We hadn’t been to Las Vegas in a couple years until last week and it’s always interesting to see what’s new. The first and most disappointing part was that the Star Trek Experience amusement ride at The Hilton closed in September 2008. It is supposed to reopen in 2010 downtown near the Fremont Experience.
Here is the cool Star Trek slot from WMS Gaming using their patented "Adaptive Gaming that can save your progress earning medals so that you can continue playing at any other Star Trek machine in the world:
It takes earning 40 medals to unlock the Trouble with Tribbles adventure shown above. Considering that medals can only be won during bonus rounds and bonus rounds can be far and few between it can take many, many gaming hours to earn these 40 medals.
Tip: play the bonus game in the first experience where you pick different bonus amounts. If you pick all the crewmen before finding the monster you’ll earn as many as 5 medals for a single bonus game. These means that you could get your 40 medals in playing through as little as 6 bonus games. It might be possible to earn more than 5 medals in a single bonus game, but the best I could do was five and I only did that once.
Craps Fire Bet
My favorite table game, craps, has a new proposition available called the Fire Bet. With this bet which can only be made at the start of a new shooter throwing dice, you are betting that the player will make at least 4 individual points. This means that if the player makes four sixes, that only counts as one. S/he would need to make 4 different numbers like 5,6,8,9. It’s the worst bet on the table, considering the casino edge is like 21%-25% depending on the payout, but players can win up to $10,000 for a $5 bet if 6 individual points are made.
We saw the Fire Bet craps at one of the Station casinos in Vegas and The Cannery. It’s also at Harrah’s, the Sahara and the Rio on the strip.
I misunderstood the game’s rules the first time I played thinking that a player only needed to make at least four points but nope, that’s not how it works. It’s too bad that they don’t offer a lower payout for non-individual points being made like say 5 for 1, as this would add to the excitement of betting along with a shooter who has a hot hand. According to NextShooter.com Fire Bet was created by Perry Staci a Las Vegas casino supervisor. No idea if it will make it out of Vegas and to the various indian casinos around here. I haven’t seen Star Trek in any of the local casinos either but am encouraged by the fact that they do have many WMS machines. The Wild Horse Casino in Pendleton, Oregon has two Star Trek slots as of this writing.
Didn’t update the blog when our 7th Xbox 360 went down, but now that we have our 8th, which is the Xbox 360 Arcade package that we purchased in November 2007, it’s unfortunately that time of year again. If there was ever a time for me to go thumbs down on something, it’s this:
Here’s the historical breakdown so new readers can catch up and old readers can shake their heads along with our family again.
Xbox 360 systems that have died since April 15, 2006 #8: Tuesday June 2, 2009, red rings. We’re swapping it out at Best Buy today, June 17, 2009. Good thing we bought the warranty! My advice to all continues to be one of the following: 1) never buy an Xbox 360 without a warranty or 2) (new) never buy an Xbox 360 at all. #7: January 2009, red rings. Didn’t record the exact day, but it was just after the first of the year. This unit is covered by Microsoft’s Red Ring of Death replacement and we just need to send it in. Microsoft has stopped sending boxes, but we have the packing slip ready. #6: Saturday August 18, 2008. Three red rings of death. We used Best Buy replacement plan to swap out with brand new Xbox Elite. #5: January 1, 2008 (Happy New Year, Microsoft!). Status: three red rings of death, unrepaired. Under warranty, Microsoft replaced within a month. #4: Xbox 360 broken November 3, 2007. Status: broken disc tray, unrepaired. We replaced this system by buying a new Xbox 360 Arcade package (and yes, bought 2-year warranty). #3: April 2007. Status: red rings of death, replaced three weeks later on April 23, 2007 #2: September 22, 2006. Status: red rings of death, replaced on October 20, 2006 #1: June 14, 2006. Our first Xbox 360 dies. Didn’t even make it two months.
I think with my last post we’d reached ashamed status. Not sure what customer emotion comes next when or if we reach double digits with all these hardware failures. The biggest videogame player in our house is going into the Army in September, so maybe that means we’ll see fewer Xbox 360s die moving forward.
I want, maybe need, to be emotional about it but the truth is I’m past angry, disappointed and perplexed. Without being too dramatic it’s become more of a way of gaming life now. I don’t like it but have come to accept that the time will come when the Xbox 360 will error out and we’ll be forced to dig for the receipt and/or warranty paperwork.
