A Nitrous Crouton

I’m slowly feeling the programming discipline come back. It has actually taken me a while to get back into the groove, it feels like the mental equivalent of starting to run again after a long layoff. It does feel good, but I suspect I do prefer to do technical planning and management versus actually writing code. That’s right, I’m one of them.

And I bought a Wii. My restraint was being generally eroded and my desire to play with my siblings when they visit for the holidays was too great. I woke up early with a splitting headache on Sunday morning and the knowledge that I wasn’t going to be able to get any productive work done for several hours, and that Best Buy would be selling Wiis at store opening. No, the Wii did not cure my headache, but it did make me giggle like a madman when I started playing with it.

I’m sure the novelty will fade a bit, but it was a strangely pleasing experience to configure the Wii when I first turned it on. Using the controller to point at the on-screen keyboard/number-pad to name the box, set up the network settings, etc. was a definite ‘new toy’ endorphin buzz. The user interface just feels right.

I bought Zelda and Rayman. I have not yet tried Zelda, I want to be able to give it a decent block of time which I don’t have at the moment. Wii Sports is a beautiful pack-in. Even though it’s simple, I’ve probably played Wii Golf the most, doing the three-hole course only takes a couple minutes and it’s proved to be a nice little brain break. After messing with Wii Golf, I’d definitely be interested in a more sophisticated golf title for the Wii, and I’m not a golf aficionado by any stretch of the imagination. Bowling is well done, but didn’t grab me, but then I recently spent time working on a bowling title. Tennis is just fun to do, it’s so simple but the fun is as much making the physical motions as playing the game. I can’t wait to play it multiplayer. Boxing and Baseball remain unplayed.

Rayman deserves a more detailed write-up at some later point. In short, I’ve only played it for a couple hours, clearing a couple of the stages, but I love it. The style, graphic and audio design, the mini-game concepts, the controller use, it’s brilliant.

For me, it has already been worth buying the Wii just for the fact that I couldn’t help but have a big goofy grin on my face while playing with it. I’m giggling to myself and feeling like a kid, versus a grizzled jaded old geek who has spent more than a decade working in the game industry salt mines. Bravo, Nintendo.

I’m so tempted to order one of these.

This morning I finally got around to snagging a copy of Sneak King from my local Burger King. I don’t know what temporary loss of reason resulted in the creation of said game, but I love it. The King is more terrifying than anything from any horror movie in the past decade.

And now, for a mini-review round up:

Casino Royale (4.0 out of 5.0 croutons)

I’ve never been a big fan of Bond films. That I went to go see Casino Royale is a testament to the power of a very solid trailer. I do indeed approve of Daniel Craig’s portrayal of Bond. The goofier, smirking, tongue-in-cheek aspects of the franchise are one of the things that leave me cool. As a genre contrast, I loved The Bourne Identity. My main quibbles with Casino Royale are that the movie did run a bit long, and while the Bond portrayal has improved, the Bond plotting structure hasn’t, you really don’t want to think about the plot too much. But, even in the parts where it dragged a bit, it was still pleasant to watch. I thoroughly enjoyed the action sequences.

Glasshouse (4.5 out of 5.0 croutons)

Stross has rapidly become one of my favorite sci-fi authors. It seems appropriate to mention Glasshouse in the same company as a Bond movie. Glasshouse could be considered a thriller/espionage tale, only set in a future where consciousness can be effectively abstracted from the physical body, or even physical reality for that matter. The pleasure of Glasshouse was Stross’s effective wielding of his far-flung concepts, giving the plot and world solid rules, limitations and an air of plausibility. I enjoyed the intellectual playground of the universe, and following along with the main character in trying to piece together just what was going on, a task made rather difficult due to the history of the book’s universe.

The Jennifer Morgue (4.5 out of 5.0 croutons)

This book is a sequel to “The Atrocity Archives”, one of Stross’s early books, which despite some flaws, was one of my most enjoyable fiction reads ever. To sum up the world of “The Atrocity Archives” and “The Jennifer Morgue”, as trite as it may seem, the best summary I could give would be to take HP Lovecraft, Neal Stephenson, Douglas Coupland and Scott Adams (Dilbert), mix them all up and pour them into an occult/techno-thriller. In a world where expression of certain mathematical equations can facilitate information transfer between parallel universes, and such knowledge is guarded and policed by secret bureaucracies you have a rich fountain of potential. And it is well realized, I think what I enjoyed most about both books is some of the little concepts or ideas that are thrown in as side details that are just so, well, deliciously tasty. I love this book’s universe and it’s going to be a long wait for the next book.

And now, I really need to get some Actual Progamming done.

Well, that was unexpected.

Since I am still functioning on East Coast time, my lunches are more like breakfast Pacific Time. Before eating, I decided to swing by the local Target just for kicks. My main subject of curiosity revolved around whether the store had received any follow-on Wii shipments. What I was not anticipating was that I just happened to walk in during a window where it was actually possible to buy a PlayStation 3.

