Jeremy Wilson Technology Blog http://www.jeremywilson.com/blog/ en-US Copyright 2008 Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:58:35 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification The Consumerist Blog - The Next Best Thing Since Sliced Bread Just wanted to post quick note on the consumer advocacy blog, The Consumerist.

I don't know about other people, but I personally love this site and find reading it to be a daily dose of entertainment and education.

-Jeremy

]]> http://www.jeremywilson.com/blog/2008/03/the-consumerist-blog-the-next.html http://www.jeremywilson.com/blog/2008/03/the-consumerist-blog-the-next.html consumerist consumerist blog Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:58:35 -0800 HD-DVD Blow-out at Best Buy CNET's Crave gadget blog is reporting that Best Buy is unloading their HD-DVD inventory at the bargain basement price of $9.99 a disk.

I'm still feeling burned about my Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on purchase.  At least it up-scales regular DVD formatted movies on my Hitachi HDTV.

-Jeremy

]]> http://www.jeremywilson.com/blog/2008/03/hddvd-blowout-at-best-buy.html http://www.jeremywilson.com/blog/2008/03/hddvd-blowout-at-best-buy.html best buy cnet crave gadget blog hd-dvd xbox Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:34:26 -0800 Bungie Staff corrects damage due to Microsoft bumbling In an quite unexpected move on the part of the good folks at Bungie, it was reported earlier this morning that a gamer, who had previously sent in his autographed Xbox 360 console for post RRoD service and repair, only to get back his "repaired" console back from Microsoft scrubbed free of his valuable collector's markings. 

Halo3Swagbw.jpgIn an effort to "unscrew" this individual, Bungie staff quickly moved to compensate this individual with an awesome "swag bag" of Halo 3 related merchandise.

What an awesome move on the part of Bungie (now completely seperated from the clutches of Microsoft) to step in and do something quite awesome in its extensiveness, to correct the ongoing bumbling and fumbling that has been the Xbox 360 console repair and service system.

It is bad enough for Microsoft to have a near 30% failure rate on their hardware, to lose out to Sony in the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray battle, and to continue to treat it's Xbox 360 and Xbox Live customers with the same "bastard-step-children-you-are-and-you-peasants-will-do-what-your-told" mentality that they have long treated their operating system and productivity software consumers to over the years.

This is just my opinion, but it is just too bad that it takes a company like Bungie (whom from everything I have seen, rocks my socks off) to step in and clean up after the steaming pile that is Microsoft Xbox 360 warranty and repair.  For those of you who have been frequenting the gaming news sites and blogs over the past year, you are fully aware that the Microsoft Xbox 360 system is just getting pummeled in the court of public opinion.

It's not hard to see how Bungie either proactively planned their seperation from Microsoft when going into the Halo IP (intellectual property) agreement, or frankly (and this is my belief) probably decided they had seen enough after being rushed into the Halo 2 debacle, and sought to part ways quickly thereafter.

Rock on Bungie!

]]> http://www.jeremywilson.com/blog/2008/03/bungie-staff-corrects-damage-d.html http://www.jeremywilson.com/blog/2008/03/bungie-staff-corrects-damage-d.html bungie halo halo 2 halo3 microsoft RRoD xbox xbox 360 Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:07:42 -0800 Knitted R2-D2 Beanie Somebody just emailed me a link to this knitted R2-D2 beanie and as a unabashed Star Wars geek, I've got to say that I love it.

r2d2_beanie.jpg

You can't buy them, you have to download the knit pattern and make them yourself.  Just try to sell them and I guarantee the Lucas lawyers will be at your door faster than Homeland Security.

As for me, sign me up. 

]]> http://www.jeremywilson.com/blog/2008/02/knitted-r2d2-beanie.html http://www.jeremywilson.com/blog/2008/02/knitted-r2d2-beanie.html beanie c3p0 r2-d2 r2-d2 beanie star wars Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:25:04 -0800 Nintendo Virtual Console - 18 months of suckage
I sold all my N64 games and console because some people at Nintendo once said they would make available ALL N64 games on the then "upcoming" Wii console, aka Revolution...

Fast forward almost two years...

Today is Feb. 20th, 2008 and it has been nearly six months since I last purchased a game on the w.  To date, less than 20 (maybe less than 14) N64 games have been released and the Wii's product lifecycle has maybe another two good years left to it.

So I ask this question, why in the name of all that is good and holy did I sell all my N64 games and more importantly, who at Nintendo is in charge of which games get released and how often...  From a pure "cash to be made" perspective, I feel like Nintendo has really dropped the ball on this one and isn't nearly allowing the Virtual Console to live up to it's potential.  Furthermore, I think Reggie Fils-Aime either needs to remove his thumb from his behind or fire his underlings in charge of the Virtual Console department for allowing this much time to pass and only have released a handful of actually decent N64 games.