Was telling a friend in IRC this morning that it kind of reminds me of the pinball machine we had. Pinball machines are notorious for requiring lots of maintenance. Too much for a guy like me that isn’t a huge fan of that kind of work. Kudos to those who are but we all have things we like that somebody else feels the opposite.
As long as these systems stay under warranty we’ll keep swapping them out. It’s hard for me to imagine another gaming machine in my lifetime that will have as many great games and encouraging gaming experience but be so completely awful in system reliability. It’s not like any of these 8 systems have tanked during a game – they haven’t - but when you shut the system off you walk away wondering if that will be your last gameplay session on that box ever.
Usually when something is this bad, it’s bad all around but that’s not the case for the Xbox 360. The software side is clicking while the hardware side is frankly inexcusable.
The funny thing is we have two of the original Xboxes and those are still working fine, so it must be a case of Xbox 360 design. Our PS3 and Wii are both doing fine. It’s well beyond making excuses when something breaks down eight times in (roughly) three years. It’s beyond making excuses if something goes bad twice in three years.
So I cannot and will not defend the Xbox 360 hardware problems any longer. As a gamer I will continue to play on the Xbox 360 platform. I’m starting to feel like something I’m not: a fanboy. Or a sucker. Maybe both. Tormented, there’s the word I was searching for.
Whatever the case, maybe some higher power can shower some good luck on our household so no more of these will die. Pretty please with a strawberry from Ms. Pac-man on top? If you are in the Xbox 360 has died brother and sisterhood, yes, we feel your pain.
These days I hesitate to share my anticipation for something based on a trailer, but the video game Brutal Legend just hits all my hot buttons. It’s a rock-based adventure based upon heavy metal album covers (awesome!) killer rock voices like Rob Halford, Lemmy and Ozzy and guitars as swords. Oh yeah. First, check out the trailer for yourself and judge for yourself:
I just showed our youngest teen the trailer and he said: “looks like a sweet game.” It’s coming out October 13, er, Rocktober 13 of course for both Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Oh, and if you were wondering about face melting attacks? Check. Assuming you pull off a ripping guitar solo, that is.
Throwing up the Dio horns, this game does not have permission to suck.
E3 is the electronic expo (see the official E3 Expo website) where gaming and electronic goodies galore get showed off. Sometimes they are just promises more than guarantees, but this demo impressed Loren – and me too. It’s Project Natal for Xbox 360 and shows off you as the game controller of the future. If you aren’t seeing the YouTube video below embedded, then click on over and check this out.
If this thing works as well as demoed – and that remains to be played (not just seen) – then wow! Can you imagine what this will do to the game controller marketplace? And batteries!
Nintendo has already proven that games which get you physical can be very popular. This Project Natal looks like the Wii without the Wiimote.
Look, even Steven Spielberg is excited:
"This is a pivotal moment that will carry with it a wave of change, the ripples of which will reach far beyond video games"
Will Natal be backwards compatible with existing games?
All very good questions. Wouldn’t it be awesome if this technology would be available this upcoming holiday season? I don’t know, but if I had to guess, I’d say it looks more like 2010 or 2011. Which of course gives Nintendo and Sony enough time to come up with their own controller-less game interface.
In the IRC we were just talking about how the adult market could seize upon something like this. Laugh if you like, but I’m serious here. None of the major game systems have an approved mature titles library, but that is a huge financial opportunity to whomever dares open the door. You can get XXX content on your cable, satellite, VUDU and online, but not your game system? Why not?
I suggested years ago here that Microsoft should embrace the adult marketplace rather than shun it. I think Sony is the most likely of the three to offer a mature gaming area based on present day company philosophies, but times can change. We’ll see.
My wife has shamed me out of buying any of the Wii fishing games to date, but she’s going to have a harder time doing that with a bass fishing game called The Strike coming this fall on the Xbox 360.
The video above shows a more realistic fishing pole controller complete with a motor in the crank. I’m digging how detailed the process is of buying your equipment and then riding the boat out to the hot spots. Hat tip to dvice.com.
On the Wii front I keep looking over Rapala fishing. It seems to me that the Wiimote with its motion sensitivity and rumble would provide a decent virtual fishing game without the need for any additional controllers.
Some reading this might be thinking: why not just go out and do some real fishing? I have no good excuse for that. Would like to get back into fishing someday offline again. I did a good amount of fishing when I was a young boy and I like eating fish.
