What the Hell Did Jackie Chan Just Make Me Watch?
Dear god. Jackie Chan. On a Segway. Punching computer viruses. While wearing a helmet that says Kaspersky. I can only process this logically as him trying to gin up business for his Segway dealership.
Sony Vaio W Netbook Reviewed (Exactly What We Expected)
If you read the original announcement, there’s not a hint of surprise in Computer Shopper’s review of Sony’s stab at a conventional netbook, the Vaio W. Underpowered and uninspiring, though that 1366×768 screen sure is dandy. Come on, Sony. [ComputerShopper]
Greatest Single Phone Call in History Gets Microsoft to Change Laptop Hunter Ads
The “greatest single phone call” Microsoft COO Kevin Turner’s ever received apparently worked. Sort of. After Apple asked Microsoft to stop running the Laptop Hunters ads because they’ve dropped prices, Microsoft’s edited at least one of the spots.
The original Lauren 2.0 spot’s been pulled off YouTube, and in the re-cut version, the reference to the MacBook Pro costing two grand has been dropped (since “MacBook Pro,” whatever that means now, starts at $1200). Not that it actually changes the intent of ad one bit, since Lauren 2.0 still manages to get in there, “It seems like you’re paying a lot for the brand.”
Which is all it needs to say, really, since that’s what most people already think because of Apple’s own success at positioning itself as a premium brand, even as they cut prices on basically everything they make.
Success is a bitch that way sometimes. [YouTube via AdAge via MacRumors]
PS3’s 2.70 External Video Backup Works, But You Can’t Stream
It’s been a couple months since the PS3 2.70 firmware update, but we’ve finally gotten the chance to test out the external video storage. In two words: it works.
You can back up your purchased videos to any external USB drive, be it a flash drive or a standard USB hard drive. The video will show up on in a backup folder inside the drive, but you can’t stream directly from the drive. So it’s not like you can connect a 1TB USB hard drive and dump all your movies onto there for on-the-fly watching. You’re limited to whatever space you have on your PS3’s drive for storage, but you can swap in/swap-out from the external drive with relative ease.
So yeah, nice job Sony for putting out this video backup. It’s great for the person who downloads a lot of movies from Sony’s PSN service, which has a surprisingly decent selection for a service that’s not that old.
PlayStation Eye Still Alive, Support For Facial Recognition Coming Soon
The all-but-forgotten PlayStation Eye, not one to be outshined by its prototype, unnamed motion-sensing PlayStation controller brother, will soon support facial recognition.
Says Sony Europe’s Head of Developer Services, Kish Hirani, the Eye will have the ability to “detect gender and even the age of the face, separate facial features such as the nose, eyes and ears, and even detect whether you’re smiling or not.”
And taking a page from Microsoft’s Natal platform, Hirani said the Eye will also support “skeleton tracking.”
Now, I’ll admit, these are cool features, but I do hope the update allows the PlayStation Eye to work in the dark. Facial recognition firmware update or not, for this to work Sony’s going to have to figure out a way for this forgotten gadget to function from within the pitch black confines of people’s storage closets and attics. [Gamasutra Kotaku]
Hulu Speaks On PS3 Blocking: It’s the Content Providers
A few weeks ago, Hulu silently blocked access through the PS3’s web browser. Customers who bothered to ask the company what was going on just got a response, which fingers an entirely predictable culprit: Reluctant content providers!
The semi-apology came in the form of an email, in which a Hulu rep told users that the move was a compromise:
Everything we do is with an eye toward achieving our long-term goal of maximizing the content you can access as conveniently as possible in a way that ‘works’ for the content owner. In the short-term that may require us to make some tough decisions…
Hulu won’t go so far as to directly blame specific companies, but it sounds like one—or a few—of their many partners signaled that PS3 streaming was a threat to their relationship, somehow. But yeah, how?
