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Motorola pledges turnaround, won't ride one phone into the ground again
As the RAZR giveth, so shall it taketh away: what started out as one of the most successful cellphone lines in history -- a line that saw Moto's return to mobile dominance -- ended up being so played out with endless colors and variations that is was ultimately responsible for the company's subsequent slump, too. Ironic, yes, but it looks like the boys and girls out in Schaumburg took away an important lesson from the debacle, pledging at a recent analysts' meeting that they won't let the one-trick-pony syndrome bite again. No specific announcements were made at the meeting, but we can apparently expect the first of a wealth of new products to be unveiled "next month" (the U9, perhaps?) as CEO Ed Zander fights to keep his job and newly-installed mobile chief Stu Reed fights to make his mark. Moto still doesn't expect their handset division to be profitable until next year, but hey, ya gotta start somewhere.
Steve Jobs to make a rare company-wide speech tomorrow
No one really knows where Steve's going to appear on iDay, but we've confirmed with multiple sources at Apple that tomorrow morning at 11:00AM he'll be giving an all-hands "Town Hall" iPhone mini-Stevenote for employees only -- so obviously we're not invited. Some of our peeps remember the iPod Town Hall meeting (at which Steve offered up $200 iPods -- nothing to snub your nose at its 2001 introduction) -- so if it wasn't already totally completely driven home by this point, his Steveness seriously considers this week's big launch to be a turning point for Apple, and possibly the gadget industry in general. And whether or not the iPhone's even at all successful, we'd tend to agree. Memo published after the break.
Real life guild meetings
Over the years I've played a great many different MMOs. There have been communities as varied and interesting as the surrounding lore of the worlds involved. That said, the thing that has continued to keep me coming back for more in World of Warcraft after two and a half years is undoubtedly the absolutely fantastic people I'm honored to be guilded with. While there have been the occasional odd visits and meetings, this weekend marked the first concerted effort at a real life "guild meeting." While sadly not everyone was able to make it, I feel relatively certain that I am speaking for the livers and/or tummies of all the people involved when I say that it was a smashing success. From Thursday to Tuesday we grilled out, drank, sang, danced, invaded local nightclubs, eateries, shops, and even "raided" both the zoo and an art museum! Many truly bad inside jokes were born ("Philosophically, you have already eaten the cookie.") and many people were introduced to a drink that has been dubbed "the Smitey Paw." (This is due to it's noxious green color, it's reference to a certain evil cat, and especially the fact that it has a tendency to smite you with very little warning.) But the absolute most amazing thing that came out of this weekend was getting to spend real-life time with my guild mates in the picture above -- and those were just the ones willing to pose for WoW Insider!Over the last two years we've geared our mains, geared our alts, raided everything from AQ20 to Ragefire Chasm. (Yes, you can raid RFC.) But no matter what we've done, we've been focused on doing it together. Some folks have come and some have gone, but our core group has stuck together despite setbacks and guild drama and everything else that is no surprise to anyone who's ever been in a fairly large guild. This weekend was a celebration of that togetherness and those friendships that have been formed (or grown closer in some cases) thanks to World of Warcraft. So to my awesome guild mates -- and to all other guilds out there who have members that get together in real life to show that Gamers can party down too -- I raise my Smitey Paw in /salute to you!
Need one more at meeting stone
Elizabeth put a good post up the other day about lazy folks who don't take the time to run back into an instance after a wipe, and this forum post by Eleutheria on EU Earthen Ring points out the other side of instance group laziness: Meeting stone standoffs.Here's how it should work: if there aren't yet two people in your group standing by the meeting stone, everyone in the group should be running, riding, or flying to get there. But of course that's not what really happens-- what happens is that the leader of the group makes it there first, and everyone else continues grinding, or goes to check the AH one more time, or has to run repair, or finish a BG, or any number of things that don't involve getting to the meeting stone and summoning. Worst case scenario is that people start trying to convince others to go for them, and one guy is left at the meeting stone shaking his head.Now, some people say that whoever made the group should be summoning, and in most cases, that seems like a good idea. But there are always exceptions. Even if I'm the last to enter a group, I usually start making my way towards the instance anyway-- the trip is never that long, no matter which instance you're going to, and it's better to be nice and use the flight to get another beer/soda then to sit around demanding a summon.Unfortunately, there's no real way to fix this except to call out people for just plain being lazy. I guess it would be cool if Blizzard gave a nice timed buff to the first two people in a group to use a meeting stone summon, except then you'd probably have tons of people hanging around the RFC meeting stone in Org before they queued up for the battleground. As a few people point out in the thread, probably the best way to deal with it is just to give up on the group. Maybe next time they'll be ready to work together outside the portal as well as inside.
Nintendo says 14 million Wii sold by March '08
It's no secret that the Nintendo DS and Wii have been printing money for the company, while Microsoft's Xbox profits and PS3's traction haven't kept pace. Sales continue to rise at Nintendo along with the stock price. Today Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said they're developing 45 games for the Wii and 79 new DS titles. Now, before anybody gets excited, the key word there is "developing," not "producing." The next batch of games according to Iwata will be introduced this "summer." There is no word yet when Nintendo will release their Q3 games list or what's on it. Iwata, in probably the boldest statement, said that Nintendo plans to sell 14 million Wii during this fiscal year, that's three times the number sold in the last five months. Guess they really are planning to ramp up production. The Wii hardware drought better end soon if Nintendo expects to make their ambitious mark.
