Because where else would I be?
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I’m sure you’ve seen this, and probably with better titles, but Bush recently dodged a shoe in a surprise appearance in Iraq. A journalist peeled his shoes mid-press conference and chucked them at Bush. Becoming President may instantly turn your hair white, but it definitely hasn’t hurt Bush’s cat-like reflexes:
I can only hope this spawns a huge surge in QTE gifs.
So, days before Spore hit store shelves, with its controversial DRM, it’s been cracked. Whoops.
To continue to harp on a previous point of mine, the Games Industry needs to figure out how to better commodify their art (that being ‘interaction’.) Gamers, moreso than any other group of media consumers, are technologically savvy. TV, film, music… Every other group’s lower savvy presents, relatively, a higher collective barrier for its consumers to partake in piracy and the likes. Gamers? We STARTED this shit by downloading shareware off of BBS’. Torrents are as easy as a TV remote, p2p is laughable, and even newsgroups are child’s play, to be honest. If you want to stop gamers from pirating your product, then you have to figure out a way to make games impiratable, (yes, I just created a word (at least in the English language.)) Good luck with that.
On the other hand, consider how many gamers have heard about Spore’s DRM and will now say “Eh, I’ll just pirate it.” I mean, the online component of downloading animals can be ‘gotten around’ by just downloading the thumbnails of pals’ creations anyway. It’s silly, how developers insist on shooting themselves in the foot like this.
Sony and Microsoft can’t even admit how bad they got their ass kicked this gen. They’re in denial.
I feel the need to preface this post by saying: I only have a 360 from this generation of hardware (well, a DS too,) and I eventually aim to get a PS3 and a Wii, as both either have games I want, or soon will. But I think myself a fan of games, more so than consoles. That said…
Don Reisinger put a great reality check up on Cnet today which I’ll choose to not quote, but instead paraphrase in my own words:
“Hey Sony, Microsoft, quit your bitching. Just because Nintendo cleaned your clock doesn’t mean you have to cry in the corner and whine ‘they don’t count anyway!’ They do. Now cowboy up and fight back. You”re trying to turn Nintendo into the elephant in the room no one is talking about, but it doesn’t matter, because everyone’s still giving the elephant their money, and not you.”
… Okay, so he was more nuanced, but I think I captured the sentiment well. It seemed particularly spurred forth by a comment from Sony’s CEO Howard Stringer: “I’ve played a Nintendo Wii. I don’t see it as a competitor. It’s more of an expensive niche gaming device.”
That’s hilarious; calling a cheaper competitor that’s kicked your ass in sales “expensive” and “niche.” Don’t worry Howie, I’m sure Nintendo doesn’t view you as ‘competition’ either. I mean, for that to be the case you’d have to double your hardware sales for both your console AND your handheld. Of course, you’d still be behind in both counts.
Of course, Nintendo capitalizing on their success is another thing entirely. I think they waited far too long to start believing their own hype. I really hope they’ve got some good things up their sleeve.
