Geek Swagger.
Microsoft
Microsoft’s 300 million dollar ad campaign
Sep 23rd
It's no secret that Apple's Mac/PC ads have been eating Microsoft up inside. Not only do they spread negative information about Windows Vista, but they're completely effective at doing so. As any average Joe on the street what he thinks about Vista and chances are he'll say something along the lines of "I haven't used it, but from what I've heard it's a nightmare!" That's due in no small part to Apple's commercials (Windows Mojave, anyone?).
So then, when Microsoft announced that they were teaming up with Jerry Seinfeld with their new $300 million dollar ad campaign there was a lot of curiosity about how they'd hit back. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the initial analysis wasn't good on their new ads featuring Bill Gates and Seinfeld in normal, everyday and somewhat comical situations. Truth be told despite there being some comedy to the ads there wasn't much advertising. The two that I saw had simple scenarios (one in a shoe store, the other in a typical household) that had absolutely nothing to do with Microsoft let alone Windows Vista. You'd see this funny little skit and at the end you'd get a Windows logo. That was about it. Needless to say, the reception to these ads was about as luke-warm as it gets.
Then this past week Microsoft rolled out phase two of Operation Make-People-Like-Windows-Vista, and this time their strategy is much more clear. The new ad starts with a John Hodgeman (aka the guy who plays PC in Apple's commercials) lookalike, and he points out that fact that Apple has basically turned PC users into stereotypes. From here all sorts of different PC users doing various interesting and mundane activities proclaim that "they are a PC!" Personally, I think this strategy is brilliant. It would have been very easy for Microsoft to come back at Apple with an attack that's similar to the one Apple has used, and that would spell disaster. After all, aren't the Apple ads kind of childish? Are we really to believe that every PC user on Earth wears a brown suit with glasses, and is a total dork? Instead Microsoft took the high road more or less by basically pointing out how childish the Mac and PC ads are. As I mentioned, the first line in the new Microsoft ad is something along the lines of "Hello, I'm a PC and I've been made into a stereotype." Bravo, Microsoft.
The reason the new ads are so much better (aside from the fact that they actually have a meaning) is that they're tailored to a more general audience. The Gates/Seinfeld ads were filled with jokes that only a true geek would understand, like Bill Gates' discount shoe membership card having his mugshot on it from his brush with the law many years ago. Ryan Block (formerly of and now ) even went so far as to find some hidden meaning in the older commercials. Little nuggets like the crotchety old Grandma in the second Gates/Seinfeld commercial representing Steve Jobs based on references to her living with the family for 12 years (the same amount of time Jobs has been with Apple since he returned to resurrect the company), but when a commercial has to be analyzed so thoroughly to construe any sort of value...there's a problem. The new ads are straight and to the point: PC users aren't dorks. PC users do a ton of different things with their computers and they come from all sorts of backgrounds. Basically, don't believe Apple's hype.
So will these new commercials work? Who knows. I'm just happy to see that Microsoft is stepping up and fighting back because based on all recent figures Apple keeps eating up market share, especially in the laptop market. To make things worse the negativity in which Vista is enveloped is spreading like wildfire, so that's all the more reason for them to put on the boxing gloves to get people thinking about Microsoft positively again.
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Windows Mojave
Aug 5th
By now chances are good that you've heard about Microsoft's plan to fight back against Apple's Mac Vs. PC ads. There is one big difference between T and what Apple is doing though. Â In Apple's case the ads are very aggressive. Â They point out flaws in Windows Vista (some legitimate, some not) and then show that the Mac platform doesn't have the same issues. Â Their commercials have been extremely successful at reaching consumers so, at this point, pretty much everyone has seen one at least once.
The Mojave Experiment on the other hand seems to be an online-only advertisement with which Microsoft plans to diffuse some of the harsh criticism Vista has received over the past year or so.  So really that's the main difference between the two campaigns.  Where as Apple's is an aggressive attack, Microsoft's is defensive.  In the commercials, presumably average consumers are asked to rate their opinion of Windows Vista.  After that they're shown a demo of a new version of Windows code-named Mojave, including all of its features (slick interface, security, so on and so forth).  The peoples' minds are collectively blown and then comes the big reveal - they were just watching a demo of Windows Vista.  They then rate Vista again on a 1-10 scale and, of course, all of their scores go up.