Distribution availability across platforms — theaters vs. TV vs. recorded media like DVDs vs. online streaming vs. mobile phones — was always implicitly or explicitly controlled in that world… the windowing strategy is still dominant in the business. Billions of dollars flow in across these different windows, and entire companies are organized around them.
This is actually pretty clear cut. Content providers are uncomfortable with the concept of video streaming on the PS3, because the console is typically connected to a television. This content delivery gray area is enough to somehow screw with, or simply muddy, their licensing arrangements or somesuch, so they’re exercising caution.
As frustrating as that is, it’s also a bit reassuring; far from a sign of a concert rollback of digital streaming rights, this is just a minor hiccup during a long, still-advancing transition. As Señor Hulu said, upstarts like Hulu need to be sensitive to media companies’ old-fashioned sensibilities in order to change them. Full letter is reprinted below. —Thanks, Kip!
Thanks for writing. In order to answer your question, some context might be
helpful.For decades, the TV/movie industry has built its business model on a windowing
strategy. Content rights are granted for limited time periods across specific
distribution channels. For example, a movie starts in theaters, then moves to
pay-per-view and DVD, then to pay-cable channels, later to broadcast, and so on
down the line. Similarly, TV shows are available on TV first, then in repeats,
then to DVD and possibly syndication, etc.Distribution availability across platforms — theaters vs. TV vs. recorded media
like DVDs vs. online streaming vs. mobile phones — was always implicitly or
explicitly controlled in that world. But a few factors have made the barriers
between those platforms more permeable: the rise of the web, increased broadband
availability, the ease of digitizing video, and the increase in the computing
power of devices like gaming consoles, set-top boxes, and mobile phones.However, in the near-term, the windowing strategy is still dominant in the
business. Billions of dollars flow in across these different windows, and entire
companies are organized around them. Nothing productive comes from flouting that
reality (except to law firms who work on the occasional lawsuit).We do, however, expect these windows to converge over time. There’s no
way around
that, and we’re working hard with all of our partners to guide and
participate in
this important transition in the business. Everything we do is with an
eye toward
achieving our long-term goal of maximizing the content you can access as
conveniently as possible in a way that “works” for the content owner. In the
short-term that may require us to make some tough decisions, but we only do so
when we believe it improves our long-term prospects to build a more enduring,
legal solution to that same problem.We hear your frustration, and solving it remains our full-time job.
Best Loosely Video-Game-Related Quote Of The Day
“It’s not about killing … It’s about eating. We’re respecting the natural balance of nature. We don’t give boys PlayStations here; we give them guns.”
That is from Daniel Esparza, the former mayor of a French village called Saint-Laurent de la Cabrerisse, uttered to a reporter filing a story that is partially about about Esparaza’s expertise in boar-hunting.
The quote, which explains what a local passion it is to hunt sanglier (or wild boar) continues: “I’ve passed on my knowledge of nature to Ludo since he was young.”
Ludo is Esparaza’s son. Father, son and reporter are on a hunt as part of the reporter’s travel article about vacationing in Saint-Laurent de la Cabrerisse, where rural activities like boar-hunting, wine-making and even something called smell lotto are encouraged for tourists to try. And the writer continues:
Ludo – who says he sometimes smears himself with boar shit to creep close to his prey – seems a good man to hide behind. At midnight, after a final “savage cherry” liqueur that renders accurate shooting impossible, I climb into his battered van. Ludo makes a strangling noise, hinting at the animal’s fate, asks if I’m “ready for adventure”, and then, bar the odd grunt, doesn’t speak for two hours. I’m boar hunting with Obelix.
Does it really matter if they got any boar? Ludo sounds like he’s having a fine life, even if it didn’t include a PlayStation in his childhood.
Live high on the hog in the Languedoc [The Observer] [PIC]
A Look at Uncharted 2’s Gold Rush
Naughty Dog is showing off a new co-op gameplay type for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves at Comic-Con this week.
In Gold Rush a team of players try to grab and move a treasure across the map without getting taken out. Looks kind of fun.
