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Gamestop VP: Wii supplies looking 'much, much better' for holidays
Remember way, way back (two weeks ago!) when GameStop CEO Dan DeMatteo said there was no "near-term end in sight for Wii shortages"? Well, one of his employees, VP of Merchandising Bob McKenzie, seem to have a decidedly different take on the problem, telling MTV Multiplayer's Stephen Totilo that the Wii supply situation this holiday season will be "much, much better than it has been the last two years."While not directly contradicting his boss, McKenzie seemed much more hopeful about the supply of systems for the crucial months ahead. "I can't say we will be in stock every day throughout the holiday season," he said, "but I can tell you that the current flow we've seen coming from Nintendo on Wii hardware makes us very confident that we will meet the business model that we've got."What's a potential Wii owner to do with these conflicting messages? We recommend playing it safe by taking a large tub of beef jerky and a few gallons of bottled water to your nearest GameStop and refusing to leave until you get the thin, white system you crave. It's a foolproof plan -- but when the police ask, tell them you came up with it yourself, OK?
Microsoft settling in for second place?
OK, fanboys, before you hit that spittle-flecked "post comment" button after just reading that inflammatory headline question, hear us out. We're not just idly speculating here -- we're basing our query on an unusually frank quote from Microsoft Senior Vice President of Interactive Entertainment Business Don Mattrick. In an interview with BusinessWeek, Mattrick said that he's "not at a point where I can say we're going to beat Nintendo." Coming from a guy whose job it is to promote Microsoft's position in the market, that's a pretty big admission of doubt. It's not just Mattrick that's doubtful-- analyst Billy Pidgeon told the magazine, "I expect the 360 to remain in second place this generation. But it's going to be close."The question, then, becomes how much this sales position really matters. Microsoft's sales might fall just shy of Nintendo's, but that doesn't seem to be hurting the company's ability to attract big-name games or roll out new features for the system. In fact, with Nintendo's decidedly less powerful system catering to a decidedly different audience, Microsoft's position relative to Nintendo might not matter nearly as much as their position relative to Sony. And on that score Mattrick has no doubt: "We will sell more consoles this generation than Sony," he told BusinessWeek.
Sony offers a PSP Entertainment pack for $199
Sony will sell the PSP in a new "Entertainment Pack" -- for $199, they'll include a silver slim PSP, Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters, a 1gb memory stick, a voucher for Echochrome, and a copy of National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets. Yeah, we know, the Nicholas Cage blockbuster really makes it.If you haven't grabbed a PSP yet, this could be just the deal you've been waiting for. Sony says it'll be in stores this fall.
Forum Post of the Day: To each according to his need
It seems the vast majority of drama we've heard regarding guild banks comes from ninja schemes and disgruntled members. Vaela of Hyjal expressed her exasperation with guild banks in the Guild Relations forum. She feels that there is an imbalance between players who donate resources to the guild bank and those who make the most withdrawals. The original poster asked for suggestions on systems to fairly distribute guild bank resources. The responses focused on cooperation and reciprocity with the guild bank. The purpose of the guild bank is to fun the guild's activities and exchange objects of value. In the end, the system comes off as a communist type of public ownership arrangement, as opposed to the free trade system that rules the auction house. To quote Karl Marx, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Communism as we've known it has largely failed, most likely because people don't fully buy into the system.
Age of Conan for World of Warcraft players
Funcom's new MMO Age of Conan opens up their servers today (the game is set for release tomorrow), and like many WoW players, you might be wondering what all the fuss is about. Our good friends over at Massively have put together a guide specifically for you -- it's a look at Age of Conan from the point of view of a player of World of Warcraft.A lot of things are the same between the two games -- talents are very similar, and there are a lot of comparable mechanics and spells (DoTs, healing, and aggro, of course, all play a role in AoC as well as in Azeroth). But there are a lot of differences, too: Age of Conan's combat is based on real-time, which means you actually press a button to strike, rather than just setting a target and going to town. Instances play a different role, too -- you start out in a private instance, and can level in a world by yourself for a much longer time than in World of Warcraft. And Funcom has put in quite a few things designed to pull us away from WoW also: mounted combat, a deeper guild system, player cities, and some more PvP mini games.Of course, even if you do go to play some AoC, Wrath of the Lich King will probably bring you back to WoW anyway -- as fun as killing stuff in the Hyborian Age is, it doesn't hold a candle to meeting Arthas Menethil, in our humble opinion. But if you've heard about Age of Conan and are wondering what the difference is, Massively's guide has you covered.