I wonder how much The Strike with fishing pole is going to cost? I’m guessing around $100. This fall I’m also looking forward to The Beatles game.
The Easter bunny was good to the Mariners in their season opening road trip leaving them with a sweep of the Oakland A’s and a split with the Minnesota Twins. It’s also good seeing a true team effort with new manager Don Wakamatsu getting in everybody except Matt Tuiasosopo.
Hall of Fame broadcaster Dave Niehaus will read "An Ode to Safeco Field," third baseman Adrian Beltre receives his second Gold Glove Award and Ichiro Suzuki receives his eighth. There will be a salute to the second World Baseball Classic with a "Parade of World Flags".
Can’t wait to see Ichiro who is currently on the DL get back into this lineup as well. It’s way too early to get too confident about anything, but hey, we couldn’t have scripted a better start. How’s your favorite MLB team doing?
Yikes, my wife asked me about the game system OnLive before I’d even heard about it. OnLive is a service that looks to be a lot like the Vudu is for movies, only for games. It was announced earlier this month at the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC). The games will work on TV or PC and are streamed through a central server. OnLive has a beta sign-up page (done) and will be inviting players this summer.
While chances are good we’ll be getting the OnLive Microconsole unless the pricing is insane, I’m not too excited yet how this will go over. It’s from Steve Perlman, founder of WebTV (and we know how well WebTV went over) and also Quicktime. And speaking of pricing:
the OnLive team isn’t offering up any details other than to say "we can price it substantially lower than the Wii." That’s according to John Spinale, the company’s VP of games and media, who kept mum on other costs like subscription fees and new game prices
Techtree.com has a sensationalistic headline declaring this to be a ‘threat to consoles’ which is doubtful, but adds the following useful intel about the game companies involved:
So far, nine third-party game publishers, who include Electronics Arts, Ubisoft, Warner Bros. Interactive, Take-Two, THQ, Epic Games, Eidos, Atari, and Codemasters, have committed to involve themselves in the game distribution service. These game publishers would also be retailing games as usual.
Xbox Live sort of rules the roost in our home and many others. If you want a great online game experience, it’s tough to compare the quality and diversity of titles to what’s available currently on Xbox Live. Yesterday we went and picked up the Guitar Hero: Metallica and enjoyed playing.
On the plus side potentially for OnLive, we’re digging how convenient the Vudu is hooked up to the TV, despite it being yet another TV-connected gadget. With Satellite in HD, Xbox Elite, PS3 and Vudu we don’t have enough HD jacks to handle all these gadgets. Going to have to get one of those HD selector boxes. Anybody seen a good price on one of those? I checked out on at Best Buy that was like $200. No way. Got to be something much, much cheaper than that. I’m thinking $50 range.
Will have more to say about OnLive when I can dig in and check it out firsthand.
In another life or some fantasic parallel world I’m full time game programmer. I enjoy programming games and it’s usually one of the first things I do whenever I’m learning a new world: put together a quick game. Though I may stand corrected, but I believe I’ve programmed a game in every programming language ever ‘learned’ to date. I hesitate to use the word ‘learned’ as I feel like programming is an ongoing learning process, not something that you ever wake up one day and say: “I’ve learned it, next!”
Sony is celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the Everquest Massive Online Multiplayer Role-Playing Game and Beckett magazine has an interview with the EQII team where the subject of what it is like working at a game company:
Some people have the impression that working in a game company is a lot of goofing off and playing games all day long. It’s a business though. The ultimate goal is to put a roof over our heads and food on the table. It’s like a regular job, but with even more stuff and benefits from it. I think as a team, and as a company, there’s probably 30-40% more dedication than I’ve seen in any other environment. People are willing to stay extra hours at night to get something done, or come in on weekends. It’s not like we’re out for four hour lunches every day. We don’t ride scooters in the hallway. There seems to be a perception that working in a gaming company is just all fun and games, but it’s not. It’s really a business, it’s hard work, and the people who work here are very passionate about making sure we make every effort to make sure that the game stays fun.
I’ve always envisioned that actual work at a game company isn’t just playing games and entertainment so the above paragraph isn’t sobering. Even if you are a games tester you still have to report back on what you are doing and often times play the same levels over and over and over and over again. That could be more boring that debugging tens or hundreds of thousands of lines of code. But even so, I think it would be a lot of fun working at a game company.