The store had apparently just received half a dozen of the 20 gig model. I just happened to wander up to the electronics counter at the right time, there were two people already at the counter and three units left. I would say the total purchase window time was probably five minutes at most.

My path of action was instantly clear. So now I have a heavy box sitting on my floor. I am going to have to figure out what to do with the beast. By all accounts I should flip the thing, it’s an expensive monstrosity. Total sticker price for a game system with one game and an extra controller, $660 after tax? And that’s the cheap version? Ludicrous. And I don’t even own a HDTV set yet.

The mercenary free-market approach does, however, go against my geek core. I can feel the device humming in my mind, beckoning to me like a 2001 monolith. Yeah, I’ve got to get rid of this thing…

It’s good to be home.

While the vast majority of my current working life takes place from a home studio, occasional on-site client visits are part and parcel of the routine. When starting up with a new, major client, an extended initial visit to get to know folks and get up to speed is usually a wise idea. That said, three weeks away really makes you appreciate returning.

Now if only my sinuses would stop taking their revenge against me. I didn’t get sick on the trip out, but rather around two-thirds of the way through the stay. This meant I was almost, but not quite over the last of the congestion before the flight home, and now my sinuses have decided to throw a revolt.

Prior to the trip, I had been musing computing options. My laptop, a Dell Inspiron 8100 purchased in late 2001, was still motoring away. However, while functional, it was not what I’d want to be using for primary software development. It also struggles on large WoW raids. Not that, uh, that was a deciding factor or anything. So I was seriously contemplating a new laptop. The laptop I really wanted wasn’t out yet: A Core 2 Duo based MacBook Pro. I eventually decided to cast my fate to the winds of Apple release schedules and was prepared to make do with the Dell. Then Apple released the Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro less than a week until I was scheduled to leave.

Naturally, it wasn’t that easy to actually get a hold of one, but thankfully, after some headaches with phantom Apple Store availability, I got my hot little hands on the high-end 15” model two days before my trip.

My impressions now that I’ve had a few weeks to use it? Man, I’m glad I bought it, it just rocks. I’ve wanted to spend more time in OS X for years, and thanks to the MBP, I finally am.

Of course, it wasn’t cheap, and this has saved me from buying more game systems that I really shouldn’t buy right now. There are actually quite a few things on the 360 that I wouldn’t mind playing. And, of course, now there’s the Wii. Zelda on the GameCube was one of the last games I actually played all the way through. Thanks to Mr. MacBook, I can safely table these for a while.

That wasn’t to say, however, that I wasn’t going to check out the console launch day fun. I was out of town and car-less for the PS3 launch, but not only was I back home for the Wii, I was still on East Coast time, so getting up early felt normal. I was hoping the Wii would be cleared out, because while I wasn’t going to wait in any lines, if a Wii happened to stare me in the face, I’d probably lose resolve and buy one.

I was thankfully disappointed. There was a large line in front of the local Target an hour before opening. It looked like at least 60-70 people, plenty to clean out their initial shipment. The local Wal-Mart is 24-hours, so they were promptly emptied at 12:01 AM. Even the local Sams Club had a small line for their limited quantities. A good day to be Nintendo.

I wonder how many of the people buying PS3s for $1300+ on eBay are buying them to try and relist closer to Christmas to try and score $2000+.

I won't feel sad even one tiny bit if a bunch of speculators get burned chasing too few people with more money than sense.

My bad geek joke of the day.

Now that we have the impending OJ book, I want to know...

Will we see a book from Reiser: "If I Fragmented?"

Today's Bad Idea: A command economy run by Amazon.com.

That is all.

My normally robust immune system has succumbed to one of those pesky ‘common cold’ things. This is decimating my productivity, but gives me an opportunity to muse on the current state of affairs in the gaming console market.

I’ve spent far too many years of my life earning a living doing game development. Because of this, I track the industry quite closely. Console generations usually run 5-6 years, and we are now at the very end of the old generation and the beginning of the new.

In the last generation, Sony continued to dominate with the PlayStation 2. Microsoft lost a few billion dollars buying themselves into second place with the Xbox, and Nintendo ran a trailing third, but racked up quite respectable profits with the GameCube.

The last time around, Sony launched first, with the PS2. The Xbox and the GameCube trailed its release. In terms of horsepower, for the most part the PS2 was the least powerful system, followed by the GameCube, then the Xbox. However, since the PS2 was by far the most popular platform, the majority of games, multi-platform releases, were developed with the PS2 being the ‘lead platform’. This usually meant minimal improvements on the GameCube and Xbox versions, which largely negated their technical advantages.

For this new generation, each of the Big Three has readied new consoles. Microsoft was the first out of the gate this time around, releasing the Xbox 360 for last Christmas. This gave them a year head start on the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii, which come out this week.

Sony and Microsoft are slugging it out for supremacy. Both the Xbox 360 and PS3 were designed as significant technical leaps over the last generation, and geared for being displayed on HDTV displays. As a result, both machines are currently expensive, the 360 being $300/$400, and the PS3 being $500/$600 (in both cases depending on model, and yes, in both cases you want the more expensive one). Even at those price points, both Sony and Microsoft are losing substantial amounts of money on each unit sold. In the case of the PS3, that figure at launch may be in excess of $200.