LFG Armory uses Armory to match up characters and guilds
LFG Armory is a new site that's aiming to beat the official Armory at its own game. Blizzard's site, as complete as it is, is still occasionally buggy and slow, and LFG Armory is looking to give players an alternative. And it works fairly well -- while the FAQ claims that data may be a little behind (due to caching of Blizzard's information), both the guild and player profile pages look pretty good and load quickly (and if the site can stay up after we link to them here, that'll be a real sign that it's a stable server).But the real feature that makes LFG Armory something more than Blizzard's official site is that it has a guild and arena team matching system built in. Once you register your name and your characters, you can do a search for guilds and arena teams and try to find one that matches what you want -- percentage of level 70s, class makeup, and number of members. On the guild side, you can set your guild as looking, and then when you hit a match, LFG will match you up.It's an interesting system, but like all social networks, it all depends on participation -- when I looked for a guild for my Hunter on Cenarius (who could use a guild, by the way), nothing came up, because likely no one on the server was looking (for a Hunter at least). But as an alternative to the Armory, LFG is looking pretty good. If they can get people to the site and stay up, they might give Blizzard's official site a run for its money.[Via World of Raids]
Player vs. Everything: Choking on graphics
I managed to get my hands on an Age of Conan beta key this morning, so off I went to excitedly download the client. I'm a big fan of Robert E. Howard's original pulps, and I've been looking forward to the grim and gritty world of Hyboria for a while now. Most of what I've read about it so far has been very positive (with a few notable exceptions due to some of the design choices). Our own write-up of the overall beta experience from Michael Zenke was very encouraging with regard to the combat, gameplay, and feel of the world. Overall, it seems like there's a lot to be excited about. There's just one glaring issue that everyone seems to be having: the graphics are choking their machines. This isn't a new phenomenon. It seems like every new game on the market in the last few years wants to beat our poor, 1-3 year old computers into lifeless heaps of rubbish with their outlandish and ridiculous system requirements. Even World of Warcraft, a game celebrated for its accessibility and ability to be run on older machines, wasn't that way at launch (though it was substantially better than its major competitors at the time, EverQuest 2 and City of Heroes). However, this strategy of supercharged visuals has made things hard for a number of games. Vanguard in particular suffered a lot of criticism for having ridiculous system requirements when it launched, and that's just one example. Given that people would like to actually be able to play these games, why on earth do game designers insist on shoving next-gen graphics down our throats when the vast majority of us have last-gen machines (or worse)?
Nike+ coming to iPhone and iPod touch
Multiple sources are repeating Stuff.tv's report that Apple is planning to bring the Nike+ system to the iPhone and iPod touch. Nike+ is of course a special kit, originally made for iPod nano, that will record the distance and length of a walk or run -- you stick the little sensor in your shoe, and it works as a timer and pedometer to record personal workout stats.Stuff also reports that in addition to bringing along the sensor system, the new Nike+ system may also be able to take advantage of the iPhone's and touch's wifi by sending stats from the sensor directly to Nike's online database,where a new "Coach" system will help you schedule runs and activities.Sounds pretty amazing. Of course, this is only the beginning of the kind of "life management" software that we'll see coming out of the SDK. Stuff suggests that your iPhone will help you know when go to out and for how long, but of course we know that by the time June comes around it'll be able to do a lot more than that.