Our middle son, a teenager, wants to get into working at a games company or being a pro gamer or perhaps even both. I’m going to be showing him this article and reminding him that no matter how fun any job appears to be on the outside, it’s still work on the inside. And work isn’t always fun.
Despite Sony finally removing the curtain for its ambitious Home project and the Xbox providing a compelling fall update, the Wii is still the holiday 2008 gift to put on Santa’s list. Check out the subject of the Amazon email just received:
Plenty of Xbox 360 and PS3 in stock. Plenty of Blu-ray movies. Guitar Hero, Rock Band and all music games which have been a huge hit for me personally the last month are starting to wane interest thanks to a dirth of adding appealing songs. Where are more great album from the 60s, 70s and 80s? These music games and the struggling music business are missing a huge opportunity by not pushing out a steady stream of albums in videogame format. The console market as of this writing isn’t being soul sucked by the peer to peer sector.
But how about Nintendo? Major props to Mario’s proverbial parents for thumbing their Wiimotes to the hardcore gamer crowd. Even though the Wii gets little play time in our home, yes even with Wii Fit (sigh, we should be using more), it’s still favored over the PS3 but not the Xbox 360.
In fact, Nintendo’s red-hot Wii system outsold the Xbox by almost 3-to-1 in November. Wii shipments in the month totaled 2.04 million, while Xbox shipments came in at 836,000 … PlayStation 3 ranked a distant third, with shipments of just 378,000 units, said NPD.
And it’s not just the Wii that’s a hit, the Nintendo DS has shipped 1.57 million to the more stylish and chic PSP with 421,000. Should any of us feel sorry for Sony? I don’t. They have a beautiful piece of hardware that is collecting dust due to an inexplicably slow launch of new titles. Yeah, they have some great games and as a blu-ray player movies never looked better, but people never were and never are going to buy a game console in large numbers for a proprietary movie format.
Keep on ignoring blog posts like this one, Sony, but the console graveyard is littered with game starved systems.
Sony PS3 Home limp emphasis on gaming
I was excited this week to finally get a peek at the PS3 Home long in beta. I was hoping to see a strong emphasis on gaming. Forget that.
My biggest disappointment with Home is that it launched with exactly the opposite. Why can’t I put buy arcade cabinets from their mall to put in my apartment and invite friends over to play? They could have bought Atari for a pittance and put every Atari game each in an arcade cabinet and offered them for sale in Home. Instead we get as flashy avatars living in this beautiful waterfront view outside that is devoid of any interaction capability whatsoever. You can walk out on the balcony and look in the distance at gorgeous virtual scenery.
Can see but not touch; the PS3 experience personified. Heck,I can boot up Everquest II or Lord of the Rings Online and both see and interact with cool scenery, why can’t I do (enough of) that in Home?
Hey Sony, go check out PhantomEFX Casino MMO. That has user custom spaces that you can get game machines to put in your apartment and invite friends over to play and has been available for a couple years. Not in beta, not some promise maybe in the future, it’s here and in use now.
Now before the Sony apologists start ripping me in the comments for not appreciating Home being beta and free. I get beta and get free, that’s great, thank you Sony, but somebody, anybody tell me why I’m going to bother going into Home at this point rather than launching straight into a game? If I want to hang out with friends online, why not do it outside the PS3 where interactive possibilities abound, thank you very much. There are a bunch of other places online to find fellow PS3 owners that don’t feel nearly as gimmicky and under-utilyzed as Home in its current open beta state.
Frankly I would have rather seen the money spent on Home being used to kick out a lot more fun games.
Home seems destined to be more of the same underappreciated potential squandered, which appears to be the sad state of arguably the best designed game systems ever. Look, I know this is going to seem like Sony bashing, but it’s really PS3 owner frustration that the PS3 could be so much better than it is. I’ve been through this with too many consoles in the past. The Dreamcast was an awesome machine, but review the sobering history if you need a lesson in how software outshines hardware.
The PS3 doesn’t score serious points for being cool and having great hardware, they need to deliver games or rip a card from Nintendo’s marketing brilliance: focus on fun at an affordable price for the whole family. Being the elite gaming system in an economy where every dollar counts isn’t helping Sony, despite offering a free online gaming community compared to the Xbox Live Gold which costs $50 a year.
