A look at the line - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGlvLQzvJNA

I stand by my statement - $600 is $600. Talk of the day or not. When it comes to plunking down money for a console the price will impact what people will do.

I'll second the agreement here.

The early adopters will justify the high price with the additonal things you get such as blu-ray, wi-fi, etc. The average kid trying to spin all these additonal benefits to their mother to justify the higher price over cheaper consoles will be hard sell - it'll basically come down to how much the kid whines and if $600 is a justified expense to shut them up.

Average consumers looking to buy a blu-ray player won't give this a second look thinking "Oh I get a blu-ray player and console in one for just a bit more money."

From my own perspective, as a gamer, even knowing what i know of the unit at this point I can't justify $600 on something like this.

The price really narrows wat group will buy in to this thing. I have no doubt this will sell like hotcakes initially but I really wonder how long the purchasing enthusiam will be sustainable at that price.

I hate to use of an overused saying but I'm on the fence with this one dawg. It does sort of look like a well done Doom 3 rehash. But I'm a sucker for space marines vs aliens/biological experiments gone wrong/ demons/girls gone wild/etc so the ending had me intrigued.

However, hearing it was pre-rendered was a let down. I'll likely keep half an eye on it though but don't have high hopes.

Any reason to wait for another color to come along?

Depending upon which color DS you have it will unlock a secret character in an yet unnamed text based game coming to the DS sometime in 2008. While details are sparse at this juncture Shigeru Miyamoto was touted to reveal at his recent 45th birthday party "Dogu Shiitu Princess Peach!" (his words), which indicates a possible Donky Kong character may be unlocked.

Otherwise no difference between the colors other than personal preference.

I have a pretty good program that can magnify digital images (.jpg, .gif, bmps, etc) and enhance them to a point where you can see every fine detail on tiny objects that would normally pixilate upon magnification.

I took your photo and had the program enlage one of the ants. As usual the detail is pretty amazing. Below is an enlarged ant - I've moved it down a bit for those who get the creeped out by bugs.

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Funny you started this. The other day I had purchased some M&Ms for our office and saw the Mega M&Ms there so grabbed a bag of them too.

Normally I'll pop 4 or 5 M&Ms in my mouth at a time and either let them disolve or just chew them. These were just slightly too big to want to pop more than one in your mouth at a time and oddly not satisfying given the slightly larger size.

I give it an oral score of:    out  of          

Noticed there was a 90 second hands-on preview video over on CNet today: http://reviews.cnet.com/4660-9020_7-6488242.html?tag=cnetfd.sd

This may add a whole new dimention to "hard core gamer" with posts about how long someone spent playing a game straight.

Weenie #1 - "Dude I just played Super Mario X for 3 hours straight!"
Weenie #2 - "Wha...I cramps up mad after 20 minutes of that."
Weenie #1 - "Newb."

My guess is this whole thing is going to be a non-issue and the sky is falling concerns will dry up upon release.

While I was providing some training in Osaka Japan I heard about a Ghibli store in one of the underground malls near my hotel. After searching for a few nights I finally found it.





Although I was tempted to purchase a few Totoros I didn't have the room so just got a Ghibli character keychain collection and some Mononoke playing cards.

Edit: I'll figure this image thing out yet!

Wow, forgot about Magic Carpet. If ever a game needs an update its that one. And then they had Hi-Octane which was released on the same engine an I raced that game to death on the Amiga.

I also have a very special spot for Flood which, for me, has one of the most memorable game endings.

Molyneux just needs to shut his trap about what his future games will include as he overshoots and expectations get crushed.

The 10% pre-purchase disconunt was a great idea. That almost pushed me over enough to consider getting this when I had little to no interest in the game. But I prevailed and didn't go with it.

If I was on the fence with the game I'm sure that would have made it a done deal. So props to the marketing department.

Not being able to read the latest protection would definitely be an issue - if there were any protection on the Oblivion CD.

That's right. No copy protection used on Oblivion.