I have mixed opinions about this whole thing. Â First off I think it's good that Microsoft is finally firing back rather than feeling inclined to rest on their laurels while Apple slowly chips away at their definitive lead in the PC market. Â There's a lot of opinions that have been based on word-of-mouth impressions from Vista at launch, and since then everything has spiraled out of control. Â A lot of the negative things people hear about Vista aren't true. Â They might have been at one time, but now Vista is very stable, most of the driver issues are gone aside from some extremely niche hardware, and like it or not Vista's default configuration is much more secure than XP (almost to the point of annoyance for some users, read ).
I also appreciate the fact that they didn't fire back with why the Apple platform is bad. Â If that had happened this whole rivalry could easily devolve into a childish argument between two elementary school students. Â The only problem with the campaign is that some people aren't too keen on the idea of trickery. Â I mean really, that's what Mojave is right? Â It's a lie. Â Not only that but a lot of people are turned off by the fact that the people are really only shown a demo of Vista, and only the features Microsoft wants to advertise. Â I read someone's comment on a related blog post that said "Yeah, but if they had access to Vista freely their experience would have been much less positive." Â I wouldn't go that far but you do have to keep in mind that this is a marketing campaign, so Microsoft's going to do their best to show off the strongest features Vista has. Â The same thing goes for Apple's Mac Vs. PC ads...you never hear about or from them.
In the end I'm not sure if Microsoft can make a large enough push to completely change everyone's opinion of Vista. Â The launch of this particular OS has been a bit of a PR nightmare that will take more than one campaign to quell. Â That being said I think it's important to note that Vista isn't as bad as everyone says. Â Don't believe the hype! Â Is it a worthy upgrade? Â Perhaps not. Â Still, you should have no concern about purchasing a new PC that comes with Vista installed. Â You might just find that you like the new interface and some of the new features. Â Even on my iMac I use Vista daily so that must say something.
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Using Boot Camp for gaming on an iMac
Aug 1st
Okay, so the video didn't end up being about Boot Camp so much as the games I've been playing on the iMac and some Games for Windows Live news. Â Ah well, can't blame me for trying! Â A video should be up tomorrow with my first review of an iPhone/iPod Touch game, so check back. =)
Sony’s E3 press conference
Jul 17th
This is post number 2 of 2 concerning E3. Earlier this week you heard what I had to say about Microsoft's offering, and now I'm going to comment on Sony's. Unfortunately I missed the Nintendo conference...my most sincere apologies. When last we met our beloved hero Sony had been delivered a death blow, and I was very curious to see how they would counter-attack. Heading into E3 I was the most excited for Sony's conference, but now that I've seen both the Microsoft and Sony conference I have to say that the MS conference was the better of the two.
My biggest area of interest was an apparently fraudulent screenshot I posted in my E3 preview which showed a PS2 game store in PSN. That wasn't announced unfortunately, but as much as I was looking forward to it I didn't really expect it. After all, the (which is now live) leaked well before their conference. I'm assuming that if the PS2 game store was real we would have seen more concrete details about it. As I said Sony released their video store though, which is good. Unlike Microsoft whose conference was mostly based on new content coming down the road, this is one area where Sony was able to offer a deliverable on the day of their conference. The store went up Tuesday night so I promptly checked it out.
The Playstation Store is now split into two categories - games and video. The game store is exactly how the Playstation Store was before videos were added, with the addition of a button to flip to the video store. The video store has a great interface with lighter color palettes so it's easy to differentiate between the games store and the video store. I took a brief look at some of the content they're offering and, for day 1, there's a nice selection. The movies come in standard or high definition formats and range in price from $4 for rentals to $15 for purchases. There's also some TV shows, $1.99 per episode purchase. They have a lot of older movies to sift through but there's also some newer ones as well - one movie in particular that caught my eye was Rambo. I've been told I should see it and so that'll be my first PSN video store rental. It should be noted that I'm much more inclined to purchase videos from PSN just because my PS3 has hdmi outputs while my 360 is stuck with component. The only unfortunate part about this new video store is that it was launched the day after Microsoft previewed their new relationship As is usually the case, just as Sony and the PS3 are catching up with online functionality someone else comes and pushes the envelope just out of their reach.
