10th Anniversary of The Matrix

So, this is the second thing today that made me reflect on my age.  It has been 10 years since the first part of my favorite series of movies hit theaters, to the day.  It’s almost impossible to believe.  Since then I’ve enjoyed both follow-up movies in the theaters multiple times and played 3 different Matrix-themed video games (one of which was The Matrix Online, a game that I thought deserved way more credit than it ever got).  I’ve also purchased each movie at least 3 times over, including the limited edition of the “Ultimate Matrix Collection” on DVD with included bust of Neo and original signed screenplays.

To say the least, I’m a fan.  And I’m not even one of those snooty people who hates on the second 2 movies because it’s popular to do so, in fact Revolutions is probably my favorite of the three, and if not it at least ties the original for number 1.

This is a significant day just because of how important the films were in technological pop-culture.  The philosophical (and later spiritual) undertones throughout the series really hit that nerve for those of us that are enthusiasts, and I think all of the movies played a big part in pushing “geek” towards “chic.”  The Matrix is also the movie that most people associate with the start of their love affair with DVD – I can still remember picking it up just after a family member got a DVD player and being shocked at the quality.

Ah, nostalgia.  Thanks obviously go out to the Wachowskis for making some of my favorite films.  Also there’s a new 10th anniversary edition blu-ray specifically of The Matrix that came out to honor the event, so it looks like I’ll be expanding my collection soon enough.  You can find it at the link below.

http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/

Sony slashes the price of the PlayStation 2 to $99

Today is important because two separate announcements have made me feel exceptionally old.  The first, as you might have guessed, is that Sony has cut the price of the PlayStation 2 to $99.  Why does that make me feel old?  Because I realized that this cut comes nine years after the PS2 came out in October of 2000.  Yeesh, I can still remember some of my teachers in school talking about how they were feverishly trying to hunt down a PS2 to give to their child for Christmas.  I guess that’s the sort of thing that sticks with you when you’re a geek.

This announcement really has me thinking.  Ever since I purchased my PS3 I have realized that I missed out on a lot of quality franchises by skipping the PS2.  What I want most is to go back and play games like Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, and this price reduction might be the motivation I needed to actually pull the trigger on some “classic” gaming.  What I’m really holding out for though, is a store on PSN which sells downloadable PS2 games so I can get that experience without having to drop cash on an older console.  Maybe we’ll see that one day.

So I guess this is good news if you’re in the market for a PS2 almost a decade later.  Another cool thing about this announcement is that it gives some credibility to Sony’s “10 year strategy” with their consoles.  Maybe the PS3 will actually be relevant 8 years from now.  I can only hope!

Want to win a Drobo?

Me too!  The guys over at My Digital Life are doing a contest where if you post a referral link to their site you’ll get a chance to win a Drobo.  You can find the details here: Only a Few Days Left to Win a Drobo!

As for my link, here it is: HTTP://WWW.MYDL.ME

OnLive Video Game Streaming

I knew as soon as I read about this that I wanted to do a post about it.  However rather than creating a wall of text I decided to do an 8 minute video.  OnLive has huge implications not only in the gaming industry but the tech industry as a whole, and we just might be taking a glimpse into the future today with what they’ve claimed to have accomplished.

Rockstar announced Max Payne 3

I can’t decide how to feel about this one.  I heard about it yesterday morning and at first I was quite happy since Max Payne is a series I love, but then after thinking about it things could be worse off this time around.  First, this game is not being developed by Remedy who developed the first two in the series.  Second, the game’s one press image is of Max looking rough and old, almost like Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell: Double Agent (which was my least favorite in that particular series).  Finally, they’re promising to take Max where “we’ve never seen him before,” and frankly I’d be happy with a game that’s exactly like Max Payne 2 but with new levels, story and graphics.

