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Sony's Music Unlimited cloud service comes to limited non-cloud Walkmans
Sony's connected Music Unlimited offering is already available online, on gaming devices, on Android phones and tablets, so nice to see it's finally available on its, you know, Walkman music players. In what feels somewhat like an afterthought, "compatible Walkman devices" (currently just the NWZ-E465) can play your favorite channels and playlists on the move -- no connection required. Only those paying the $9.99 premium, however, get to add songs from the actual Unlimited music catalogue. Plug-in at home, sync the music, and listen at your leisure offline via the dedicated app, but with so many other competing ways of enjoying your music from the cloud, on a plethora of connected devices, it really is surprising this wasn't already possible. Still, if you own an NWZ-E465, and subscribe to the Music Unlimited, you can feel all gooey knowing Sony has your back. Hit the PR after the break for more info.
Catalog Spree and Catalogue for iPad: Shopping at your fingertips
It's no surprise, as the iPad is gradually subbing in for print media such as books, magazines and newspapers, to see it filling another paper-centric role: the mail bin full of glossy catalogs from mail-order retail operations. Shoppers who love the experience of viewing products page by page will be happy with both Catalog Spree and The Find's app Catalogue. These iPad apps may fulfill one of my lifelong desires -- to open my mailbox and not find a stack of printed catalogs in it that are bound for the recycling pile. Catalogue (the app) is an attractive and easy to use compendium of many major mail order catalogs in digital form. If you're on the mailing list for Williams-Sonoma, Crate & Barrel, Sephora, Sur La Table, Gander Mountain, Sierra Trading Post, Saks Fifth Avenue, eBags, Urban Outfitters, and about 25 more stores, you're going to love Catalogue. Catalog Spree has a smaller selection of retailers (Nordstrom is the big kahuna, with Artful Home, NapaStyle, SeaBear, Made in Washington & several others lined up), but it has some features that Catalogue doesn't offer yet (Facebook/email sharing, per-catalog favorites, catalog subscriptions); from a UI perspective, it hews more closely to the style of the source catalogs (including the copy and page layouts) vs. Catalogue's Flipboard-esque product scroll. It is missing one big feature of Catalogue, which I'll get to in a moment. Let's hope that these retailers offer a way to stop getting their printed catalogs and save a few trees in the process. Read on for more details and check out the galleries below for some images of Catalogue and Catalog Spree in action. %Gallery-124390% %Gallery-124437%
PSN's missing Super Street Fighter IV costume 'Catalog' add-ons explained
One difference between the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Super Street Fighter IV can be hard to see: Opponents' DLC costumes are invisible to PlayStation Network players who haven't also purchased the outfits. On Xbox Live, there's a simple solution in free "Catalog" add-ons that install the DLC assets on a user's hard drive, in order to show them worn on online opponents who have purchased and dressed up in the alternate costumes. To date, the free updates have not been offered on PSN. They likely never will be -- and Capcom tells us why. "When you add new data to an existing product, there are significant costs to do so charged by the first parties," Capcom community shepherd Seth Killian explained in a forum post on the topic of the "invisible" PSN costumes. "On XBL, those costs were covered by Microsoft," and thus the Catalog DLC is free to download. "For Sony, those significant costs are not covered," Killian added. "The story is a bit more complicated because the costs of adding new data vary by region in some cases, and some additions are free, or free within a certain timeframe, etc., but the bottom line in this particular case is that Sony would [have] charged Capcom significant fees for distributing the new costume data to users that hadn't actually bought the DLC." The story is indeed more complicated: In a sense, the Catalog updates aren't free, since the only Xbox Live users that benefit from them are Gold members who play SSFIV online. And, of course, Gold subscribers pay a fee for that privilege, which in turn allows Microsoft to cover the costs of updates like the costume data. Do we sense a new Plus perk in the making?
For the authentic Virtual Console experience: old Sears catalogs
Now for a reminder of what gaming looked like when the Virtual Console was a collection of actual consoles: these scans of old Sears Roebuck catalogs almost have us printing them out, circling the TurboDuo, and sending the page to our parents just in case they still need any Christmas shopping ideas for Christmas 1992.These catalogs looked cheesy to us back then too, but there's really a magic about them that is lost in game retail materials these days. Maybe it's just because the early 16-bit "system wars" were one of the most amazing periods in gaming history. Which side did you take in Genesis vs. Turbografx-16?[Via NeoGAF]
