Brandon Live!

I just got linked to this article via Neowin, about a guy who had an Xbox 360 for two years that had been signed by various Xbox, Bungie, and Rooster Teeth staff (and also had some cool custom artwork drawn on it).

He tried to arrange with the repair facility to have either the same console returned (after being repaired) or to have the case transferred to the replacement.  Of course he feared the worst, that he wouldn’t get the same console back.

Except that what happened did seem worse, as he got the same console back, but believes someone had wiped off all the signatures (with some smudges left that support this theory).

My first thought was not the same as most people’s, apparently.  If you look at the comments, they seem to all present theories like “Some jackass obviously stole his console and faked the smudges so he’d think it was gone forever.”

Come on people.  Why so cynical?  Remember the old adage, “Don’t attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”  Or more appropriate, ignorance.

My theory?

Someone did their best to fulfill his wishes, and made sure he was set up to receive the same console back.  Things were looking good, until someone further down the line saw the console and assumed it was a refurb / repaired unit being sent to some random joe who sent in a different console.  They then decided in ignorance to “clean” the console according to their standard policy, removing any foreign markings that might not be welcomed by its new owner.

It’s just a theory, of course, but a plausible one I think.  One that doesn’t assume people are evil or that this was an act of malice, but simply an unfortunate mistake made out of ignorance.

I feel really bad for the guy, I know I’d be pissed in his place.  But at least it seems that Microsoft has contacted him personally.  I don’t know if they’ll be able to completely “fix” things, but I hope they’ll be able to do something for him - as whatever the explanation, the outcome really sucked.

Amazing…

Now they’ve gone and lowered the price… a good move only because the original price was so absurd.  But coming barely half a year after its release, this $100 price drop reeks of desperation.  The 360 still hasn’t had a price drop because it’s selling so well, and it’s coming on up its two year birthday in a few months.  Oh, and it still costs less.

Not only have they repeated the mistake of using an Xbox 360 screenshot to show off the Playstation 3’s “True HD” gaming, but they actually did it with the very same game!  Those Sony folks must be huge Project Gotham Racing fans or something.

The Halo 3 beta is now available to owners of Crackdown, and others with invitations to the public beta.  About time we got some new cannon fodder =)

Also, this Halo 3-powered Red vs Blue video kicks ass.

At the GDC this week, Sony’s Playstation 3 got some of the first positive attention it’s had all year. In fact, their demonstration of Playstation Home (think Second Life + Nintendo “Miis” + Xbox Live Achievements - or just a console-centric version of Tecmo’s lobby system in DOA4) and LittleBigWorld had me for the first time thinking that I might actually purchase a PS3 as my third console - eventually.

It didn’t take long for Sony’s marketing department to get wind of this, and take swift action to strike down any hint of positivity in the gaming community about their ill-fated console.

I’d hate to be one of the people working on the PS3 or its software these days. They’ve really done some cool things and obviously want to do more of them, but corporate bungling has kept their console at single-digit marketshare.

Sony should fire their marketing department. Then let their engineers start blogging (the people working on the Playstation Online service, Home, etc). Then maybe they can keep it a three console race.

I take it back, forget the whole voodoo doll thing.  Sony is just on crack.

Now they’re promising to alleviate “shortages” of the PS3 by May.  Apparently their plan involves going back in time to early January and delivering more PS3s than stores can sell.  Holy crap, that means it must have worked!  I’m blown away.  Who knew those crafty japanese had mastered time travel?

Seriously… how stupid are these guys?  And what is their goal?  Do they hope that by pretending there’s a struggle to alleviate “shortages” that some people are going to see a stack of 50 PS3s at Fry’s and think they’ve struck gold?  Despite the signs of retailer desperation that abound?

Something’s happened to Sony.  It’s like one of their competitors got a Sony voodoo doll and is using it to make them kick themselves in the head repeatedly.  Earlier today popular gaming news outlet Kotaku reported on a rumor as gaming magazines and websites frequently do. 

At this point, most companies would completely ignore the rumor, and maybe give an ironic public comment that they don’t comment on rumors or speculation.  It’s generally the best response for many reasons, including the fact that in most cases it does absolutely nothing to give away the veracity of the rumor.

Instead, Sony decided to confirm the rumor by blackballing Kotaku, disinviting them from their upcoming press events and cutting them off from Sony completely.

If you didn’t have enough reasons to hate Sony before today, rest assured that they’re working hard to earn your scorn.

Wow, I can pay off my car!  Heck, I can buy a new one!

I’m estimating that Jack Tretton owes me about $72,000 as I count about 60 units (actually it’s probably 63).  While it may look like there’s one missing, and that might lead you to think it has been sold, you would be wrong.  I joked to one of the blue shirts, “I guess you sold one!”  He just shook his head and pointed me over to the PS accessories section, where the PS3 box had been placed on the floor, ostensibly after its carrier realized the price was per unit and not per stack of 60.

Well, nearly perfect.  Tonight I tried out the latest version of TVersity.  It’s a non-Microsoft implementation of the same kind of UPNP sharing that Windows Media Player and the Zune software do.  Except with some extra features, including one really big one:

It lets you stream non-WMV video files to your 360!  No media center needed.  And unlike the Transcode 360 option for Media Center, you don’t even have to do any tricks like picking “transcode” from a “more info” menu.  You just fire up your 360, go to “Videos” and then “Computer” and you have a list of everything you’ve shared out.  Just pick one and click play.  Couldn’t be easier.

It even works great on Vista (including the x64 version).  I had to add a firewall rule manually, and manually start the service (because of UAC I think) but it told me to reboot which would have started it as well.  For a free beta app that’s pretty good.

Only improvement I want is for the list to display videos in folders.  I have 200+ videos right now and it shows them all in an alphabetical flat list.  However, that’s something the Xbox 360 software will need to solve since right now a flat list is all it supports for video (it does folders for Pictures so I imagine it would be do-able).

Anyway, I’m especially glad they have this solution since yesterday I managed to break my Media Center PC (the Mac Mini) during an attempted memory upgrade gone horribly wrong.

Not quite sure if this is my first appearance on there… it very well might be.  Anyway, a fellow named Rory was at the XNA Launch Event last week with a camera, and caught my friend Paolo and issued him some sort of challenge related to footwear.  I’m still not quite sure what happened, but Rory then did a quick segment with us that ended up in his video, which is really interesting all around.

Check it out.  - Paolo and I show up about 10 minutes in.