Nintendo, in contrast, is releasing the Nintendo Wii, which from a technological standpoint is only a mild evolution in power and capability from its previous console, the GameCube. In fact, the Wii is pretty much just a faster GameCube with extra RAM, with one important addition: its unique controller. Because of its modest technical heritage, the Wii is also the least expensive of the three consoles at $250. Also, at that price point, it is pretty much a given that Nintendo is actually making a profit on each Wii sold from unit one.

It is pretty obvious that Nintendo decided to bow out of the technical arms race and concede the battle for having the coolest system in the minds of 14-25 year old males. They also were unwilling to sell hardware at a loss.

There are a couple questions to ask when trying to pit the various consoles against each other: Who will have the most market share? Who will make the most money? Which system is most powerful? Which will have the best games? It’s easy to fixate on the first year or two of the console cycle, but really, these questions have to be extrapolated out over five or six years.

Sony will probably prevail in the end in terms of worldwide market share. Japan will probably be largely to thank, the Xbox 360 is unlikely to make any serious inroads there. In the US and Europe, however, its much more probable that we’ll see a near dead heat between the two. The PS3 is just too expensive and I’m not sure Sony is going to be able to cost reduce it fast enough.

From a technical standpoint, there will probably be minimal technical differentiation between 360 and PS3 games. Both systems have some strengths and weaknesses. The PS3 probably does have a bit more ultimate potential, but will be hamstrung by the difficulty in taking advantage of the vector processors (especially considering most releases destined for North America and Europe will need to be multiplatform) and the development environment, libraries and operating system for the PS3 are light-years behind Microsoft.

The Wii will be in third place, however I suspect it will sell more units than the GameCube did. While Nintendo can always be counted on for a solid software line-up, it will be interesting to see how third-party support will be on the Wii. Due to the shelf-space and sales domination that Nintendo titles tend to have on their platform, Nintendo consoles can be a dicey market space for third-parties. However, companies will be able to leverage their GameCube technical investments from the last generation, and the budgets for Wii titles will be much, much more modest than 360 and PS3 titles. I think, in the end, that means that publishers that have licensed properties that do well with Nintendo’s demographic will find success on the Wii. Nintendo will make boatloads of cash, but then they always do.

It’s interesting that all three new consoles have backwards compatibility support with their predecessors. In the case of the 360, it is imperfect, the original Xbox title support is handled through a software emulator, which means that not all of the Xbox library is supported, and some games run less than ideally. The Wii, being essentially a GameCube derived design runs GameCube games with no difficulty. What’s interesting is the road Sony had to take with the PS3 to fulfill their promise of backwards compatibility. There was a lot of scuttlebutt that Sony had been attempting a software emulation route ala the 360. If they were, it wasn’t yet remotely ready for prime-time because the PS3 essentially has the PS2 core chip components on its motherboard. This is definitely another cost-reduction headache for Sony, even if they can capitalize on the fact that they already produce the EE/GS chip in great quantities for the slimline PS2. I would still wager that the chip costs Sony almost as much as Nintendo is paying for the main CPU chip for the Wii.

In a related cost note, it will also be interesting to see how Blu-Ray fares in the marketplace. Being able to cost-reduce the player is going to be another major hurdle for Sony to reach a point where they aren’t losing money hand over fist on the PS3 hardware.

As for me, which of the systems will I have come this Christmas? The answer: none of them! Funny as it may sound, I just can’t justify the expense at this point, especially since I have ready access to them. I had toyed with the idea of buying a Wii at launch, but then the stars fell into place to make another (much more expensive) purchase, which means I’ll be cutting back on frivolous expenditures for quite a while. I’ll blog a review of that purchase soon. I haven’t regretted it one bit thus far. Hint: it involves Apple.

I really try to sheer away from political topics, especially one the verge of elections. However, I just had an amusing insight.

If you were a democratic candidate in a close race in a jurisdiction using Diebold machines, why wouldn't you hack them for your advantage? I mean, really, after all the ink spilled both real and virtual, the precedent has been set that if someone is going to hack the machines, it was going to be the GOP. With the current conventional wisdom you wouldn't even be questioned.

"Us? Hack the vote? Hell, we still use AOL!"

Ironically, I believe that anyone that thinks that their pet candidate would never do such a thing (whatever their party affiliation) should be disenfranchised.

No, not for being an AOL user, it's ten years too late for that.

Yes, this blog has been incredibly bereft of updates.

Three weeks ago, I gave notice at my old job. Two weeks ago I had a vacation off-week to decompress. Last week I started ramping up on some new projects.

At long last I am back to working for my company again full-time. Life circumstances derailed me for a few years, relegating it to secondary status. No longer.

I've actually had a fair number of things that I've wanted to write about, but the energy just hasn't been there. Now that I'm reaching the far side of a major transition, I anticipate that will change.