The next area that I was eager to hear some news about was . Home has been in the works for it seems like forever, and especially with Microsoft announcing the avatar platform the day before it seemed more important than ever that Sony gives us some concrete information about their service. In the end all we really saw was a trailer for Home, showing some of the themed spaces of the game. They had already announced that games like would have their own dedicated infrastructure in Home and we finally saw a video of how that will work. From what I saw it just seemed like a building in Home that was dedicated to Uncharted. The building was decked out with furnishings with the same theme as the game and so on. That's all well and good but I really expected them to announce a launch date or at least do a thorough walkthrough of the service and say that they were going to start an open beta or something. If Sony is unable to publish Home by the time Microsoft deploys their avatar system via the Fall software update it's going to be a bit of a failure. We've heard about it for so long that, at this point anyways, it seems like it's never coming.
As far as games go there was a lot of attention paid to the games that I already mentioned in the preview. was featured with a single player demo, and it was really impressive. Little Big Planet was turned into a of sorts showing off the flexibility behind its gameplay based on user-created content. Killzone 2 was shown in a cinematic trailer. Aside from those three there was quite a bit of attention paid to upcoming PSN titles which was cool. I'm really glad that Sony's taking downloadable games seriously and not just putting out classic arcade games every week. Games like and Fat Princess confirmed that they have a dedication to putting out original content on a consistent basis. They didn't just stop at bite-sized games though, they also talked about full games that would be released on PSN for download. First they showed that looks to be a downloadable expansion pack of sorts for , a game that I finished not too long ago. Quest for Booty (it's fun to type, I must admit) will expand on the story found in Tools of Destruction and will only cost $15. The other game is . Blood Curse is another PS3 exclusive that's actually a follow-up to a cult classic from the PS2 days. It'll be delivered in episodes one at a time which integrates into the structure of the original game quite well. After playing the demo I'm pretty confident that I'll be picking up both Quest for Booty and Siren when they drop.
Other news related to Playstation games includes the introduction of Greatest Hits pricing for some games in North America, as well as a very solid PSP offering. Greatest Hits are basically legacy PS3 games (launch titles) that have seen a 50% price-cut and are re-packaged as a Greatest Hit. You can find a list of all of the Greatest Hits games but the ones I'm most interested in are and . I've been wanting to play Resistance but grabbing a launch title for $60 is a hard pill to swallow. Being able to pick up two launch titles for the price of an ordinary game is a pretty good value instead. Hopefully they'll add more games to the Greatest Hits lineup soon. As far as the PSP goes, there were a few games that interested me. There's going to be a Resistance spin-off built exclusively for the PSP called as well as a sequel , one of the most unique games I've ever seen on any platform. Also mentioned was a of my favorite PSN game . Those three games alone are enough to make me consider purchasing a PSP, but that's not all. All of the videos on the PSN video store can be converted to a PSP format, meaning you can take them with you wherever you go. That's pretty enticing.
The only whizzbang game announcement was a brand new franchise called . Although details are sketchy, the biggest seller of this title is the 256-player online mode. It's a shooter much in the same vein as a Battlefield game, just on a much more massive scale. All that was shown during the conference was a trailer, and you can tell that the game is still sort of a concept at this point, but it's something to get excited about. MAG was branded as the type of game that only the PS3's complex hardware could manage but it makes me wonder what sort of lag I'll see with 255 other players running around.
To sum it all up this year's conference was heavy into stressing Playstation 3 as a long-term platform. The first 15 minutes of the conference was all about showing the longevity of the prior Playstation systems, and it seems like Sony is trying to establish the PS3 for as long as 10 years. The overall theme of the conference was "If you think this is good, just wait until next year!" That's all well and good but I don't know how many people are going to go out and purchase a PS3 based on promises of a better tomorrow. I said that Microsoft had a solid showing and in comparison Sony had a weak one. To take as hard of a hit as losing Final Fantasy XIII exclusivity was and not have much to fight back with is...well, bad news.
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Shane MacGowan - Roddy McCorley
Microsoft’s E3 press conference
Jul 15th
Microsoft's press conference this year was very interesting and it hinted at a lot of change in their strategy moving forward. It started out as you would normally expect - some of the most highly anticipated 360 games were shown off. These ranged from and to the star of the show, . All were given their chance to shine with a singleplayer demo, and they all looked pretty damn great. After that, when the "hardcore" crowd was satisfied, the conference took a drastic turn.