You forgot to add "SO THERE SUCKA!!!" at the end of your post.

How old is the DVD player? It could be it can't reccognize the newest copy protection on the DVD disc.

This was a problem for me several years ago when I had DVD discs that would work fine on some DVD-ROMs but not others. It was due to the copy protection.

So if it isn't a bad disc you might try picking up a new DVD-ROM. One good thing is they're dirt cheap.

I thought one of the first games to support this thing was City of Villains. Is that lack of use on the Internet 100% positive?

That short demo video had me interested to see other examples but no where near sold on this. Have they spoken to a price point on it? For something that just does physicis it better be in the $50-$60 range at the most.

Yeah that feeling was awful the first time I had it. Was on the L which stopped at Fullerton (Du Paul University) when two college girls got on and started talking about their furture plans. It was total fantasy of what they expected and what I knew the reality was. I wanted to blurt out:

"You girls don't know what you are talking about."

Not only did I think of them as "girls" (wasn't I just in college a little bit ago?) but that was the first time I felt like I had real life experience under my belt that I could share my wisdom.

Ugh. I'm still trying to accept that I had crossed over from being "with it" to "old."

Jesus Crawley. I'm gonna start calling you Moneybags Mac'Gee.

I like that handle.

This is purchasing Alienware computers over many years (basically from the launch of the company) and with two incomes here from dedicated gamers.

We also have no interest in building our own. I did play the game early on when income was much tighter and often was frustrated with the process of combinding different hardware and getting them to work together. So we are paying a bit of a premium to not have to deal with that. We get a fully working computer delivered to us, ready to go, on day 1 that will play the latest and greatest for quite some time. They're also easy to upgrade, which we do when it's obvious we've been left behind. Finally you get the kick ass technical support which has come in very handy the times we've had to use it.

I've always been happy with them and know what I've been buying it too.

My heart sunk at the rumors over this since my last 7 computers were Alienware and I've always been impressed with them and the incredible level of support they've provided over the years. Last thing I wanted to know was that Dell was going to purchase them and I would have the mediocre level of technical support from Dell.

So I was happy when I got to the annoucement Dell is going to keep things as is. Hopefully that'll stick several years down the road when I'm ready to get another compuer.

For example, doesn't Tivo automatically record shows it thinks you would like.

Those are "Suggestions" which work poorly at first but after you start watching more shows and rating shows you like with a thumbs up, or ones you do not like with a thumbs down, it'll get more accurate in what it records.

I find I rarely have time to watch anything from the recorded Suggestions but from time-to-time will find a gold nugget in there - such as Amazing Race which I never bothered watching until I watched an episode that was in Suggestons - now I'm hooked.

If your looking for an HD unit TiVo's out. They won't have their HD unit out until the 2nd half of 2006.

Comcast also has a dealie with TiVo in the works where the TiVo software will be used on their DVRs but again no exact dates have been given when that rolls out.

I guess another plus for TiVo, and I don't use it for this but know many who do, is that you can hook it up to your network (provided you find a working adapter) and can transfer shows from the DVR to your computer or vice versa.

There are some other minor neat TiVo functionalities too such as when fast forwarding the show will actually jump back a few seconds when you hit play button. That way you don't miss a thing coming out of commercial whereas, I believe, other DVRs just start playing where you hit play (which could be several seconds in to the show).

Whatever choice you make DVRs are pretty cool. I didn't buy in to the whole notion it would change the way I view TV until I got one and found out it had.

Probably is the modem. Sounds like a similar issue we had with ours awhile back where it kept cycling. Things break though and that was the case with ours. Comcast came out and replaced it which fixed the issue for us.

We've had Comcast cable for at least 5 years so of course have encountered some bad situations; at least one where we considered going to DSL. But looking at it over the 5 year period and how much we use it it's been reliable and we've been satisfied with it, so glad we didn't switch.

I don't know if we're in the minority though as far as getting decent service since most people talk about the horror stories. 'course it's rare for people to kumbaya about good service.

