I’ve been psyched for Skype on the PSP with firmware v3.90 until I learned that it will only work with PSP-2000 systems and not the launch PSP (PSP-1000). Pay attention to the comments of numerous PSP-1000 owners in the comments who feel like they’re getting the shaft. Me? A little bummed, but more disappointed in the PSP cord wrap issue:

I bought the PSP on launch day and overall have enjoyed the games. I still believe it’s one of the best, if not the best, device available at the price for portable video. It’s too bad Sony pushed a proprietary format (UMD) instead of focusing on a downloadable video plan. There is still time for them to do this as the PS3 is becoming a media center hub. The fact that they don’t yet offer movie rentals through the Playstation Store is strange at best.

Sony is citing the reason for no Skype functionality on the PSP-1000 is because there isn’t enough RAM. This makes sense and it’s probably time for me to get a new PSP. But will I do it only for a slimmer, sleeker PSP and Skype functionality? Maybe. I’d like to see what the new PSP is like but I’m also wondering how long before the PSP-3000? Should I wait?

Any other PSP-1000 owners who have bought a new PSP? Does adding Skype and a thinner design make you likely to buy the newest PSP? Or are you in a holding pattern for a newer, better PSP. Man, is Sony ripping a page out of the Apple hardware playbook?

Smart marketing: in issue #80 of the official Xbox Magazine a disc contains three exclusive Rock Band songs.

Songs by Bang Camaro, Count Zero and Freezepop. We picked up issue #80 with disc at the local Safeway today ($9.99+tax), so if you hurry you might find it out there.

Wouldn’t be surprised if we see a bunch more exclusive Rock Band song deals. Bands should look to releasing their newest albums with a bonus exclusive Rock Band songs or codes for a redeemable new downloadable song inside Xbox Live.

We exchanged our broken Rock Band package at the local Best Buy today. Hoping this one makes it more than a month before breaking down. Rock Band still has major replay value, especially with the addition of new songs you can buy each week or find through deals like the magazine above.

Seen any other good Rock Band exclusive song deals? Share them below or trackback in from your blog with the info.

I captured some HD video of our sons completing the hardest and longest set of songs on Rock Band for the Xbox 360 on the expert difficulty setting.

The Endless Setlist which contains 58 songs took them 3+ hours to complete and out of a possible 290 stars (5 stars possible on each song) they had 275. A few songs they achieved gold star status on. Our youngest teen played bass and our middle teen played guitar.

Click To Play

Hmmcast #180 downloads
Windows .wmv (1480×1080 HD) PSP .mp4 (480×272) iPod .mp4 (640×480)

One of my favorite Sega Saturn games was NiGHTS. It came with a special controller with a tiny joystick that you used to make some circles with a flying character. As far as 3D games go, it was also one of the first 3D games that I really got into. There was a short-lived Christmas version of NiGHTS that I never played.

NiGHTS is a game I’ve been hoping Sega would update for some time for the Xbox 360 or PS3 who both have solid analog sticks which could control the game. But instead Sega chose to make ‘Nights Journey of Dreams’ exclusively (?) for the Wii and something where you have to make the movements with motion controls or use the separate nunchuck with Wiimote.

When I saw the game on the shelves I was curious how well the Wii controls would work out?

Motion controls aren’t responsive. Actions as simple as a loop require you to slowly move the Wii remote in a circle, which isn’t helpful when battling against a clock. You can add the nunchuk to control NiGHTS with a joystick, but it only helps slightly. I had to resort to using Wii’s Classic Controller to make the experience more palatable.

If you don’t want to read just one review and base your game buying decision (me neither), check out Joystiq’s NiGHTS roundup. The best score? 80 out of 100 by Games Radar. More complaints about controls in the Joystiq comment section as well as non-controls complaints about the game.

Despite the negative reviews, I’ll probably still pick this title up for the Wii — likely when it reaches bargain bin pricing — because I’m so fond of the original title and some (very few though) games that are broadly panned, I still enjoy. Not sure the latter will be the case here though. If it blows, oh well, won’t be the first or last game I buy that disappoints.

Wii Motion controlitis
This raises an excellent point about the Wii: motion control is great for physical exercise but doesn’t apply well to all types of games and holding two different controllers, the Wiimote in one hand and the nunchuck in the other is awkward for some games. I’d rather have both my hands focusing on a single controller. You?