With the success of the Nintendo Wii it has become more and more enticing for companies like Microsoft and Sony to try their best to appeal to the the family market of gamers. What this means is more and more games that are familiar and easy for non-gamers to play become popular. Whether this is good or bad for the gaming industry can be debated in a myriad of different ways, but it's important to note that it seems like Microsoft is headed in that direction. They started out by announcing something that I had hoped for, an overhaul of the Xbox Live user interface. Despite having less efficient use of screen real estate the new UI is pretty slick looking. Gone are the fisher-price colored blades, and now everything is integrated much more pictorially. My biggest complaint about Live's interface right now is that everything seems to be text. Obviously Microsoft saw that this was a problem and so they've made the interface much more visually stimulating this time around. Unfortunately it's hard to explain a user interface without images, so I'll go ahead and provide one of those now.
Okay so the image is a little small, my bad. If you'd like to see a bigger version there's a nice that you should check out. You'll notice that the first icon in the front (blue) shows a cartoony image of a user. This is what I was talking about when I was speaking of Microsoft's efforts to reach more casual players much like the Wii. This new digital representation of the gamer is called an avatar, and it's basically a mix of characters and . You can create and customize your avatar with different clothes and hairstyles which will undoubtedly cost you some MS points from Live. Your friends list will now be a compilation of your different friends' avatars instead of just a list of their gamertags. Your avatar will also take the spot of your gamerpic as identification in games. I can't really decide how to feel about the whole avatar thing because I obviously haven't used it for myself. It could be cool, it could be a gimmick. That being said I'm happy to get the user interface refresh, I think the new UI looks pretty slick and it adds some interesting functionality.
The next major announcement after the new interface/avatar functionality was that, at long last, Microsoft has partnered with Netflix. This is huge! I never expected them to do this because it seems sort of like a cannibalization of the , but along with the Fall update Xbox Live subscribers (gold members only) will be able to watch movies from their Netflix instant streaming queue right from the 360. It'll be free aside from the usual $50 a year Live subscription, and they've even announced that you'll be able to party up with your friends' avatars to watch Netflix movies together as a group. This sounds pretty interesting but I don't know if I'll want to be talking to people while trying to watch a movie. Alternatively it could be that everyone would just get together and be silent because they're paying attention to the movie, so I'm still trying to figure out if this is a feature I'll use. The important thing about the group watch feature is that it also works when you're not watching a movie. What that means is that group voice chat is finally coming to the 360.
After the Netflix announcement they spent a lot of time demonstrating several casual games slated for this holiday season. Much like the avatars this is another attempt to by enticing the casual crowd to pick up an Xbox 360. They showed off a sequel to the trivia game "Scene It?" which uses the big-button controller. From there they moved on to which invites players to get in front of their Xbox Live vision cam and goof off doing a bunch of different stunts which are animated with a backdrop on-screen (kind of like a green screen). Based off of the different participants performance rating a movie is compiled using their animations at the end. Finally "Lips," a karaoke game from the makers of , rocked the crowd with a special performance. The game comes with a plastic microphone peripheral and works with any .MP3 you provide. I have to say, during this whole section of the conference I kind of dozed off. These kind of games don't really interest me much because in general they set you up to look like an idiot in front of your friends and family.
Towards the end of the conference a representative from Square-Enix took the stage. If you aren't familiar with Square-Enix, they're responsible for some of the most popular Japanese RPG's including the Final Fantasy series. I was impressed at first because they announced 3 separate original games for the 360. It's obvious that Microsoft was really trying to reel in some of the Japanese market. Then, at the end of the conference, a megaton announcement was made: . Me personally, I'm not a huge fan of this sort of game, but FFXIII was one of the last fully exclusive traditional franchise games that Sony had in their possession. Obviously by securing it on the 360 as well Microsoft has dealt the PS3 a huge blow.
Alright then, what's missing? First, Microsoft didn't announce the rumored motion-sensitive controller. I think that's awesome. As I mentioned in my E3 preview I really hoped that the whole thing was just a rumor and that seems to be the case. Another huge area that was completely devoid of coverage was Microsoft's initiative. In past years they've at least previewed some titles for it, but not this year. All-in-all Microsoft had a lot of interesting announcements this year, I think they had a really solid showing. I'm looking forward to Sony's conference today (7/15) because they have some ground to make up.
