Thirtyfootscrew’s Blog

So, what’s been going down in my absence?  After a three month absence I thought I’d better catch up by posting my thoughts on the recent (and not so recent) news stories, so here (in no particular order) are the ones that caught my eye.

Suitably following on from my last serious post, the Apple TV finally launched – I pretty much stand by all of my previous comments, especially that the Apple TV’s success is probably in the hands of the hacking community.  I actually had a play with one in the Regent Street Apple Store the other day and wasn’t too impressed, scaling low quality video up to an HDTV (they were using Sony TVs) looks pretty bad and given that HD content takes an age to download and isn’t that prevalent I really can’t see the need, I might consider it for £99 for the hacking alone but for £199 you can jump.  Also, given that Microsoft are adding more codecs to their Xbox 360 player there’s even less of a need for it, I do agree with the crew from Macbreak Weekly that it’ll give video podcasts a realistic shot at getting HD content into the living room but I’m not convinced it’ll get the critical mass to make a difference.

In further Apple news, the announcement that EMI would be offering DRM free music.  I really think that this will be the start of a sea-change in how the record companies view digital music one way or the other.  Personally I welcome the move and will definitely begin purchasing music from iTunes if I know that I’m not tied to their platform.

And finally, in the gaming arena there was the launch of the PS3 in Europe, despite a couple of facts and figures about “record breaking” sales the whole thing went with a bit of a whimper and to date there’s still a lot more supply than there is demand.  The problem right now is software and with only two viable titles on release right now (RFoM and Motorstorm) the prospect of laying ot £400 for one is hardly attractive.  We’ll have to wait and see, in the long run I expect Sony will catch up but even if they do I doubt that they’ll achieve anywhere near the dominance of the PS2 – those days are over.  The other niggling thought at the back of my mind is that Sony were originally touting the PS3 as having a 10-year lifecycle, if that holds true then just as they’re hitting the middle of the curve I’d expect both Microsoft and Nintendo to come out with another generation of hardware to challenge whatever momentum Sony have gathered up to that point.   For my money, I’d pick the soon to be released XBox 360 Elite with a larger hard drive, HDMI, better online support, better games, better price, etc. etc.  As for the Wii, I really don’t play it as much as I expected to but because it cost less I’m not too upset – I’m sure that at some point they’ll release a serious killer app and I’ll be straight back on it for a while.

written by admin \\ tags: drm, emi, itunes, macbreak weekly, old news, ps3, wii, xbox 360

I finally got around to playing Tetris on my iPod and I was pretty disappointed – the overly sensitive wheel just doesn’t work. I’ve been gaming for many years now and this has all the hallmarks of a ‘stretch’, the iPod’s click wheel is bound to be good for some games and bad for others and this should have never happened. The QA guys should be throwing out anything that doesn’t work well, but Tetris is one of the most popular handheld games ever (if not THE most popular) so of course it made it through

I lost count of how many times I put a block in the wrong place, even though I know where I wanted to put it – the slightest brush of the wheel moved it along by 1 column and the rest is history (a tedious history, given that there’s no ‘restart’ option). At the time of playing, I was sitting still but this “click-wheel-tenderness” must be SO much worse if you’re on a train or bus – exactly the place you’ll probably want to play it. Now I know that people will say “you just have to get used to it” (or “lol, u is teh noob” depending how ill-educated they are) but you know – I really don’t, I have played Tetris on more platforms than I can count so why bother playing an ill-suited version, I’ll just stick to my mobile or DS.

Additionally – iTunes seems to have listed Pixar Short Films on iTunes, I’m not sure when this happened but it doesn’t say NEW next to it so maybe I’m missing out? Anyway, having downloaded one (For The Birds) so when I’ve watched it I’ll post my opinions.

written by thirtyfootscrew \\ tags: Apple, click-wheel-tenderness, disney, ipod, itunes, pixar, tetris

Downloaded iTunes 7 last night and I like the new style interface, just seems a little slicker and less clunky – hopefully it’ll stop taking 100% of my processor usage at random intervals but I guess that’d be a big ask.

The biggest and best addition in my eyes is the games, whilst it’s not the most awe-inspiring selection in the world I’m kind-of expecting it to grow in time as the current games get more popular. For now I bought Tetris and Mahjong – both classics to avoid disappointment.

I’ve not played Tetris yet but the Mahjong is excellent – exactly how the game ought to be and it’s a great way to forget about the fact you can’t get a seat on train from London to Peterborough. Thankfully it’s not a long journey and the grubby/bristly floor was bearable whilst I had the distraction.

As basic puzzle games go, this seemed to be a good example – graphics and sound are both good and the wheel controller seemed to work well (though I’m not sure how well it’d stretch to more complex games). As a gamer I definitely see this as a positive development, a new channel is always good and sometimes brings a bit of innovation along with it – I hope to see some innovative uses of the wheel in future games.

written by thirtyfootscrew \\ tags: games, gaming, grubby trains, ipod, itunes, itunes 7, mahjong, tetris