I appreciate that Nintendo is trying to do something creative with the Wii controls but their revolutionary controller setup is not right for every game and could ruin some otherwise good programmed games. Why Sega didn’t figure this out in the game testing phase and offer NiGHTS for the Xbox 360 or PS3 is puzzling.

Actually, it’s not, Sega’s NiGHTS producer, Takashi Iizuka responded in a CBS News interview with the following:

Initially, when I thought about the game concept of “NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams,” I really didn’t consider what platform I wanted the game to run on. It wasn’t until I started the actual game design that I discovered that the Wii was the most appropriate platform because it had the right features to fit the game I was designing.

Maybe Takashi is right and the reviewers are wrong?

Since I haven’t actually played the game yet, the controls might not be as bad as reviewers are saying. If anybody reading has played NiGHTS Journey of Dreams on the Wii or has a comment on other games that you feel have been ruined by the Wii control scheme, let’s discuss in the comments section.

I like the Wii controls for games like Wii Sports bowling, tennis, boxing and golf. They work pretty good for Zelda Twilight Princess too and other some other titles. I didn’t care as much for the controller setup for Brunswick Bowling on the Wii. I wonder if the Gamecube controller would work for NiGHTS Journey? The Gamecube controller can be used to play Gamecube games on the Wii. Anybody reading try this with NiGHTS Journey?

Got an inside track to who’s going to win the Republican and/or Democrat caucus in New Hampshire today? At Predictify.com you can make a few pennies if you’re right, but hurry and get your votes in.

There is a star system based on user participation ranging from a bronze star at 100 points to a platinum star for 10,000 points. With roughly 30 minutes involvement at the site I’ve made 85 cents and have 62 community points. Being that the minimum payout is $20, talk to me in like, well, a long time to see if Predictify pays. The top earning person on the site has made $113.76 and 76 people have made over $20 as of this writing. In other words, this is not a moneymaking opportunity site.

Community points are received for activities at the site like:

- 10 points: submitting a premium question (this costs $1 per prediction)
- 5 points: referring a new user
- 5 points: submitting a free question (only 200 responses can be received)
- 3 points: send a friend invite that is accepted if you click the Predictify graphic above, that has my referrer code in it)
- 3 points: post a comment
- 1 point: submit a prediction.

It’s strange that the least amount of points is attributed to the most vital part of the site: the predictions. Yes, you need outcomes to predict, but are the questions worth five times the amount of the predictions themselves? I can understand submitting premium questions being more valuable because that’s one of the ways the site is being monetized, but I’d argue that the # of points for predictions, particularly predictions from those who have a higher percentage of predicting the outcome should receive more points.

Predictify does incent those who predict the outcomes more correctly by paying them a higher percentage of the premium questions. I’m at the Scholar level (50-74% accuracy) for Politics, which means if I answer a premium question correctly in this category I’ll receive 1.5 multiplier of the payout. The highest level one can achieve is Guru (90-99% accuracy) which receives 2.0 multiplier. Again, don’t get too excited about the money angle, because there is a small percentage (~5%) of premium questions available.

I didn’t see any banner or contextual ads at Predictify. It appears the only way the site is making money is from taking a cut of the premium questions but I’m guessing at least with the sports outcome questions they could turn around and be selling the Predictify outcomes on a sportsbetting site (outside the US where online gambling is legal, of course). They prevent others for using free questions in certain ways: “Predictify may not be used for securities replication, odds-making, betting, gambling, or wagering.”

The New York Times has a subdomain using Predictify for the NFL playoffs at nytimes.predictify.com.

Not sure the NY Times tie-in as I don’t see any API, but if/when they decide to release one (?) news of this will probably appear first at the official Predictify blog, which uses TypePad.

Summary and grade
There have been so many voting-type sites come and go over the years that the outlook for Predictify is not good. If the site keeps the current clean design and maintains enough interest, they’ll last longer than most. Definitely need a higher percentage of premium questions to help maintain interest and if an API isn’t available, they need one yesterday. Grade: C+

Congratulations to Kara for turning her $500 deposited in July 2007 into $544.93, a 8.99% return in our 2007 stock competition. She had better performance than me that ended 2007 with $522.78, a 4.36% return. Here is Kara’s competition portfolio:

Here is my competition portfolio:

We both traded 11 stocks during the time, with her still holding one (JOSB) and me holding two (ZL which is way down and NLY which is up). Since our balance is under $2,500 per the new Zecco rules any trades we make now will incur a $4 commission.