GoDaddy invades WoW Armory
In one of the most bizarre things I've seen happen to the World of Warcraft in my three years playing, the WoW Armory site today is pointing to a generic GoDaddy.com domain parking page. The screenshot above was taken at 1:08 p.m. CST on March 2nd, 2008. WoW Insider has received numerous reports of this. It seems to be a DNS related issue. The domain name wowarmory.com expires today, and it appears as if a registrant has grabbed the wowarmory.com domain name as soon as it expired.DNS entries for blizzard.com and worldofwarcraft.com point to cerf.net, while the DNS servers for wowarmory.com are currently pointing to domaincontrol.com. While some of you might be seeing wowarmory.com work correctly, others are not. The ISPs of people who are seeing it work have not had their DNS records updated yet, however within the next 48 hours they will see wowarmoy.com go down as well; unless Blizzard fixes this before then (I am sure they are already aware, or becoming aware of it).Stay tuned to WoW Insider for the latest on this story.Thanks to Matthew Rossi and his wife for contributing to the technical sleuthing in this post.Updated 2:34 p.m. EST: You can access the armory using a sub-domain of worldofwarcraft.com by going to http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/Updated 3:03 p.m. EST: http://www.wowarmory.com/ is now working again. It looks like Blizzard really jumped on the issue and fixed it.
GTD with VoodooPad
Chris at Trichech.us has written up a short guide (and included a useful little AppleScript) on how to run GTD in VoodooPad, the get-it-down quick application that we love so much here at TUAW.Basically it revolves around a series of tags-- if you have a task that needs to be done in a certain context (such as home or office, or even as specific as "at the computer" or as general as "thinking"), you just tag it with @ and then whatever the tag is. When the script is run, it grabs all of the tagged lines, and combines them all on one page, so you have an at-a-glance look at what needs to be done where. And you can even date items, and see them placed on the "Actions" page as well.The big problem with me and any GTD plan is just that I tend to be so picky-- if a system doesn't work exactly the way I want it to, I tend to get lazy and start ditching it for good old pen and paper again (which causes me to fall back into the same old gaps). But Chris' system looks solid enough to use without a lot of configuration, and yet adaptable enough that I can shape it to my own mind. If you've got VoodooPad (and if you don't, why not) and you're on the hunt for a GTD system, give it a try.[ via Gus Mueller ]
AppleHound rounds up iPhone bugs
AppleHound has posted a list of all the (supposedly) reproducible bugs they could find in iPhone 1.0. There's 68 in total, and they range from various system hangs (the Phone app will hang if you start a sync while editing a contact photo) to many different UI/Usability bugs. Some of the usability bugs are a little iffy if you ask me-- many of them, like the "bug" where photo albums with less than 20 images don't display an actual number of images, seem to be "working as intended" (because why would you need an image count when you can easily see how many images are there?), and others have already been shot down according to the Apple HIG.But on the other hand, I can't really fault AppleHound for being such sticklers. First of all, this is a cell phone that costs $600, and you should get what you pay for-- quibbling about interface quirks now means there's a much better chance of getting them fixed in a future firmware update. And second, this is Apple we're talking about. While other cell phone companies get complaints about call reception and service outages, these are complaints about tiny, half-a-second visual inconsistencies. Heck, I love my Razr, and the screen goes nuts without reason almost daily. There's nothing wrong with holding Apple to a higher standard, and maybe if Apple is kept on their toes with the iPhone, hopefully other cell phone companies will find themselves with their feet held to the fire as well.Thanks, Leonard Nimrod!
Japanese VC Castlevania is the Famicom Disk System version
This probably doesn't affect any readers here (although, if you're a Japan-local Wii Fanboy, let us know!) but we discovered something interesting while drooling at the Japanese Virtual Console page.Proving their absolute and irrational devotion to historical accuracy, the version of Castlevania going up on the VC this month will not be the same cartridge version that's already been released in the US and Europe. Instead, Japan is getting the original version, which was released for the Famicom Disk System in 1986. The differences include a save state feature and a name entry screen with music unheard in the US version! Which, unfortunately, we can't find. The idea that there's Castlevania music out there that we haven't heard makes us kind of uncomfortable.
Widget Watch: iStat pro 4.1 released
iSlayer has released v4.1 of their killer iStat pro widget for monitoring system performance and statistics right from within Dashboard. In this new version, the team has added a new Fire skin (pictured, and apparently a mod of a much-requested skin from the previous v3), support for monitoring temps of S.M.A.R.T.-capable hard drives, better network change detection, support for 30 new temperature sensors in Intel Macs and even updated fan support for iBook users. As usual, iStat pro is provided as donationware and should be available via its own update system if you already have the widget installed, or from iSlayer's site.