My friend keeps saying he won’t buy an Xbox 360 because there aren’t enough of the type games he wants to play. This is something Microsoft needs to listen to and try and fill over the next year. He owns a PS3 and Wii and in his post at VTOR shared similar disappointment as me with Home. If Sony can’t get somebody like him excited who is already on board – as you might say about me with the Xbox 360 – then they have a big problem on their hands. Home is supposed to be their stunning, revolutionary dashboard interface. It’s supposed to make people buy a PS3 so they can be a part of the excitement.
Yeah, right.
How can Microsoft and Sony overtake the Wii in 2009?
Is this even possible? I would bet on the economy rebounding first. The real console sales battles were supposed to be fought this season, but I’m moving my projection to holiday season 2009 when the PS3 has a more refined Home experience and will be at full strength. By then the Xbox 360 will have to prove it’s aging gracefully and we’ll find out if the Nintendo Wii continues to do well on the strength of their game library rather than system shortages. Looks like Nintendo may have enough momentum and sales to call it already. If the Wii can be in demand in these troubled times, you have tip the hat. Big time.
As a PS3 owner, I’m worried about the system. It’s starting to feel close to joining the endangered species list. This is the time when I should be talking about how many awesome games I’m looking forward to on the PS3. What am I looking forward to? Well, Home was on that list because I expected it to be more game focused. Yeah, there is a game launcher there and a few very rudimentary games in the bowling alley and elsewhere, but too little, too late.
More games in 2009, Sony please. Get rid of the silly, overpriced Qore and virtual world wannabe fluff and give us more games. Gamers go where the good games are flowing in great supply.
The StateStats mashup displays Google query results by popularity in U.S states self describing as:
It then compares this ranking with other ways of ranking states, like average income or population density, using Spearman’s rank correlation. The middle column shows the results of these comparisons, with the strongest correlations listed first.
The service points out in its description in bold that one must be careful drawing conclusions from this data. With that in mind I put this post and you should the title of this post tongue-in-cheek in the humor category.
Couldn’t resist running some comparative queries across the various game consoles in order of sales: Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 and finally the Sony PS3. Why video games? In Google’s 2008 most popular product search queries 4 of 10 involved videogames (#1 Nintendo Wii, #2 Wii Fit, #4 Xbox 360 and #5 Nintendo DS). This is a big win for attention for Nintendo.
Nintendo Wii
The top five states for the Wii: New Jersey, Utah, Kentucky, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Unemployment, violent crime and density are positive weak or stronger. Negative weak or stronger would be Percent elderly, age, frost, energy consumption and suicide.
Unemployment - I guess it’s understandable that the least expensive game console would be searched for more from states with the highest unemployment rate, although states with high unemployment and videogames showed up for all three consoles.
Percent elderly and age surprises me more as we’ve seen several articles about how popular the Wii has been with all ages, particularly senior citizens due to the often physical games the Wii provides.
Xbox 360
The top five states for the Xbox 360: Washington State (Microsoft home), Kentucky, Ohio, Florida and Michigan. Unemployment, obesity, violent crime and density are positive weak or stronger. Negative weak or stronger would be latitude, age and frost.
Obesity - It’s curious that states with higher obesity rate are searching for the Xbox 360 and yet not the PS3. It makes sense not for the Wii because that console promotes more activity, but what is the difference from a physical standpoint between the Xbox 360 and PS3? I can’t think of any.
Sony Playstation 3
The top five states for the Sony PS3: California, New York, Florida, New Jersey and Texas. Density, violent crime, unemployment, same sex couples, income and illiteracy are positive weak. Negative weak or stronger would be percent elderly, age, energy consumption, suicide, latitude and frost.
Same sex couples - interesting to note correlation of states with higher same sex are searching more for the PS3. You cannot draw the correlation — although I’m sure somebody will bemusedly — that same sex couples prefer the PS3 over the Wii and Xbox 360.
Violent crime states for all gaming consoles
I’m not in the crowd who believes videogames lead to violent crime (see: Video games don’t cause violence, people do), but it’s interesting to note that besides states with high density and unemployment, violent crime is the only other positive indicator in these search queries for all three gaming consoles. This could be that where there is high density there is also more violent crime or that where there are less dense states like Montana, they don’t do much videogaming.
I’ll leave this to the comment section. This could be a fun one to discuss.
Tip: play the bonus game in the first experience where you pick different bonus amounts. If you pick all the crewmen before finding the monster you’ll earn as many as 5 medals for a single bonus game. These means that you could get your 40 medals in playing through as little as 6 bonus games. It might be possible to earn more than 5 medals in a single bonus game, but the best I could do was five and I only did that once.
