Top of Cool

Kutaragi Watch: PS3 failure = Promoted!

I generally loathe kotaku.com, but for once they actually had an interesting post. By now, everyone has heard about Kaz Hirai taking over Kutaragi’s position at Sony. Well, apparently Kutaragi is being maneuvered into an even higher position. Brian over at kotaku has noticed a trend which he dubs the “volcano school of management.”

Heat from bad decisions and poor management builds until a key person involved in the decision-making process is pushed up and up and up and finally ejected entirely from the company.

Hmm, sounds like Brian could be on to something, here. I’ve seen this kind of thing before. It’s sometimes easier to promote someone to higher and higher positions than to fire them, especially with high-level executive positions. Just ask Steve Ballmer.

Anyway, with the PSP just getting into its death throes and the PS3 launch being less than impressive, I can’t imagine why a failure like Kutaragi would get promoted, but Brian’s Volcano School of Management explains things pretty well, I think. It’s kind of like how bad game developers at Microsoft get “promoted” to manage things like Database Interoperability in Microsoft Excel.

Nintendo DS: I finally have one

I know, I know. It’s probably a little late to be jumping onto the Nintendo DS bandwagon, but I am no longer one of the unwashed masses. I picked up a DS Lite (Onyx, if you’re wondering) a few days ago along with Metroid Prime: Hunters and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed both games, so far. And whenever I’m monopolizing audio/video resources with Gears of War, the wife has been having a lot of fun with Phoenix Wright. It, like many of the DS games I suppose, is intrinsically accessible. Anyone could pick up Phoenix Wright and start playing.

Metroid Prime: Hunters, on the other hand, is an almost complete foil to the “casual-ness” of Phoenix Wright. In fact, that’s what I love about it. It’s like Halo: Portable Ops. Great matchmaking and online (even though I totally suck right now), deep and interesting story-line (so far), and the Rival Radar make this one of the funnest games I’ve played on a portable platform.

Hmm, what to play next…

There’s a lot of choices for the DS. I really need to find Trauma Center. Meteos, Final Fantasy III, and Mario Kart DS are all definitely on my list, as well. I know there’s a bunch more hot DS games that I’m missing. Now, if only I could watch UMD movies on it…

It’s not Lando’s fault

Seriously. Can we just stop getting on Lando’s case about that whole Cloud City fiasco? I mean, come on. It’s not his fault. They told him they fixed it. No pun intended.

Lando gets such a bad rap amongst Star Wars fans, despite the fact that he led the flight into the super structure of the Death Star II. I guess people think that he backstabbed Han and turned him in to the authorities, just so he could save his own skin. I think that oversimplifies things.

Like Lando said, “Our operation’s small enough not to be noticed.” That is, unless an old “friend”, in an attempt to escape the Empire decides to come knocking. It’s Han’s fault that Lando was put in that situation in the first place. It’s not like he called up Lord Vader, “Hey, yeah, those guys you’ve been chasing all over this part of the galaxy. They’re gonna be here.”

It’s nice to think of Lando as all jokey when he declares to Han, “You got a lot of nerve coming back here after what you pulled.” If anything, this was Lando’s true moment of complete clarity. Of all the nerve, a wanted criminal shows up on your doorstep? What are you supposed to do? Not to mention, Lando had been trying to “go legit” with this whole mining operation. I dunno, if The Powers That Be showed up on my newly-law-abiding doorstep to inform me that my old buddy was on his way after breaking several laws, I’d be inclined to turn him in, too.

So, who can fault him, really? It wasn’t until he learned exactly what it was that Han and his band was up to, and being forced to alter the deal at gunpoint, that he decided to take appropriate actions when the time was right. If it wasn’t for his timely actions, there’s a good chance none of them would’ve gotten away. If he had made his break too soon, they would’ve been squashed. If he waited too long, he would’ve missed the window of opportunity while everyone was focused on Luke’s arrival.

The next time you think about throwing Lando under the bus, try cutting him some slack.

..||..

Remember, remember, the 11th of September.

Apple iPod Hilarity

So, I picked up my iPod, told it to play a song, and then it crashed. Tried to reboot itself, apparently, showing the Apple logo, then gave me a folder Whammy.

Yeah, that thing. So, checked Apple’s iPod support website, which seemed to indicate that this icon denotes serious problems with the embedded software. Well, I was a little dejected. I hate reformatting my iPod and re-copying all my music onto. Such a pain.

Then, this made me think of the Millenium Falcon. (Because, as Joss once said, all things do.) I mean, what would Han Solo do with a non-functional iPod? So, I decided to drop it from a height of 18 inches. Hmm, didn’t really do anything. So, I tried 3 feet. Blam-o! The iPod spontaneously rebooted after the drop and booted right into the normal iPod software. All my music was still there, and everything seems to be fine!

So, once again proving that the Han Solo method of fixing things really is the best way to go sometimes.

Console Interfaces: It’s Simplicity, Stupid

With videos of the PS3 user interface starting to percolate through the internet, we now have a better idea just how the PS3 is going to look and feel on the screen, and I think it’s a perfect time to evaluate the PS3 and look at what goes into a good interface.

(Continue reading at Aeropause.com)

Ch-Ch-Changes

I have decided to join forces with Aeropause.com as a staff writer. I probably won’t be updating here as much as a result, and it also means that my video game related posts will almost exclusively be posted at Aeropause.com for the time being, and posts here will probably be at a more personal level now.

I won’t be gone, I’ll just be… you know… posting over there, now.

