest kid.”  Really?  Cause I think mine is pretty darn awesome.  “Woops, lil Ricky just spit up! Isn’t that cute?!  Here’s a pic.”  No, actually it’s not cute.  It’s disgusting.  You shouldn’t feed him the whole bottle.  And, yeah, thanks, I really wanted to see a picture of vomit.  Next time I take a dump, I’ll be sure to share a picture of it. 

So there, another issue off my chest.  Thank you, and good night.

What I Thought of the E3 Events Part I

Warning: This is a delayed reaction to the press conferences held at E3 ‘09.  I’m not a professional, nor will I be commenting on every single detail covered in the pressers.  Instead, I’m just a video game fan and feel like presenting my impressions of what we have seen, read and heard.

Microsoft (http://e3.g4tv.com/e32009/pressconference/microsoft/19/)

Beatles Rock Band Announcement

• - The Beatles Rock Band intro was great.  Beautifully done.
• - Harmonix House Band was hilarious. I could see entire concerts forming based around Rock Band / GH gameplay.
• - I’m not a Beatles fan, and have actually made fun of the price for the entire Beatles RB package, but I’d pick up this game as a single release.  It really sounds good.
• - The whole deal with Ringo, Paul, Yoko and Olivia Harrison was unnecessary.  It seemed fake, forced and ate up valuable time.  Paul and Ringo seemed bored and not really sure where the crap they were.  Must have been serving drinks backstage ;)

10 New Games / New Experiences / New Entertainment

• - Tony Hawk’s “Ride” and the skateboard controller … nope.  I’m a 33 year old fat man.
• - Modern Warfare 2 looked awesome, but it’s just not my type of game.
• - Final Fantasy XIII may be the first FF game I play since the release of VII many moons ago.  Love the look of the battle menus, graphics look spectacular.
• - Shadow Complex – good stuff for an Arcade title.
• - Joy Ride looks cute, but gameplay is everything.  We’ll see.  Free to use, but microtransactions could make or break.
• - Crackdown 2.  Love the original.  This one looks twice as good.
• - Left 4 Dead 2 cinematic was hilarious and well done.  Splinter Cell looked hot, but, again, not my type of game.  I’m a weird one like that.  Forza 3, beautiful as always.  Halo games – not as hot as people make them out to be.
• - Alan Wake was just added to my must play list.
• - last.fm, I use this service already.  360 integration looks interesting enough, but I’m not big on using a video game console as a media center experience.  I use mine to play games, go figure.  Oh, and btw, last.fm is free online, yet you have to have a $50 Live Gold Membership to use it on 360.
• - Netflix, filling your cues on the 360 instead of online is something alot of folks have been asking for.  The live TV feature is nice, but I took it that it was for the UK and Ireland, not the U.S.
• - 1080p instant streaming is a big plus, for me.  As long as it works with my internet connection.  Will definately be trying this out.  Instant tv and videos is also a nice feature, as long as the price isn’t outrageous on all of this.  The MST2K aka “shared experience” feature is, meh.
• - Facebook & Twitter – I’m a user of both and these features attract me.  I can imagine the number of integrated features that will be implemented with your Passport ID.  On a side note, even though Felicia Day is an actress, she seemed awfully nervous during her presentation.

Not Done Yet

• - Metal Gear Solid franchise to Xbox 360.  MGS Rising.  Raiden <sp> was my favorite character and I can’t wait to play this, as well.  My list is too big now, and I still have two other pressers to catch up on!  Argh!!
• - Microsoft evidently knew about the Sony “wand,” because they just made a reference to it around 1:27:00 of their intro to their own motion controller.
• - This motion sensing “controller” looks awesome.  The guy scanning and selecting his own skateboard in the game was very cool.  Logging in to Live by just walking in and then seeing the video call and the interaction between the girls was neat.  The quiz show was also captivating.  The whole casual use was very Minority Reportish.
• - Project: Natal.  Interactive Entertainment is here?  Steven Spielburg seems taken by it, and actually seems interested, unlike the Beatles guests earlier in the show.  Like how my avatar mimics my movements.  Navigating the 360 menus could get tiring.  The Richochet demo looks too physical for my tastes :P  The painting demo was interesting, but honestly, it looked a little too iffy in my mind.  “Throwing” the colors around just won’t work for the majority of people.
• - Peter Moleyneux is a dreamer.  I like him.  He does create some great games, even if they fall a tad bit shorter than his imagination.  Milo is a tad bit freaky, in my opinion.  Even though Peter assures that there are measures in place to prevent Milo from being … er … compromised … by perverts.

Overall, it was a nice event.  I wasn’t really blown away by anything in particular, but I did find some great games to add to my must play list.  I’m also looking forward to the motion sensor and the instant hd movies and television content. 

A Brief First Impression of Playstation Home

Wierdest darn thing I’ve ever seen …

I got tired of waiting for my system to update with Playstation*Home, so I signed into the PS3 internet browser and went to the PS3 Blog … At the bottom, where headlines flash by, I clicked on the one that says, "Home now available!" It took me to a blogpost about how I could … at this very minute … after reading the blogpost … restart my system and Home would be available in the PSNetwork blade of the menu.

Sure enough … It was necessary, this whole time, to visit the blog first?! Wth?

Well, 77MB later and a super fast install, I was ready to go!

So I downladed Home, created my character with the very, very, VERY limited items available and entered my Home … Very bland and uninteresting. Graphics-wise, beautiful … but boring. I can pick up and move furniture, rearrange my house, put stuff in and take stuff out (chairs, tables, a lamp and a footstool to start with, that’s all you get.) Oh, and you can change to 8 preset wallpapers. I’m not sure if each house is unique or they’re all corner balcony views of the ocean …

I went to visit another section of the community, ala Second Life but much easier to navigate. I went to the Mall, which required a wait time while an additional 32MB of data was downloaded. I’m assuming that each section requires additional downloads and the 77MB is simply your house and the character creator as well as interface … Lotta people walking around not knowing what the heck to do. I walked into a store to see about buying some furniture for my bland house. I click on decorations and wait about a minute for it to load the first time. There is 1 decoration available for download … a model fighter jet you can set on a table … I go to buy it and realize … wait a minute … this piece of digital property costs .49-cents! Yup, to put an image of a model fighter jet in my house, I have to pay Sony .49-cents. So I back out of that meny quickly and move on.
No other stores were open and the only video playing was Veronica Belmont and some other woman advertising Quore. There were a few advertisement boards scattered about for the new PS3 keypad. Other than that, I was bored and ready for bed. Tonight, I may check out the movie theater, lord knows how big a download I’ll have to wait for on that one …

Over all, as far as first impressions go … I’m disappointed, let down and disgruntled. This is the savior of the PS3? Hmm … Maybe Microsoft’s treatment of Silver players isn’t so bad after all … they do go for content over lavish looks, for the most part.