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E3 Anticipation
Jul 12th
Remember back when the real E3 was in May? Back when we'd have all of this news by now? That's why it seems really weird that E3 is finally coming around this week. Before it shows up I wanted to make a post talking a little bit about what I'm looking forward to seeing or, more realistically, not seeing depending on how things go. It's actually a surprisingly short list (and yet this post ended up being crazy long), but let's delve right in!
First off, I want to see that is on target. I've seen some videos of this game lately and the DirectX 10 visual effects are just amazing. That coupled with the story and the atmosphere which made me fall in love with the first game and I think this will be a big hit. I'm just hoping it's not a sleeper like the first was because this is a franchise that could really get PC gamers excited again. It hits me in a sweet spot, both because the game's subject matter (the deserted areas around Chernobyl during/after the time of the disaster) and its unique gameplay. I've already talked a lot about this game in previous posts though so I'll just throw up the latest trailer and move on:
Next up my interest moves to the consoles I own. I have to say I'm not really that interested in much from Microsoft this time around. It seems that the biggest news (these things always leak early, right?) is that there will be a for the 20GB version of the console. That's cool for people who are new to the 360 but it obviously doesn't interest me that much. There's also rumors of a new of the console which would take the current Premium 20GB version's place. How that would work with the price drop I'm not sure, unless the price drop is just to clear inventory. None of this is confirmed of course so it all might be false, we'll see.
I have to say that I really hope this whole thing blows over. The reason I like the 360 is because it's a place I can go and still get some classic quality controller games, if I wanted motion controls I would have picked up a Wii! It seems like another way to segment the audience (the first way being releasing a version of the console without a hard drive) and it just doesn't seem like that great of an idea. How can Microsoft expect to topple the Wii at this point? I'm sure they're looking at it the same way they looked at the iPod when they launched their Zune, i.e. if they can take just a small share of the market then they'll be happy.
I will say that I'm hoping they maybe give us a sneak peak at what will hopefully be a huge Fall update for the dashboard. I'd like to see a lot of reworked and some functionality added since paying $50 a year is beginning to see a little overkill for what I'm getting. PSN is starting to catch up in a lot of areas and it's free so I think Microsoft has to keep finding ways to keep Xbox Live subscribers interested. Hopefully that means a UI refresh. There's also a rumor that they're introducing a new feature called which will be very similar to the Nintendo Wii's "Mii" functionality.
Finally is Sony. Sony's press conference is the one I'm most looking forward to from a few different perspectives. First, it seems like they're making the most moves by introducing different services to expand their online offering. From the recent 2.41 update which I blogged about to the confirmation of a , Sony is bringing out a lot of new stuff. There's also the constantly delayed which will hopefully go into beta sometime soon...basically there's a lot of potential for new software to enhance the overall experience. I always keep in mind that Sony is pretty new to the whole online gaming scene and tends to be a little behind/slow to market...what that means is I'm not exactly expecting miracles. I'm just glad that they're working on it.
I'm also interested in Sony games though. If there's one complaint I have about my PS3 is that there aren't enough exclusive titles for it. After playing I've realized that the PS3 has so much potential that a 1st-party developer could capitalize on. The good news is that there are some exclusive titles coming later this year. The most notable among these are , a puzzle-platformer based heavily on user-generated content, , and Killzone 2. Resistance 2 is a follow-up to the PS3 launch title which I still haven't played (I'm waiting for the version). Resistance, much like S.T.A.L.K.E.R., has a very intriguing story so for that alone I'm looking forward to playing both games. They've also boasted an impressive online offering of cohesive 60-player multiplayer plus a separate co-op campaign that focuses on the story. Sounds good!
There's also Killzone 2 which has had a pretty sordid past. I remember seeing the original CG trailer for the game and calling , but the game is really shaping up. It doesn't look as good as that trailer did lo those many E3's ago but it's still the prettiest shooter I've seen. I'm a sucker for epic large-scale battles and that's exactly what the latest (real) trailer shows:
These games are more examples of how amazing Sony exclusives can be so I'd love to see some new ones announced. The last thing I'm truly excited for is a rumored Playstation 2 store on PSN. There was released on a forum not too long ago showing PS2 downloadable games on PSN. The most notable game that was shown was , but what I really want is since I never got to play that. As I've lamented many times before I never owned a Playstation 2 so there are many other games that I'd like to play and, since I have the 40GB version of the PS3, I don't have access to backwards compatibility so game downloads are the only way that'll happen.