How to calculate Arena Ratings and Points
If you've been playing arena PvP every week and wondering just how your rating translates into points, wonder no more. Our friend Boubouille has created a nifty and easy little Arena Rating calculator-- just punch in your ratings (or your points, if you want to know what rating you'll need to get a certain number of points, and hit calculate and you're set.The mathematical relationship is a little complicated (hence the reason for the calculator), but the rules of earning Arena Points aren't real hard to figure out-- every week, you earn points according to the highest team rating you've got. And a higher rating on 5v5 is worth more than 2v2, because 5v5 teams are harder to both fight and keep up with. This leads to a little bit of system gaming (and a lot of team jumping), but so far Blizzard has been fine with all of that-- they want 5v5 to become the most rewarding type of arena match, and they're willing to accept that you can often earn more playing 5v5 than 2v2, even if you lose.Unfortunately, the actual Arena Rating system is a little more complicated-- it's based off of a chess rating system called ELO (named after the guy who made it, Arpad Elo), and the rating of your opponent actually determines how your rating changes as you play. Unfortunately, with no way to tell who your opponent is before you play a match, it's extremely hard to figure out your rating depending on how many matches you play (players are generally saying that the fewer matches you play, the better, as the higher your rating gets, the more difficult opponents you face). But of course the best way to come out with both a great rating and lots of points is to, y'know, actually be good.
Reasons to own a PSP, and there's 60 of 'em
Sony's PlayStation Portable holds a very odd little spot in gaming currently. It's not a failure in the portable market but, putting it next to the Nintendo DS, it just isn't as successful as it could have been. The PSP had a slow start, just like another recent Sony console, but if you picked up a PSP now, there's a pretty solid group of games. Not to mention that it's got some games in the pipeline, including the drool-worthy God of War: Chains of Olympus.Our chums over at PSPFanboy have started putting together 60 reasons to own a PSP. They got the first part up now, which includes five reasons to own it ... hopefully there will be another 11 parts. The first five reasons PSPFanboy gave to own a PSP, with a quick quote from them for each reason, are: Games: "The library features some real gems, such as Lumines, Wipeout, Grand Theft Auto, and Tekken: Dark Resurrection ... a quick look down the horizon reveals a plethora of Final Fantasy titles, a new God of War, Syphon Filter, Castlevania, Silent Hill, and more." PSone classics: "The advent of the PSP Store later this year, we're confident that even more great games are going to come out." Downloadable demos: "Who doesn't like playing games ... especially when they're free?" Great homebrew games: "Upcoming titles like No Gravity show an unstoppable momentum for this underground movement." Play Flash games on the go: "Love a Flash game on the web? The PSP can play that as well. In fact, some developers have even created Flash games specifically for PSP's widescreen." So, we're looking forward to the next 55 reasons. Clearly many people are not convinced, but the PSP is beginning to fulfill its potential. It's just the sad state of things that Sony is getting into the habit of manufacturing potential products. We want our systems good, and we want them good immediately or, at least, as soon as possible. Oh well, still much love for the PS2 -- that thing rocks!
Blizz: Don't take non-personal system information grab personally
It only showed up for a fraction of a second (not even long enough to grab a screenshot of it, or barely read what it said), but after logging in today, you may have noticed the login screen flash a quick message: "Submitting Non-personal System Information." Say wha? What did Blizzard just grab from my computer?I tried logging in again to see the message again, but no dice-- apparently it was just a one-time process after the first login. I can't remember whether I was given an option to opt out of that system check (I usually say no on that stuff, just because I don't want Blizzard finding out that I'm dumb enough to run the wrong drivers on my sound card or something), but I'm sure it's legal. I'm just not sure that sneaking that in for a split second was the right way to do it.Nethaera says it's not personal-- they were just grabbing some random system spec info (and I'll speculate that it was to determine a good way to fix all of the graphical errors lately). It's not wrong for companies to have that data necessarily-- Valve does the same thing with Steam, and they've gotten some great info about what gaming PCs are like. It would be nice if Blizz shared info like that, but for now they're just using it to work on their product.Some gamers aren't real thrilled about the implementation either-- if it's so non-personal, why did they throw up a warning we could just barely see? I just hope that if Blizzard is second-guessing their system reqs, they keep the rest of the process as open as possible.