This Michael Jackson Signed PlayStation Can Be Yours (For $1.5 Million)
It’s no secret that Michael Jackson had a thing for video games. His Neverland Ranch arcade collection highlighted his penchant for spending big, but maintaining a respectable level of quality. Oh, and he signed a PlayStation once.
That Michael Jackson signed PlayStation is now for sale, seemingly authentic in its scrawling upon by the late King of Pop. While the starting bid is not ludicrous, the Buy It Now price on eBay certainly is. The seller is willing to part with it right now for $1.5 million.
It’s doubly special, according to the seller, being the 1,000,001st PlayStation to roll off the assembly line. Funny, that somehow sounds a little less believable than the Moonwalker actually scribbling “I Love You, Michael Jackson” on a game console.
Hand signed Michael Jackson Playstation with proof [eBay - thanks, Zeuxis!]
Wii MotionPlus Review
The Wii MotionPlus, Nintendo’s hardware patch to make true on the promise of true motion-control gaming, is here. While it’s pretty damn amazing—it truly is 1:1 motion detection—it still isn’t perfect. And part of that is the software.
Click for gallery
The Hardware:
The are two components to the Wii MotionPlus, the hardware attachment itself and the software that supports it. The hardware, which consists of a sensor which detects rotation that hooks into the expansion/Nunchuk port of the Wiimote, allows the setup to feed back exact 3D positional information to the console. It still requires the other motion-detection systems of the Wii, including the sensor bar, which may contribute to the flaws of the overall system.
Here’s the best example of what we’re talking about. In Wii Sports Resort’s Swordplay mode, where you swing around a kendo sword, there’s a game called Showdown where you advance along a fixed path and swordfight about 50 continuous people. Even after calibrating your sword (Wii MotionPlus) at the start of the fight, the sword will go about 20-30 degrees askew after a few minutes of swinging, requiring you to recalibrate the system quickly by pressing down on the D-Pad. That wouldn’t be bad, except for the fact that the Wiimote is still susceptible to interference from bright sunlight through a window or any pair of incandescent lights it thinks are the sensor bar, which totally screws up your orientation.
But for the most part, it’s 1:1 motion. Wave your Wiimote around and the sword follows. You bowl or throw frisbees or swing a club or shoot a basket and the Mii on screen actually traces the actions of your controller. It’s a very different experience than the past three years of flicking around the Wiimote. If you control your environment (limit the amount of sunlight, don’t have any light bulbs to interfere), the hardware does what it claims.
The Software:
We tested it with the three types of games that are out now, Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo’s own offering that it’s been working on since the MotionPlus unveil at E3 2008), Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 (Golf) and Virtua Tennis 2009 (Tennis). We passed on Grand Slam Tennis since we didn’t think we needed to test two tennis games to get the idea of how tennis worked for the platform, and reviews on Amazon rate the two titles as more or less equivalent in MotionPlus usage.
Tiger Woods: The game lets you go 1:1 motion in terms of your swing, but still manages to keep the game a game. There are three modes of difficulty, basically how realistic you want to map your motions, with the advance mode putting the most control of drawing and fading into your hands. I’m not a golfer, so I can’t say with any kind of expertise how realistic this is, but it felt like what I was doing actually made a difference on screen. Instead of just going through any old swing, I had to pay attention to my form and keep the Wiimote face pointing the right way through contact with the ball.
The two questions that you have to ask are if the implementation actually makes you feel like you’re making 1:1 motions with the golfer on screen, and whether or not it’s fun. It is definitely fun, but it’s not exactly 1:1 in terms of being ultra realistic. As good as the Wii MotionPlus hardware is, the developers took the liberty of not making the speed of your swing reflect the speed of your swing in game. Point being, very few people can actually swing as hard as Tiger, so in order to make the game entertaining, they had to level the playing field. If you really wanted to do 1:1 golfing, you’ll have to pony up some club fees and go outside.