To be fair I suppose I should comment on Nintendo too, but since I only own a Nintendo DS that's kind of hard to do. There are rumors that Nintendo will show a new revision of their DS console which sounds reasonable at this point. There's also the fact that they really need to address the issue of storage on the Wii because many gamers are complaining about running out of space for their games. Hopefully they'll sort that out and hell, maybe they'll show a new version of the Wii? Expect a post sometime next week on what actually happened at E3 instead of all of this speculation!
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Windows Live Mesh tech preview
Jun 19th
When Microsoft first unveiled the Live Mesh project I was immediately intrigued. Promising to "put me at the center of my digital world," the had a bunch of pretty graphics explaining a myriad of interesting (albeit sometimes vague) features. From Devices to Live Desktop and shareable folders everything sounded pretty great...that is until some tech pundits started weighing in. One of the first times I remember hearing anyone say anything about Live Mesh was when Kevin Rose, on an episode of , went through each of the features listed at Mesh.com and wrote them off. For some strange reason that lessened my interest.
Then, this week, I decided to go ahead and finally give Live Mesh a shot. I had originally signed up for the tech preview before everyone started bashing, but after I was notified that I had finally received my invitation to come try the service out my interest had waned significantly. I was concerned that everything would take too long to setup and manage, that the feature set would be limited because this was technically a beta, and that the application might be difficult to use at such an early stage. I have to say on all three fronts I was wrong.
Interacting with Live Mesh doesn't start with an application installer as you might expect. Instead, it starts with you logging into your account at Mesh.com. Here you'll see all of the devices currently on your mesh as well as your Live Desktop. You can access each of the devices in a nice rotating circle sort of UI, and it's easy to tell which devices are online and offline (offline devices are grayed out). As you select each device a window comes up with some of its information including whether or not the device is up-to-date with file synchronization, an options menu removing or renaming the device, and most importantly an orange button that says Connect. If you click the connect button and the device is online you can access the device via a remote desktop application. There is, however, one other button on the Mesh.com interface that I forgot to mention - a big orange Add Device button.
When you click Add Device you are at long last prompted to install some software on your computer. You get a sleek blue Mesh application which, among other things, enables the device to be connected to remotely via the connect feature. From the application you can also see which devices are online and connect to them, plus you can access your Live Desktop and the folders it holds. This can be done from any of your Mesh devices of course. So for instance, say you receive a file from someone at work but you really want to look at it later when you're at home. As long as both devices are setup on your Mesh you can just create a new folder from your Live Desktop, drop your files into it, and it'll be waiting for you at home when you get there. The Mesh application on your desktop will also give you a news feed of all of the files that have been added recently, providing direct download links for each, which is nice.
Right now you can only add devices to your Mesh that are either Windows XP or Vista PCs, but in the future they're promising support for Macs as well as mobile devices. Being able to share files as well as connect to any of my devices instantly over the cloud is very appealing to me, and it's all very easy and intuitive to manage and setup. Just install the application on a device and you can start sharing and connecting immediately. So far the tech preview is free and I'm hoping that's price point won't change in the future. As a free service Mesh absolutely rocks, and if you're using more than one (Windows, for now) computer you should as soon as possible.
(Note: You can click the images in this post to see larger versions of the Mesh interface)
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.Mac gets an update?
Jun 3rd
There has been a lot of news pointing towards the potential refresh of Apple's .Mac service over the past week. The obvious conclusion would be that the update would be announced at WWDC next week, but because this is simply a rumor and nothing concrete it's difficult to say. I have never been one to get too excited about .Mac since it seemed like a glorified online back-up solution allowing you to share a measly 10 gigabytes of files via iDisk. There are also some other nice features like Web Gallery which lets you share images from iPhoto, iWeb website hosting, and an IMAP email address to use with Mail - but for $99 a year? I'll stick with , and .
When Leopard was released another interesting feature was given to .Mac users, "" It seems sort of like a glorified remote desktop solution to me, but from what I've read about it the intent is to give users a no-fuss solution for returning to their Mac at home when they're out and about. I've also heard a lot of people complain about Back to my Mac not working as it should so it's not exactly a feature to drop $99 a year for. Not to mention the same can be done with and which I have written about in the past.