Hypothetical: if we had paid $4 Zecco commissions on each trade
To illustrate how much commissions can negatively impact a portfolio, paying $4 commissions on all our 2007 trades would have resulted in an overall loss for both portfolios. Since the commission applies to both buy and sell: I had 11 buys and 9 sells = 20 total trades. Kara had 11 buys and 10 sells = 21 trades.

Me: 20 trades x $4 = $80
K: 21 trades x $4 = $84
= $164 commissions divided into total of both portfolios: $1067.71 (15.36% commissions)

And instead of a balance of $1,067.71 we’d only have $903.70 and be sitting on two of three stocks that are currently in losing positions. Using that scenario it would have been better to put the $1,000 in a savings account than play the stock market. Although this is on a smaller money scale, it shows how difficult the stock market can be to make money. With the addition of the commission in 2008, it’s going to be even more challenging.

The 2007 prize
When asked what she wanted as a prize for beating me in the 2007 competition Kara replied, “take our kids shoe shopping.” Man, I got off easy. I was willing to buy her something for at least the difference between our portfolios. (Note: I still will).

Speaking of the kids, they don’t go back to school until tomorrow? Strange. Why aren’t they going back today? Is there an assumption this is an after New Year’s travel (or recuperation for those who partied) day?

2008 competition begins
We’re going to continue our competition into 2008 with the same setup. As for prizes, same deal: if she wins again, I’ll buy her something using the value of the difference in our portfolios or vice versa.

You are welcome to and encouraged to follow along with the trades we’re making on our Google Finance shared page. The quotes are delayed 20 minutes.

I also am sharing my competition trade activity through Zecco social (my wife currently is not), which provides third party verification that, yes, I am buying and selling the stocks listed on the Google Finance shared page. Zecco doesn’t actually show the dollar amounts or number of shares.

With my permission, they picked me as one of their featured investors (pictured above), thanks Zecco! You can add me as a friend, if you like, from my Zecco profile page.

While on the transparency front, as of this writing I also own the following stocks that are not part of our ongoing competition and are not traded through Zecco: AAPL, EXPE, GOOG, IACI, IGT, SHOR, VCLK and YHOO. For newer readers, I do disclose in each blog post where relevant when writing about these companies.

Free real time stock quotes
If you wanted to see a more real time view of either a real or fantasy stock portfolio you could use something like freerealtime.com.

I used Free Real Time with the Apple Web Clip function in Safari to make a dashboard widget and just have to hit the Apple key + R to refresh to see how the portfolio is doing during trade days. Since my main machine is Vista, I wonder if there’s a Vista gadget that does something similar? If you know of one please let me know in the comments.

Overall I’m satisfied with the results in 2007, especially with the instability of the market the last six months, but I’d like to see at least either my wife, I or both get over $1,000 by the end of 2008. If our portfolios combined a year from now could reach the $2,500 minimum, even better.

How did your portfolio(s) perform in 2007? No need to share dollars, but percentages would be nice. Happy, unhappy or satisfied?

Dear Microsoft,

Our family of five loves the Xbox 360, but we’re starting to think it, and you, don’t even like us in return.

Sure, you like the fact that we keep reaching into our wallets to buy new systems and pay for the hottest, newest games like Bioshock, Assassin’s Creed and Mass Effect. Halo? We’ve bought at least two copies of each: Halo (2) for the Xbox, Halo 2 (3 copies, one was played out) and Halo 3 (2 copies, one the collector’s edition). My current favorite game of 2007 is Rock Band. Many Xbox 360 games we buy on launch day like Madden 2008.

And let’s not forget Xbox Live where we have four active ($49.95 x 4) one year live accounts and one Creators Club ($99) account, not to mention purchasing almost 100 arcade titles to date across the four accounts.

We rent movies from Xbox Live too. Haven’t kept track of the numbers there, but it’s probably over a dozen movies and TV shows rented. And yes, we bought the HD DVD player too (haven’t received the promised 6 ‘free’ HD DVD movies either).

Does this qualify our household as a good customer? In our possession right now, we own five Xbox 360s. The last one broke (#4) less than 60 days ago and you won’t fix because it’s a few months past the one year warranty and not the red rings of death; we don’t have an extended warranty on that one either. The disc tray won’t load any games or DVDs. Xbox Live still works though. If we want that fixed you’re going to charge us $140. We decided in light of the hardware reliability history we would buy the Xbox 360 arcade edition with extended warranty instead for Christmas. You can see it along the right.