Virtua Tennis: Now tennis I do know, and Sega’s implementation definitely is not 1:1. In a MotionPlus tennis game you would imagine the avatar on screen taking his backswing at the same time you do, mirroring your forehand, backhand or even overhead smash windup. It does not. In fact, it still gets confused half the time as to whether you’re even doing a forehand or a backhand!
Trying to direct the ball crosscourt, down the line or up the middle is equally as futile—I could only get this to work accurately at most three shots out of five. The positional data from the Wiimote is there obviously, since other games have that data, but the game chooses to process it in a weird way. Like in golf, swings don’t map 1:1 in that the speed of your swing doesn’t quite determine how fast you swing. I can hit a decent serve, but I’m nowhere up into the 130s.
But the most annoying part of the game is the constant calibration. You have to point your Wiimote at the middle of the screen before every point (screenshot above), holding it still so the game knows where “front” is. Again, a huge waste of time when you want to be playing, and it puts the limitations of the platform in your face every few minutes.
As for the two questions of whether or not the game lets you feel like you’re playing 1:1 and whether or not it’s fun, we have the same answer. It is fun, but it’s definitely not 1:1. It’s a few steps up from Wii Sports Tennis (the first one, without MotionPlus), but it definitely isn’t a “realistic” tennis experience. You will, however, be able to get more of a workout since you’re trying to go 1:1 instead of just flicking your wrist. I’d imagine that this is similar to experienced golf players playing Tiger Woods; because you actually know what you’re doing, the fact that this isn’t quite 1:1 makes the process more frustrating.
Wii Sports Resort:
The fact that Nintendo’s own game is the best, both at showing the potential of the MotionPlus and in the implementation, should be no surprise. They developed the hardware and they’ve had the most time incubating their game, which makes Wii Sports Resort the most polished of the bunch.
I won’t go through each of the games—you can catch that on Kotaku’s review—but I will touch on some of the highs and lows. The previously mentioned Swordplay is pretty great, despite the quirks in the mode that caused frequent calibration issues, and really translates your swinging into sword motions well.
Frisbee and basketball and bowling and table tennis all fare equally well, and actually make you feel like you’re controlling what’s happening on the screen. It’s a feeling that was lacking from Wii Sports. Letting go of the frisbee (B button) at just the right time determines angle, height and power, and flicking your wrist in basketball actually determines the angle your ball approaches the hoop.
But the flaws of Wii Motionplus show up in games like archery and canoeing. In archery, you hold the MotionPlus with your non-dominant hand to aim the bow and pull your string back with the Nunchuk. The MotionPlus gets de-calibrated super easily so that “front” often means 30 degrees off to the side and 20 degrees down. And in canoeing (as well as table tennis), you have the problem of the Wiimote not knowing which side you’re pulling your controller to, so precision is not as perfect as you’d imagine.
Verdict
The hardware is a big step forward, but it’s not the end of the road. If I had to put a number on it, I’d say this was 80% of the way there to delivering true 1:1 motion detection in the hardware. Unless Nintendo releases a Wii MotionPlusPlus, I don’t expect that it will get all that much better in this generation, hardware-wise.
However, even with the slight limitation that the hardware platform has, the software can make up with it by allowing you to do things that cater to its strengths and avoid its weaknesses (like detecting which side of your body you’re pulling the controller towards). Sega’s tennis implementation, for example, is one that needs refinement, whereas swordplay and frisbee and basketball—for the most part—are fine.
But if your question is if the Wii Motionplus is fun, it definitely is. It’s the closest you’ll get to 1:1 motion gaming until either the Sony or Microsoft motion solutions come out in 2010. Go and give Nintendo some more of your money. [Amazon]
Really gives you the sense that you’re doing 1:1 motion
Wii Sports Resort is actually fun, and comes with one MotionPlus adapter
Not all games use motion equally well, with Wii Sports Resort being the best of the bunch now
Constant calibration in certain modes and certain games are annoying and somewhat of a waste of time