With Microsoft ramping up services like the previously mentioned SkyDrive, FolderShare and now Live Mesh I think that Apple needs to get in the game with .Mac. I'm already using SkyDrive, it's a solid and aesthetically-pleasing way to back up and share files on the internet. I only used briefly but it's a great way to synchronize files and folders across different computers much like Apple's iDisk, not to mention it's free and multi-platform. That means that I can share files between my Windows desktop and my Macbook without any problems. adds everything together in one package plus gives users the ability to remote desktop back to their home machine just like Back to my Mac. There's also the assumption that Live Mesh will integrate some cloud-computing components through their Live Desktop application. Basically to sum it all up - Microsoft is gaining on if not beating Apple in this area, and they're doing it for free. Microsoft's has been cranking out some amazing software on a consistent basis - big props to them.
So what kind of changes/improvements will the rumored .Mac update bring? Well, details are sketchy but it seems like Apple is trying to make the service popular with their mobile device users, iPhone in particular as you would expect but I would hope they'd add support for the iPod Touch as well. The updates are supposed to include over-the-air Exchange and .Mac syncing with Windows which is interesting, this includes contacts and calendar events as well as email. The other rumor is that .Mac will get a much-needed price cut of $50, but only for those purchasing new iPhones which is lame.
Along with those features it seems like Apple is going to try and completely re-brand the .Mac service. Someone using (a domain service Apple and others use) purchased the domain and some references to a service called MobileMe have been found in the iPhone's 2.0 firmware. One would assume that, if Apple bought me.com, Me would be the desktop service and MobileMe would be the iPhone service...pretty straight-forward stuff there.
Really there is so little go to on that it's kind of hard to put together a cohesive post about all of this, but the potential is pretty interesting. Especially with Apple stressing cloud-related products (Macbook Air, iPhone, iPod Touch) it's more important now than ever that they utilize .Mac properly. I've heard it referred to as one of the biggest areas of un-utilized potential that Apple has, and with Microsoft taking the forefront with their Live services the pressure is really on Apple to step it up. That being said if these rumors are accurate I'm not that impressed. There's nothing there for me to really get excited about because I'm not an iPhone user. To really knock it out of the park I think they should just include the cost of .Mac with the purchase of a new Apple computer at the very least. Buying a new mac? You get .Mac for free. Then they could make others pay the $99. This price point just doesn't seem feasible to me anymore with the Live services being for free. We'll see in a week.
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...still
In-game advertisements
May 29th
So I was reading earlier today about how in-game advertising is apparently ineffective, and it made me recall a discussion I had not too long ago regarding my feelings towards in-game ads. It seems like a pretty good topic for a post so I figured what the heck, I'll go ahead and throw my thoughts out there. Let me start off by saying that, in most cases, I'm cool with seeing an advertisement when I'm playing a game. The reason for that is most developers have become wise enough that they blend the ads into the game world to make it look more authentic.
For example, I was playing when this conversation went down, and I think I said something to the effect that I don't mind them in a racing game because if you're driving around a city in real life you expect to see ads, that's just how the world works. So really, the ads can be viewed as enhancing the authenticity in a game like PGR where there's some value to knowing you're driving around an authentic city. At the same time I can sort of understand why this would lead to the in-game advertisements failing (like says) because I don't know about you but I tend to block out advertising in my surroundings. Sure, I might notice a new billboard once but after that I kind of forget about it. I think the issue might be that the ads are so well placed that they just blend in with the rest of the game environment and no one pays them much attention.
The alternative to that is advertisements that completely take you out of the game. I recently started up a trial subscription to one of my favorite MMO's from back in the day - . One of my friends has been trying to coax me back into the game (a few years ago when it first came out I played it to death) and so he hooked me up with the 2-week trial. I was running down a street completing a mission (as one does in these games) when from out of nowhere I hear voice yelling at me to get some Old Spice deodorant because, and I quote, "sweating is when hundreds of sweat glands drop a deuce." It startled me at first, so much so that I thought I might have left Firefox open in the background and got hit by a pop-up, so I alt+tabbed out of the game but Firefox was closed. Finally I found the culprit - the developers of The Matrix Online have rented in-game billboards to advertisers. So what I saw was a billboard playing an extremely low-quality video of Will Ferrell as Jackie Moon from his latest movie Semi-Pro. Unfortunately, to finish that part of the game I had to complete some objectives in a nearby building, and the whole time this message from Jackie Moon was looping over and over again. Now I like Will Ferrell, but that was pretty freaking annoying.
