Media consumer, tech enthusiast, and gamer
My friend Logan Beaux decided to start a podcast (get it here) and invited me to be part of the project as a regular cohost. For whatever reason, I’ve never done the podcasting thing (till now). And lately I’ve been thinking that Twitter/Facebook has replaced my need to blog like I used to.
Read More “Practically Ideal: A New Podcast I’m a Part Of” »
Sony has some big news coming out today: The company will allow “dynamic” ads to be placed in PlayStation 3 games. The Wall Street Journal is calling it “a boost for what could become a significant new revenue source for games companies” while Forbes thinks Sony is “set to ignite the world of advertising in videogames…”
Interesting, since the Xbox 360 has been doing this for nearly two years now. At the time (back in 2006), the gaming industry seemed pretty excited at what looked like a new source of revenue. But not much followed in terms of details of how this was to be a game changer for advertising (lame pun intended).
Read More “PlayStation 3 Getting In-Game Ads Two Years After Xbox 360” »
So Paul’s latest comparison between PC and console gaming has created quite the firestorm. His financial analysis shows that console gaming is, in fact, cheaper even if plenty of commenters take issue with his assumptions.
But an important piece is missing from his analysis, which swings the vote even more so toward the console side: PC gaming is a huge hassle. This can’t easily be measured in dollars (hence the reason it’s left out of a financial analysis), but here’s my latest ridiculous example:
Read More “PC Gaming Is Expensive and a Hassle, But I’m Lovin’ It” »
This last week or so will likely be the most exciting this year for any avid PC gamer: both Crysis and Unreal Tournament III have been released (not to mention the latest in the Half-Life 2 saga). These are high adrenalin, action-packed first person shooters. Both are technical and artistic marvels (consisting of “next generation” graphics) all while being loads of fun to play.
Another game came out for the PC around the same time with slightly less elevated status (but still widely praised): Gears of War. It has been available on the Xbox 360 now for a year. But as I don’t own an Xbox 360, I picked up a copy for the PC last week. The only problem is, it didn’t (and still doesn’t) work at all. And I’m not alone. In one of the official forums for the game, there are 68 pages worth of gamers complaining about almost the same issue: the game locks up soon after first loading.
The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has been running quite a few stories on the release of Halo 3, all of which seem to be extremely positive with titles like “Microsoft’s ‘Halo 3’ Game Meets Approval of Critics” and “Casual Gamer Takes a Turn At Halo 3 to Judge the Hype.” One of the articles cites Halo 3’s high score on Metacritic (an aggregator of reviews) and then speculates that the critics’ acclaim caused the boost to Microsoft’s shares yesterday (which rose 43 cents or 1.5%) and explained the nearly doubled volume of stock trading.
Read More “Halo 3 Conquers Critics, Casual Gamers, & Wall Street” »