Of course since there’s so little to go on I can’t really make a snap judgment at this point, but I guess I’m just a little wary of this announcement.  Hopefully the game turns out great, and either way I’ll be playing it.  You can hit the link below to catch a bit of info if you’re interested.  Let’s just hope they don’t try to work in any of the story elements from the movie, which I just watched last weekend for the first time (handily enough), and am not a big fan of.

http://www.rockstargames.com/maxpayne3/

Are game demos good for profitability?

I was listening to the Listen UP podcast earlier today, formerly 1UP Yours, and they brought up a very interesting topic: are demos always good for the success of a game?  Off-hand you’d think absolutely, it’s always better to get your product out there and a game demo is a form of advertisement.  Take movies for example, all movies have trailers right?  That’s the main way most people learn about and get excited for movies nowadays.  If a film studio considered foregoing the circulation of the trailer for their latest hit I’m sure most people would advise against it.

However games and movies are entirely different.  In a movie trailer a director can explicitly pick and choose what the audience sees.  Generally they’ll fill the clip with action, big laughs or scares, or whatever else they want to portray in order to entice the viewer most effectively.  With a game though, it’s much easier to know right off whether it’ll good or bad based on things like controls and gameplay.  If a game has terrible controls there’s really no way a developer can hide them in a demo.

When I think about it there are very few instances where a demo persuaded me to purchase a game, and even fewer examples of demos that attracted me to games I wasn’t already interested in.  For example, most people consider the Bioshock demo to be one of the best of all time – it helped a ton to introduce the game to casual gamers who might not have already known about it.  It was a perfect demo because it had been made specifically to be a demo. Rather than just pulling out a level from the full game and slapping the demo sticker on it, they mixed gameplay from a couple different parts in the game to give a good impression of the scope of the gameplay.  However, when Bioshock’s demo came out on Xbox Live I already had the limited edition of the game preordered, so I can’t really consider that a contributing factor to my purchase.  In fact, after reviewing the subject in my mind, the only instance I can recall where I bought a game based solely on the demo was Fight Night Round 3.

On the other hand there have been plenty of times when trying out a demo has killed any interest I had in a particular title.  The example that sticks out in my mind the most would have to be Turning Point: Fall of Liberty.  It’s a first person shooter based in an alternate reality WW2 scenario where Germany invaded the United States.  Admittedly I’m a huge fan of WW2 games so the premise intrigued me, and when the demo dropped I made sure to snap it up as quickly as possible.  When I played the game though, the controls were absolute garbage and so I crossed it off of my list of games to buy.  This is just one example but I can think of many more.

One thing I will say is that a demo of a game is usually a very poor way to judge that game as a whole.  There have also been plenty of times where I played a demo and was so-so on it, but then later I played the full game and liked it quite a lot.  Just a couple of examples that come to mind are games like Resistance: Fall of Man and Heavenly Sword.  I didn’t like either game’s demo, but I enjoyed the full finished product more than I expected.

There’s no doubt that demos are good for consumers because it gives us a chance to sample a product before we spend 60 dollars on it.  Still, if I was a game developer and my game was getting pretty good buzz I’d hesitate when it came time to put out a demo for it.  Maybe the best of both worlds is to just hold the demo until a week or so after the game hits the streets so you can capitalize on that first wave of hype.  If your game has problems then they’ll be widely known after that first week so it won’t matter as much if the demo is out there, and you might inspire some people to buy it despite its flaws.

What do you think?

iPhone OS 3.0 for Consumers

I’m sure you all saw this one coming.  Here’s my run-through of what Apple announced at their iPhone OS 3.0 event earlier in the week.  Since most of what intrigued me in the keynote was related to their “features for consumers” I’m going to dedicate this post to those.  Some of the SDK additions for developers are interesting but that relies quite a bit on the actual developers putting them into good use.  So, without further ado:

Cut, Copy and Paste
Shocker of all shockers, Apple finally got their act together and found some way to accomplish the impossible task of integrating cut, copy and paste into the iPhone.  This has been a long time coming, and I’m glad it’s finally here.  With the new cut, copy and paste feature you’ll be able to, surprise, copy and paste text not just inside of one application, but across all applications on the iPhone.