It's sad but I probably would consider purchasing a Country Rock version. Maybe not at full price but I could see myself buying it for something different.

So for the last few weeks my wife has been hogging the TV playing Baten Kaitos (GC). She doesn't play console RPGs often but for some reason this one clicked with her and she played it religously. 71 gaming hours later she gets to the final boss (which you fight like 3 or 4 times previous to this meeting). I was pretty impressed with the opening cinematic so I decided to sit and watch to catch the end cinematic.

She kills the thing after about at 15 minute battle and the in-game dialogue to wrap everything up starts. I happened to look at the clock and it was about a quarter to 10:00pm.

After about 30 minutes of endless dialogue I decided to take a hike. There were some in-game cut sequences but they didn't have much eye candy and were not very interesting to watch (at least from someone who wasn't following the game that closely). So at around 10:20 I hear upstairs to watch a bit of TV.

As I'm watching TV I hear "Oh!", "Yay!" and "I don't want to kill her!" and all sorts of exclimations from my wife.  

At 11:00 she finally came up and proudly proclaimed she finished the game. I asked her if there were any cinematics at the end which I got the response "What does that mean?" So after explaining it to her she finally told me "No."

So the ending took over an hour to play out and didn't even finish with a cool cinematic. I've never played a game where the ending was so long. And while it seems cool to have an hour long ending in this case it seemed dragged out and you weren't getting much bang for your buck.  

I saw a sequel was due out at some point and god help me that thing better be short or I've lost the TV for another 3 weeks.

Anyways just wanted to share for those of you who were thinking of subjecting yourself to trying to complete this game what lies in store.

Aye, The Descent is a first rate horror film. It even scared me several times which most horror films don't do anymore. Definetly one to catch when it hits threaters in the US.

Although I hear they changed the ending which probably sucks since the ending was perfect (got it both ways good & bad ending).

I was thinking that even if it IS dirt cheap (say $99-$149) there could be other hidden costs. What exactly will you be getting with the Rev in its base package? A remote controller? An analog stick add-on? The "standard controller" shell? If these things aren't all packaged with it, the costs of the console could go up depending on what you actually need to play the launch games.

None of the console releases ever come with the all the peripherals you want with them. You usually have to purchase an extra controller, remote control, or what not unless you're willing to purchase a higher priced bundle which contains those things.

But it's a very good point. Likely there is going to be the core system with no game and single controller with the low price that will to leave something to be desired. However punking down the extra dough for another controller, remote control, component/HDMI cables, etc is a ritual I tend to go through with most console purchases. Kinda sad I'm used to it at this point.

Nintendo has also got to be aware that there are quite a few people wary of this console. It sounds like the lower price is already having the effect here for those that were not even considering pruchasing it.

I still think it's going to be price at $199 but that still seems reasonable.

Given that there are very few TV's that support 1080p, those TVs that do are very expensive and HD signals are not currently pushed out in the 1080p format its not much of a loss and likely a good move.

I haven't read about any plans for OTA, Satelite or cable company's to jump on the 1080p format anytime soon. People are still just learning about HD and to support something now that likely won't be the norm for another 5-10 years is silly.

Great trailer but I'm guessing that was just a cut sequence and not representitve of how the actual game is going to look/play. Good eye candy in any case.

Looks better than I thought it would. So it helps with the initial misgivings I had about this one being part action title.

I still feel releasing DNF at this point would be anti-climactic.

Like if Gravy Trader ever got released.

They need to price this thing in the $10-$15 range right at the start for it sell.

I played it quite a bit yesterday and did have fun up to a point. I played the mech type race. A specialist up to level 11. At that point it really turned in to a grind where the only reward for going on looked to be gaining levels to get new equipment and upping the levels of your "spells."

I didn't get to check out any of the PvP aspect yet although at one point there was a call for everyone to go to a specific area/zone as some other race was attacking. I was around level 5 at that time and had no idea what area they were talking about (the names of zones/areas are not memorable), but it sounded like whomever invaded was driven back.