The article mentions that the smartest model for game advertising seems to be the "play for free" one. Basically, a gamer can choose to either purchase a game or let ads pay for their time, and as the game is loading they'll see a 30-second or so advertisement for Coke but they get to play for free. This is a pretty common theme on the internet, especially with video sites like YouTube. Sure, a lot of people complained at first when YouTube said they were going to start placing ads in some videos, but their ads don't take up a whole lot of space and it keeps YouTube free so what can people complain about really? I think that's the key to advertising. As long as the ads aren't too obtrusive and they also save me from having to pay extra for something, I'm happy.
What about games though? The cost of games hasn't gone down anytime lately, and now they're working in ads too? How can that be fair? Well, a lot has changed since advertising in games became popular. First off, it to produce a game. So much so that most games approach the cost of major motion pictures just for development, and the costs keep rising as the industry gains more popularity and the pressure to put out a good product increases. Second, look at what has happened with services like Xbox Live and the Playstation Network. These services have brought a phenomenon to console games that has been available for PC games for a while - downloadable content. Downloadable content is generally developed in most part after the game is released, so you could say the advertising would help pay for the extra content that gives your games a few extra hours of playtime. Sure, not all DLC is free, but there's still a lot out there that is.
So really I just wanted to make a post (it almost seems like I have done this post before since I've mentioned it in passing previously) about how in-game advertising, for the most part, isn't an evil scheme by game developers to rake in more cash. I'm cool with it, like I said, as long as it isn't yelling at me from a billboard across the street. =P
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The XO laptop turns 2
May 24th
Sorry, no gaming review/preview this weekend. I'm still working my way through Grand Theft Auto 4 as diligently as I can...instead I have a standard post today that I could have saved until next week but hey, I value those proud few who read my blog and put up with my antics so I figured I'd treat you. =)
Everyone remembers the first generation of the XO laptop from Nick Negroponte's (OLPC) initiative. Well, this past Tuesday Negroponte opened a workshop at Cambridge and what did he have to share? The XO-2, of course. Although most of was all very early and clearly from the concept stage of the project, there were some notable features about the new device including a new sleek form factor with a touch screen interface kind of like a super-sized . Only prettier I think.
This news came hot on the heels of a development that the OLPC organization was planning on switching to a much more proprietary platform than (the skew of Linux that serves as the operating system for the current-gen XO) - Windows XP. As one would expect the open source community is up in arms over this development, especially after Negroponte himself was prone to saying that "the thought of XO laptops being used to teach young students Microsoft Word or Excel made him cringe." Kind of makes you wonder what's with the sudden adoption of the Windows platform then.
As far as the XO-2 itself goes, I think it's a pretty slick machine. I compared it to a Nintendo DS which isn't really fair since, in a way, you can compare any laptop to a DS because they both fold in the middle. The kicker is that the interface is set to be all touch-oriented (the wave of the future) so really maybe it's more like an iPhone with a crease down the middle. The XO-2 is much smaller than its predecessor as well, and overall looks much more streamlined without any of the mesh antennas or anything getting in the way. The concept of the mesh network was pretty cool though, so I hope they aren't doing away with that functionality and instead have just decided to build the hardware into the actual laptop. The whole unit is basically in a book factor which I'm sure will be much more inviting to children to pick up and use. That being said it's still pretty early in the game - the XO-2's aren't slated to be released until 2010 - so I'm sure the bulk of this is subject to change.
One of the most interesting parts of the video that is posted along with the images of the XO-2 is a statement from Negroponte himself. Basically he says because the display technology is similar to that which is found in portable DVD players, the price point of the XO-2 could be as little as $20. Everything about this project screams ambition to me, especially the price point. The originally XO was supposed to cost $100 and it ended up costing twice that amount, not to mention that the hardware for the XO-2 at least looks much more advanced than the first. I have no doubt that this technology will become more and more viable and cheaper to produce over the next two years, but I still doubt very much that the XO-2 will be anywhere near a $20 price point.
I'd also like to tack on an extra little link here at the end of this post from a former employee of OLPC - Ivan Krstić. He recently wrote a post on his blog basically lambasting the concept behind the OLPC and, in particular, the motives of those who are at the forefront (Negroponte). Without giving too much away I'd just like to say if you want a behind-the-scenes look at the scandalous inner workings of a tech charity you should read his 4,460 word essay on his experience with the OLPC foundation. Yes, it's a long article but it's a great read.
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