Sony Suicide Watch: PS3 hardware… not looking good

The rate Sony’s going, heads are gonna roll.

Now, the problem stems from the PS3 hardware itself. Look at this image, taken from a recent conference (by Sony) for PS3 developers:

The Inquirer explains the problem thusly:

If you can write at 250x the read speed, it makes Cell local memory just about useless. That means you do all your work out of main memory, and the whole point of local is, well, pointless. This can lead to contention issues for the main memory bus, and all sorts of nightmarish to debug performance problems. Basically, if this Sony presentation to PS3 devs shown to us is correct, it looks like PS3 will be hobbled in a serious way.

The next slide goes on to say “Don’t read from local memory, but write to main memory with RSX(tm) and read it from there instead”, and repeats the table numbers. This is very very bad. The number of times the presentation goes on to say that it is correct, and the lack of anything like “this will be fixed by production steppings, so take measures X, Y and Z” say to me that it is not a fixable snafu. Remember at E3 when I said that the PS3 demos there were object sparse? Any guesses why?

If the above explanation makes about as much sense as the physics of cream cheese, then allow me to break it down for you.
The PS3’s architecture is BROKEN. The whole point of the local memory is to give the CPU it’s very own personal scratch pad. The faster and bigger that scratch pad (emphasis on faster), the more useful things the CPU can do each second. For some reason, the speed at which the CPU reads from local memory is… well… crippled. And it takes nothing less than a herculean development effort to work around such a bottleneck.

I keep wondering what Sony is thinking. Look at Everquest II. Back in “the day”, Everquest was the end-all be-all of MMORPG’s. With World of Warcraft’s 5 million+ users, does Sony really think they are doing a good job with EQII’s 500,000? (Granted, compared to any other MMORPG, that’s still not bad.) Is Sony really going to be content playing second fiddle to the Xbox 360? Well, they better get used to it, because as more and more details about the PS3 are released, it looks more and more grim.

Choosing My Own Adventure

While surfing the Wired RSS feeds, I noticed an article about the return of the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series of books. Apparently, they are updating and releasing eight of the original titles. I am happy, yet saddened at the same time.

What saddens me is that these titles are getting “updated”. Maybe it’s just the nostalgic part of me, but this would be like someone rehashing William Gibson’s Neuromancer to make it more compatible with how the future really unfolds. I don’t like it. Leave the classics be. I don’t have a problem with releasing new CYOA books. A kind of TNG for the CYOA series is fine with me. But let’s leave TOS alone, please. I would prefer there not be a “Choose Your Own Adventure: Special Edition” where the guns are replaced with walkie-talkies or whatever.

On the other hand, I am overjoyed that these books, which apparently sold half a billion (as in billion, with a “B”) copies, will be re-launched and make it that much easier for my future children to enjoy these books, as I did when I was l’il squirt. This series and the Encyclopedia Brown series were the books that kept me busy until I started moving onto the “hard” stuff like Asimov and Brin. (I, like my father, plan to introduce the Foundation series at an early age.) The great thing about the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series is that they were also my first experience with a truly interactive media experience.

The great thing about these books was that I think they really built the foundation for my love of video games and PnP RPG’s. Interactive Fiction built the bridge from normal literature and mindless shoot ’em ups to games like Wasteland and Adventure Construction Set.

The similarities between CYOA and CRPG’s should be pretty obvious. In fact, I’d be interested to know how many game designers have been influenced by these works. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if these were the first foray into interactive fiction for most gamers.

So, I for one welcome our new “Choose Your Own Adventure” overlords!

Backwards Compatibility Is For Chumps

Our goal is to have every Xbox game work on Xbox 360.
–Xbox PR manager Michael Wolf to gamesindustry.biz in May 2005.

We are chumps.

Well, at least that is the message from head Xbox marketing wonk over at Microsoft, Peter Moore.

Nobody is concerned anymore about backwards compatibility. We under promised and over delivered on that. It’s a very complicated thing… very complex work. I’m just stunned that we have hundreds of games that are backwards compatible.

Frankly, I’m just as stunned as he is! I mean we have such great titles as Barbie Horse Adventures and Fuzion Frenzy. Wow, I’m simply stunned that MS even bothered compiling backwards compatibility updates for some of these titles. I mean, everyone had better dust off their copies of Kabuki Warriors! You might as well trash those old crapfests like Panzer Dragoon Orta and JSRF. Amateurs!

Well, not to fret, because to the rescue comes Microsoft’s very own Pravda, GamerScore Blog! Yippee! Tell us, GamerScore Blog! What is in store from the hardworking EMULATION NINJAS?

Lots of talk about backwards compatibility online today. We wanted to get to the bottom of it all, so we went right to the team working on the next back compat update. We hear directly from them that they’re in the testing phase of another update, and it should be out in the next few weeks. We saw the list they’re testing, and it looks like they’re hoping to add at least a dozen titles.

Golly gee! A dozen titles! WOW! That completely blows the last update (of three titles) totally away! Thank you, oh great Microsoft, for your unending benevolence!

/spit

In all seriousness, it’s a good thing Gamerscore Blog is around to continue the farce that Microsoft still cares about YOU the customer. You know, the people they made these promises to about backwards compatibility. Even though it’s obvious Peter Moore doesn’t give a crap about you, because he’s too busy kissing butt over at Rockstar Games in order to get the next Hooker Beat Down Fest Grand Theft Auto.

I dunno. I’d rather have a little less Grand Theft and a little more Jet Set Radio.