Landscape Mode
Another obvious and necessary upgrade, landscape mode lets you run all of the standard Apple iPhone applications in landscape.  Most importantly, this means that you’ll be able to get the larger-format widescreen keyboard that was up until now exclusive to Safari in all of your Apple iPhone applications.  Note that I say Apple iPhone applications because, as far as I know, this will only count for their traditional suite of pre-installed apps (Mail, Notes, Contacts, etc.).  This update should help some of the folks out there with bigger fingers to type a bit more easily, especially in Mail.

MMS
Again, it seems as though with iPhone OS 3.0 Apple is just trying systematically tick off items on a fictional checklist titled “Cell Phone Necessities.”   With MMS you’ll finally be able to send and receive multimedia messages on the iPhone including pictures, sound files, and contact cards.  To me personally this isn’t a feature I’ve been waiting for since you can already do most of those things in email, but I know that a lot of consumers have been deterred from purchasing an iPhone because of its lack of support for MMS.

Voice Memos
Have you ever seen one of those commercials with an older lady using a small voice recorder to remember where she parked, or what to pick up at the grocery store?  That’s basically what voice memos are.  Using voice memos you can now use your iPhone to record short messages for later playback so you too can overcome your forgetfulness.  I think this is a feature that seems kind of hokey, but some may like it.

CalDAV and Calendar Subscriptions (.ics)
Getting calendars to sync properly on your touch device has always been a tall order.  Sure it can be done, but you have to jump through a lot of hoops if you’re not using exchange.  Now that the iPhone calendar app supports CalDAV hopefully keeping my Google Calendar synced won’t be as much of an issue.  I’m pretty excited for this feature, as I’d love to have my calendar events synced perfectly between calendar.google.com, iCal on the desktop and my mobile device.  Also being able to subscribe to calendars will be a nice addition.

Search and Spotlight
Finally we come to search.  Search has been integrated into all of the standard Apple iPhone apps so you can now quickly and easily search through your inbox, contacts, calendar of events and so on.  Apple has also integrated a new homescreen, Spotlight, which lets you search the entire phone at once.  Say for instance I typed in “Ron” with Spotlight.  Not only would the Spotlight results show the emails I’ve received from my friend Ron, but also the songs on my iPod by the artist Ronnie Drew and a calendar event I set to have lunch at “Ron’s Cafe.”  Okay that last one was a bit of a stretch but check out the image below to get a better idea of how it works.

Conclusion
So that’s it.  Like I said there were no bombshells really, and most of the event was devoted to checking off some features that Apple has been inundated with requests for since the iPhone launched.  Some of the developer SDK additions seem promising but I can’t really comment on those until I get a chance to play with the apps that utilize them.  It was a pretty straight-forward and almost mundane event, but that leaves a lot left for WWDC in June.

Dell Adamo – Style over Substance

My interest was piqued back at CES when Dell announced their new Adamo line of laptops.  They are branded as extravagant, stylish and lightweight alternatives to Apple notebooks for the PC crowd, and given Dell’s push to compete aesthetically with some of the prettier laptops on the market this new line truly showed promise.  On Tuesday the Adamo’s details were leaked and since then most of my excitement has evaporated.

I’m not going into the details (I’ll save that for a link at the end of this post) but this new Adamo laptop is like the Dubai of notebooks.  That is to say Dell seems to have paid most attention to outward appearances and the look of the laptop but when it gets down to it beauty is only skin deep.  The actual hardware inside the sleek chassis is pretty anemic.  The machine’s processor only maxes out at 1.4ghz, and that’s only on the $2,700 model.  That’s right.  $2,700!  The lesser model comes in at $1,999 for a 1.2ghz core 2 duo.  Sheesh…I think Dell is borrowing one of my least favorite parts of the Apple model – premium pricing.