Quests in this game stink. You basically get them as you level and so far they are all kill x # of mobs or gather x # of minerals. As someone pointed out none of these quests can be done at your level. By the time you complete the quests the rewards are somewhat outdated. By then you've gotten better equipment that has dropped from mobs.

I'm getting the feeling the PvP aspect is where the meat of the game is. Some people in chat compared it to Planetside. So the grind part of the game (which is comparable to EQ grind) may be just there for filler as a slow way to boost your attributes. I can see this isn't a game where you want to go in and just solo or not get involved in the PvP aspect as there looks to be little reward.

Has anyone checked out the PvP portion of the game?

The wife and I played the game for a few months. The tutorial stunk back then and guessing it still does as I didn't know what to do with those coupons either. But got the hang of it after finding some initial quests to do.

Some of the quests are done really well where you see in-game cinematic sequences that are a lot of fun (especially since your part of them) but the game is a huge grind so we ended up getting tired of it.

One thing to learn though is where the auction house is. Better prices than whats at the store and better items.

Iwata - "The amount of money that people are willing to spend on videogames is getting less every year,"

That doesn't seem to be the case in the US at least. But hell if the Japanese are cheap bastards then that's a nice fortune to shine on us.

Found this link to an mp3 of "Even Rats" on GAF. Apparently the band said it was cool, so let's all enjoy

Ah kick ass. I've been wanting this song since I unlocked it many moons ago but the band web site said it was due out on an upcoming album, which so far has not materialized.

There's a lot of their music on their website you can listen to (as well as download). Most of it is from live stuff so the quality on a lot of it isn't good. Surprisingly I've only found one song that I liked out of everything I listened to ("Reddish Moon") so I hope whatever their new album is more in line with this song than the others.

$15 a month for unlimited games seems reasonable to me. Not owning a SNES or N64 there's quite a few games on those two systems I would love to play or try out and in the end is likely cheaper than purchasing each game singally.

For this type of thing I would figure after 3 or 4 months it'll grow stale and will cancel. I can't imagine someone doing this for an entire year.

So $60 over 4 months to play all the old games I missed and really want to play as well try ones I was only somewhat interested.  

I'm actually interested that they did try and change it around. I was hyped for game when it was initially annouced. Then after reviews and player descriptions of the game started coming out it was a turn off (as it looks like more than one poster here seems to see). So I was actually excited to see them trying to bring a bit of life to a game that pretty much sounded like couldn't get any new blood in it to maintain it.

So I gotta say they have guts for doing this to try and make the game most people were expecting. From someone who had lost any interest in the game this revived it. Unfortuantly it sounds like they mucked it up so I've again lost interest (whoops!).

So instead of dieing a slow death, which probably was financially bad for the company, it may die a well deserved quick death.

but with Res Evil 5 coming to 360 and PS3 I have absolutely no reason to own this console.

I don't think there have been any specific annoucements of what games are going to hit this console as of yet. Resident Evil may continue on the platform.

Would drool for a sequel or add-on or whatever. One thing I hope they do is allow you to play songs sequentially so you can perform them as a concert.

I'm in my 30s and can relate. I'm all like "Yo woman I gotta level here" and she's like "come help fix dinner" and I'm pleading "why? There's only one more floor of Tsoo left" and she don't answer so I'm calling down to her "that's BS!" but of course she keeps naggin' till I stop then gets mad when I complain about the food being cold.

That kids my hero for sticking up to The Man.

My two general questions:

1) Is it noisy? (i.e. are the fans loud enough to hear or whiney)

2) I haven't been following the other touted features of the 360 that much but I seem to recall reading it could allow you to record/playback television shows. If so how does that work?

I've been looking in to HDTV's for a few months now and am no expert but if you are looking for them I would reccomend checking out http://www.avsforum.com/ as there is a plethora of audio and videophiles there who really know what they're talking about.