Newsweek
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Steve Jobs worried about the Zune? In a word: "No."
Any wild guesses as to which big tech exec isn't a fan of the new Zune? If you guessed Steve Jobs, you'd be completely correct; in a recent interview with Newsweek's Steven Levy, Herr Jobs says that he's not at all worried about the Zune. "I've seen the demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever. By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left! You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two feet of headphone cable," argues His Steveness. You make a good point, Steve, but we've heard you sing this tune before, like when the original Mac didn't have networking capabilities and you basically told people to resort to sneakernet -- of course, eventually Macs were able to connect with one another. So, we'll agree with you that the wireless capabilities on the Zune kinda suck out of the box, but we'll also bet that you're already at work on some wireless action for a future iPod, no matter how hard you might deny it now.
Is WoW a game?
This Newsweek article -- yet another mainstream look at this strange concept called World of Warcraft -- unexpectedly asks a very interesting question. Is WoW a game? Sadly, the article devotes most of its time to explaining the concept of WoW to an outside audience, rather than getting stuck into a discussion of virtual worlds, their categorisation, and their future.It's often been said that WoW can be more like a job than a hobby; the regular hours, the repetitive tasks, the camaraderie, the rewards. The question asked by the Newsweek piece, however, has a different angle from the old "work vs play" debate. Instead, it asks -- is this the future? Are WoW's immersiveness, its ability to sneak into lives, its vast popularity all indicators of what virtual worlds in the future will hold? I think so.'Serious' virtual worlds could easily take lessons from WoW on how to be fun, but while WoW may be exemplary with regards to current MMO design, it's still very much rooted in the 'entertainment' sphere -- future developments away from gaming and towards everyday pervasive virtual worlds have to cater for the seven million WoW-heads, and will be more easily received as a result. The most important question of all, though, is: when we live and work in the Matrix, will there still be night elves called Légolass?[Thanks, Dave]
Newsweek on Japan, arcade mecca
There are still boardwalk arcades chocked full of broken light gun games; there are still corporate arcade chains full of overpriced, out-dated racing cabinets and the requisite redemption games. Clearly, the American arcade isn't a corpse just yet, but when you read about Japan's booming arcades, you can almost smell rotting circuitry. Newsweek's Brad Stone has an interesting (web-only) column on the booming arcade scene in Japan; however, underneath the bright lights and fancy interfaces of these two-storied gaming meccas lies a serious social problem: "Japan is facing a looming demographic nightmare. With an increasing elderly population and a decreasing birth rate, there simply won't be enough workers to support the senior population. At the same time, young people dubbed neets (who live with their parents and refuse to get jobs), and freeters (who only have part-time work) are much-discussed social groups who exacerbate the population and workforce imbalance."The entrance to the arcades are littered with pamphlets encouraging youngsters to put down their [Japanese equivalent of quarters] and pick up a paycheck. Are these people addicted to games, is this symptomatic of much larger societal ills, or are their arcade games really just that good?[Via GSW]
Newsweek: Wii are sold
Newsweek seems to think that Nintendo has a very strong grip on the market during the life span of the next wave of consoles. Due to the rabid success the DS has received, the breakthrough in console interface of the Wii is what is going to fuel this comeback to the top for Nintendo, per the periodical giant. The piece over at Newsweek's site discusses many things about the house that Mario built, such as the console's strong points, as well as flaws, coming from E3. Considering the wonderful outing the console had at E3 and the easy "pick-up-and-play" nature of the titles on hand, we'd have to agree that Nintendo's Wii is poised to be a big success.