There is some good to be had.  Like I mentioned the machine is beautiful, and each models come with a 128GB solid state drive.  They’ve also worked in DDR3 memory which is a plus.  However that’s all I can really say about the Adamo that’s positive.  One of the best things about purchasing a PC laptop is that you can customize the model by picking and choosing details like processor speed and amount of RAM, but you can’t even do that with the Adamo.  You either get the expensive laptop or the even-more expensive laptop, and hey if you want to you can drop some expensive accessories on top of it for good measure.  The hardware and price on this 13″ beauty just isn’t justifiable.

See the whole nitty-gritty here: Dell.com – Dell Adamo Specifications

Apple iPhone OS 3.0 Event

So this Tuesday, St. Patrick’s Day, Apple is going to have an event to demo the newest revision of the iPhone’s operating system.  Presumably this will just be a technical event to show new features to developers, and then at WWDC they’ll actually go live with OS 3.0.  At any rate I don’t feel like doing a speculation post, rather I’m going to say what I hope will happen.  It probably won’t, but here’s what I hope goes down.

I desperately need a new phone.  My current phone, a Samsung u740, is about 2 years old and is starting to give me some trouble.  Worst of all?  The battery lasts about 30 minutes these days.  I’ve spoken multiple times about getting the next generation iPhone when it comes out, but what I’m most concerned about is that the next edition of the iPhone will be unveiled at WWDC in June but it won’t actually be released until later in the year.  That would kill me.

So what I’m hoping will happen is that Apple will actually unveil the hardware at this event on Tuesday, and then at WWDC the phone will be available for purchase.  Even putting it off for that long will be kind of a stretch for me, but I’m willing to wait at least that long.  Anyways, what I’m banking on is that there will be significant enough changes to the iPhone’s hardware or features that they’ll have to demo it now so that developers will be able to hit the ground running when the phone comes out in June.  Will this happen?  Probably not, but it would be nice.

Either way this Tuesday should be pretty exciting.  It goes without saying that one of the iPhone’s biggest competitors is on its way to the market (Palm Pre), and it would be a classic move by Apple to up the ante completely just before the competition catches up with a comparable device.  Remember when Microsoft’s Zune came out?  Everyone was shocked that there was finally some solid competition in the MP3 player space, and then a few months later Apple debuts the iPhone and the game completely changes.  Maybe the next version of the iPhone and its software will have a similar affect on the smartphone market.

Tangled Up In Blu

One of my favorite things about Mac OSX are the stylish applications it has.  Applications like Twitterific, NewsFire, Blogo and even Colloquy are all shining examples of beautiful programs that I love to use.  However today I’m not talking about a Mac app, I’m talking about a really cool Windows Twitter client called Blu.  The only caveat is that Blu is so pretty that you might mistake it for an OSX app at first glance.

Blu has a nice translucent blue user interface that’s pretty intuitive.  Want to shorten a URL?  All you have to do is paste it into the update box and it’s automatically done for you.  Not sure how many characters you have left?  Blu counts down the characters as you type behind the update box.  It has separate panes for your direct messages and @ replies.  Even the login screen is impressive, and if you save your login info you get a slick little animation of your details being entered into the fields when Blu starts up.  Add to that the dulcet piano tones you hear whenever a new tweet comes in and you have a neat little package.

I have to say that on Windows this is my absolute favorite Twitter client.  As long as you have the .NET 3.5 framework installed I see no reason to use anything else.  In case you’re wondering I generally use Twhirl when I’m working in OSX.  Also, I can’t take credit for discovering Blu personally as it wasn’t until my buddy @Eddie_Bell started using it that I tried it out for myself.  So, what Twitter client do you use?  If you’re interested, you can find Blu at the link below.

http://www.thirteen23.com/experiences/desktop/blu/