For that matter, how on earth did the Virtual Console become a dumping ground for the Turbo Grafx 16 system?  Ask yourself, and be honest.  Of the people you know who owned either the NES or the SNES and are older than say 25 years of age, how many of you actually owned the TGFX 16?  How many of your friends did for that matter?  On that logic alone, the proportion of these games launched to the US Virtual Console just doesn't make sense...  Did you know that the Nintendo has actually released more TGFX 16 games to the Virtual Console than NES games...?  Well, did you... 

Me personally, I did not purchase Wii points to buy TGFX, Dreamcast, or any other non-Nintendo system games...  Again, another opportunity for Nintendo to milk a cash cow but somehow they missed getting a good grip on the udder...

</rant>

This was probably a waste of time.  I've been participating in the Nintendo Wii Bitchfest for over a year now and nothing has changed...  I've stopped spending cash money to buy Wii points, so don't bother suggesting to me that I do something so seemingly obvious.  I have. 

I guess right now it just boils down to Nintendo being the Emperor sporting the new clothes.

It is unlikely to change until such time as Wii sales fall substantially and then I'm guessing the VC will be absolutely inundated with the remaining game titles we had all hoped to see by now.  One can forsee that sort of thing happening anyway.

Time will tell.

-Jeremy


]]> http://www.jeremywilson.com/blog/2008/02/nintendo-virtual-console.html http://www.jeremywilson.com/blog/2008/02/nintendo-virtual-console.html mario nes nintendo snes virtual console wii zelda Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:06:56 -0800 Full lunar eclipse
lunar_eclipse.jpg

As of 9:00pm PST, it is just about over but it was cool while it lasted.  Great night to have clear skies.



]]> http://www.jeremywilson.com/blog/2008/02/full-lunar-eclipse.html http://www.jeremywilson.com/blog/2008/02/full-lunar-eclipse.html lunar eclipse moon Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:59:37 -0800 HD-DVD is dead Well, it's official.  HD-DVD is dead.  Toshiba is announcing that it will be pulling the strings on the manufacturing end.

I must say that Microsoft really f'ed themselves by not making this an internal component of its Xbox 360 console systems, at a minimum included it in the Elite console or created a higher-end variety of the white Premium/Pro 20 GB console, which I probably would have bought.

As you may recall, Warner Brothers, with the biggest movie library in Hollywood announced a few weeks back that they would no longer be participating in the HD-DVD format, thus precipitating the rest of the rats fleeing the ship. 

This final death blow comes on the heels of a rough week for HD-DVD, and me personally, as the likes of Netflix, Walmart, Bestbuy, and others all announced that they won't be supporting the HD-DVD format any further.  Rough week in so much as I made the choice to invest in the Xbox 360 add-on player feeling utterly convinced that HD-DVD had a chance to compete, largely because of the comical bumbling and stumbling of Sony trying to launch Playstation 3 starting backin November of 2006. 

While Blu-Ray had superior technical specs, you would have thought that it was "dead in the water" seeing the constant stream of monthly sales reports, all of which pretty much portrayed Sony being taken out back of the proverbial "woodshed" by Nintendo and to a lesser extent Microsoft. 

Oh, and for those of you who have Netflix accounts, I too received one of the handy-dandy "your pretty much screwed" emails from Netflix.  That's what I call some "touchy-feely" customer service.  The corporate communications people at Netflix might want to tone it down next time.

-Jeremy

]]> http://www.jeremywilson.com/blog/2008/02/hddvd-is-dead.html http://www.jeremywilson.com/blog/2008/02/hddvd-is-dead.html blu-ray dvd hd-dvd microsoft nintendo sony xbox 360 Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:07:05 -0800 Webmonkey is no more I know this is not really news but I went back to the Webmonkey.com web site after a few years of not visiting and I was disappointed to see that nothing has been added to the site in a long time.  Yeah, the site is still up but nobody seems to be contributing anymore.  No new content submitted since June of 2006.  So much for getting bought up and having vast resources at your disposal.

-Jeremy

]]> http://www.jeremywilson.com/blog/2008/02/webmonkey-is-no-more.html http://www.jeremywilson.com/blog/2008/02/webmonkey-is-no-more.html webmonkey Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:03:27 -0800 Back in the blog saddle again A test post for my blog after a mult-year hiatus.  Moveable Type really rocks.

-Jeremy

]]> http://www.jeremywilson.com/blog/2008/02/back-in-the-blog-saddle-again.html http://www.jeremywilson.com/blog/2008/02/back-in-the-blog-saddle-again.html Jeremy Wilson moveable type Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:00:15 -0800