Tonight my son was playing Halo 3 and #6 Xbox 360 console went into red rings of death mode (picture top of post). Amazing. This is the fifth Xbox 360 we’ve had go bad since April 15, 2006. Let me list the complete dates and history of Xbox 360 consoles in our household because it’s starting to be unbelievable.

Xbox 360 systems that have died since April 15, 2006
#5: today, January 1, 2008 (Happy New Year, Microsoft!). Status: three red rings of death, unrepaired. Under warranty, we’ll call for replacement tomorrow.
#4: Xbox 360 broken November 3, 2007. Status: broken disc tray, unrepaired. We replaced system with Xbox 360 Arcade System.
#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.

Status: red rings of death. Replaced July 1, 2006.

We try to place the Xbox 360 so they won’t overheat, see the current placement of the most recent system to die:

We can place the Xbox 360 horizontal or vertical, but death is inevitable. I pity other customers who buy an Xbox 360 and do not buy an extended warranty. These systems are the lousiest design of any home videogame system ever.

Should customers have to face these kind of issues? Just how bad is it? Susan Getgood contacted me after the last Xbox 360 breakdown to get my feelings on this negative customer experience. When writing about how many have gone bad the last time, I wrongly thought that was our fifth Xbox 360 to go bad. Actually, nope, this one is our fifth to go bad. How crazy is that when your own customer can’t even recall how many of the systems have gone bad? At least now I can point to this post. I’m thinking about adding a broken Xbox 360 counter to the homepage, as well.

Our next one to go bad, probably within the next 90-180 days based on history will be #6. The most durable Xbox 360 we’ve bought so far is the Xbox 360 Elite which is on life support at 8+ months. We’ve been having random audio out problems and screen blackouts at inopportune times. I would classify the Elite’s condition as “hopelessly diseased.” Odds are that one goes next. We have the Best Buy warranty there and will just return to them for exchange instead of messing around with Texas.

Microsoft, I know you’ve promised customers that you’ll fix these broken systems for three years and that came at great expense to your company. I implore you to extend the scope of that three year warranty to cover any non customer abuse situation. We didn’t do anything to have the disc tray not load any games and yet we have one that’s no good. The other four systems all died from red rings of death in less than two years including today’s.

Shameful.

If this were likely any other niche than videogames, I would never do business with your company again. I wonder how many customers you’ve already lost because of these problems. With each Xbox 360 that dies, my loyalty in your platform wanes and any fun from when it does work is reduced immeasurably. It’s like walking into the greatest arcade in the world and getting punched in the face at the door.

At some point, and I’m not sure when, I’m not going to enter any more.

Sincerely,

A little less loyal Xbox 360 customer

P.S. Dear readers, feel free to forward this to somebody, anybody at Microsoft that actually might give a damn.

Been trying for the last couple days a few times unsuccessfully to get the most recent Wii system update and have been receiving error code 32002, as pictured below:

Testing connection inside the Wii options was successful but the system process would hang with only a small part of the progress bar. I kept telling myself to check this out on the web and finally got around to it today. Seems like changing the router’s wireless channel from the default of 1 to 11 was all that was necessary to fix the issue. It couldn’t be that easy, could it? Consult your wireless router admin area under basic wireless settings or similar for this setting.

Also been having a lot of trouble with Xbox Live over the holiday. Talk about crappy timing. Hope your holiday is going well, we’ll be ringing in a new year soon.

If you operate a web-based business in the United States that shows advertising and haven’t gotten the stern message about online gambling ads, you might want to read this post carefully.

Microsoft took the biggest hit from the justice department for promoting online gambling between 1997 and 2007, having to pay $21 million, followed by Yahoo who’s penalty was $7.5 million and finally Google with $3 million.

via ABC News:

“These sums add to the over $40 million in forfeitures and back taxes this office has already recovered in recent years from operators of these remote-control illegal gambling enterprises,” U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway said in a statement.

Even cursory Hmm readers already know I think the government is missing a huge opportunity with online gambling, on a fool’s errand going after recreational gambling in people’s homes and that internet gambling will be legalized in the United States at some point in the future. But in the present fellow US citizens, and it disturbs me to write this, it is not a good idea to be putting up internet gambling advertising on your websites or doing any gambling online yourself.

Washington State House Bill 1243
If you live in Washington state where gambling online is a class C felony, you might also be interested in this comment which talks about proposed Washington State House Bill 1243 which seeks:

to quash the felony charge language in last year’s legislation addressing in-home internet gambling.