Widget Watch: iStat Pro 4, iStat nano 2
The crew over at iSlayer have been busy releasing major updates to their killer system monitoring widgets, and not a moment too late for this year's Apple Design Awards (entry deadline is April 23rd). Earlier this month we missed a major upgrade and UI overhaul to iStat nano, bringing the compact system monitoring widget to v2 and adding a ton of new features.With the release of what almost looks like an all-new version of iStat pro v4, however, iSlayer has brought a consistent, uniform UI to both widgets. While I agree that you should probably sit down and take a deep breath before reading through the extensive list of changes, the big-hitters include: support for the battery meters in bluetooth keyboards and mice, instant update for things like network changes and disk mounting, a choice between memory and CPU usage in the process panel, as well as drag and drop re-ordering of sections inside the widget, allowing you to customize the layout to your heart's content.That isn't all though - go check out the huge list of changes for either of these widgets and consider showing iSlayer some donation love for all the stellar work they've done on two of the inarguable kings of system monitoring widgets for Mac OS X.
The Famicom Disk System's Minus World
Here's a bit of game history: when Super Mario Bros. was rereleased for the Japan-only Famicom Disk System, the "minus world" generated via a well-documented glitch changed along with the format. Instead of an infinite water level, players were treated to a whole suite of glitch-tastic levels, loaded with air-swimming and Princess Toadstool sprites floating in mid-air.This kind of classic minutiae is exactly what we want out of the Virtual Console. We'd seriously buy Super Mario Bros. again for a crack at this new minus world. Check out the video after the break!
Sony's GIGA JUKE units store, rip and sync your music
If you like your music done up digital, but would rather leave a computer out of the equation, Sony's new GIGA JUKE HDD-based system and deck should fit the bill nicely. The NAS-50HDE bookshelf system (pictured) features an 80GB drive, with room for tracks transferred from your computer, ripped from CDs, or recorded from radio and analog sources. Ripping takes place at a commendable 16x pace, and the system can handle tagging duties as well. There's a 4.3-inch color display to browse through your tracks, and if you'd rather listen to your musics on the go, you can sync with your Sony Walkman, Walkman phone, PSP or other compatible MP3 player. The NAC-HD1E deck handles all those same duties, but loses the speakers, beefs up the audio componentry, and offers 250GB of storage. We wouldn't mind a bit of internet radio or PC audio streaming thrown into the mix, but it looks like Sony isn't interested. These two will be hitting Europe in May and June, respectively.%Gallery-2341%
How to make a better Nintendo DS
Next-Generation's Eric-Jon Rössel Waugh acknowledges that the Nintendo DS is an industry-changing system, but still sees the portable console as an "unfinished project." He wrote up a wishlist of improvements that he feels would fulfill the handheld's potential, extending its shelf-life. And while we've already seen dozens of message board topics filled with wild-eyed suggestions and what-they-should-really-do ideas in the past, Eric's revisions actually sound half-way sane.So what are some of his seven steps for making a better Nintendo DS? Slap on some internal flash memory, paving the way for firmware updates and a Virtual Console setup for handheld games (GB/GBA/NGPC/etc.). Allow for an expandable, customizable system interface. Flesh out its WiFi support by integrating Pictochat and developing a unified online service. They're all great recommendations, but one has to wonder how implementing those changes would affect the portable's retail price. The DS probably wouldn't have been such a success if it weren't for its impulse-buy pricing. Still, we would love to see Eric's suggestions make it into the handheld's next revision.We're sure that our readers have their own ideas on what the next Nintendo DS should have. VoIP capabilities? A flux capacitor? Maybe just throw some Ds on it? Drop us a comment and let us know what you think would make a better Nintendo DS!