Being that was back in February 2007, I checked up on the progress of HB 1243 which, if passed, will provide legal defense for those adults who gamble online in their home for “recreational purposes.” The bill further defines (PDF) that as:

… for the defendent’s own enjoyment and not as part of an enterprise that derives income from operating an internet web site that transmits or receives gambling information.

Sadly, it appears that the bill is languishing, still (anybody got an update?) awaiting a hearing in the House Commerce and Labor Committee. How is it that the bill to make this a class C felony got passed in less than six months and the bill to defend what people do for recreation has taken 11 months and gone nowhere? Punish fast, defend slow, ain’t politics grand? Oh, and let’s not forget that shortly after passing this law to punish recreational online gambling, they voted to expand tribal gambling in our state.

Is your state sending mixed message on gambling like Washington state?

The war on our home soil against internet gambling must end. It’s a fruitless battle that should be redirected into legalizing and taxing the proceeds. Let’s use this money to improve our schools, reduce the debt, enhance the roads, bulk up the problem gambling services (remember, there are already legal gambling on indian casinos and state sponsored lotteries). I may not be interested in playing poker online personally, but I don’t believe in preventing other adults from doing so. I can see why the indian reservations and those who stand to lose money (or political support?) from gambling in this state are against this, but don’t see why any reasonable thinking adults are in opposition.

I’m sure somebody will mention the social ills of gambling, let’s put that violin away. We’ve already got legalized gambling here and getting rid of all the advertising for online gambling while leaving the billboards for legal terrestrial gambling isn’t going to help the social problems.

Despite instrument issues and the $170 price tag, Rock Band is selling very well, as is Guitar Hero according to the following USA Today story. I’m not surprised, these games are a lot of fun.

Guitar Hero III has sold about $300 million since its release and could generate $600 million by year’s end, says Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter. In comparison, the year’s top movie, Spider-Man 3, grossed about $337 million, and the top concert tour, the Police reunion, $212 million. Past Guitar Hero games, still selling well, may account for $300 million more. And Rock Band will likely sell about $200 million worth.

If you like music and Karaoke (in the case of Rock Band), you will be in heaven. Spike gave Bioshock the nod for 2007 game of the year, but I think it should have gone to Rock Band. Yes, despite the cheaply made controllers. Spike did award the studio who made Rock Band Harmonix the Best studio and named Rock Band the Best Rhythm Game and Best Soundtrack, but that wasn’t enough to best Bioshock.

I enjoyed Bioshock but the game was too short and it would have been better if it offered a greater ability to interact with the environment, especially the outside water scenes.

What should make up a Game of the Year?
As someone who has followed videogames for most of my life and bought many of the game systems over history (some of them, like the Xbox 360, multiple times), I have my own opinion on what should make up the Game of the Year. Here is the criteria that I use:

1. Game replay factor is high. Just try to beat every instrument on solo Rock Band on ‘expert’ setting, heck try it on ‘Hard’. With over 60 songs you can’t do it, even if you have the skills, in a single day. And once you get together with your friends you have the band World Tour mode to beat as well. We’ve been playing for 3+ weeks and still haven’t gotten every mode beaten.
2. Must be challenging, but not impossible. Along with replay the game has to give you some scintilla of hope that you can beat it someday. Or in the case of games like Robotron 2084 that you can get into a groove and beat your prior best score. With practice, as with real musical instruments, you can improve skill and eventually learn how to play songs skillfully. Must admit though as someone who also plays guitar I find playing some songs easier to play than playing the Rock Band versions.
3. Must offer something fresh or innovative either in a new genre or a twist on an existing genre. While Nintendo had already offered the Kongo Bongos, Guitar Hero had brought the guitar and the PS2 with Singstar offered Karaoke, Rock Band was the first to offer somewhat authentic drums controls, guitar and vocals all in one game. Play as a band, we’ve never been able to do that before.
4. Above all else it must be fun. Games are supposed to be fun, not work.

Notice I didn’t mention graphics or sound above. Graphics has been an area that too much reliance has been put on over the last 10 years. Some of the most beautiful games aren’t fun to play or offer limited game replay. Bioshock was a blast to play but it’s not a title I want to replay.

I can get into a game with very simplistic graphics and sounds if it is fun to play. I’d put sounds/music as more important than graphics in a game, so beeps and blips probably won’t help a game get to the top these days, but there is charm to the 8-bit gaming days that can’t be denied.

Would you add to my list of what makes a game of the year? Agree? Disagree?