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.

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"

Ian Paul at PC World wants to know five things about Project Natal:

1. When will it be available?
2. Will it work as advertised?
3. How much will it cost?
4. How complex can the games get?
5. 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.

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.

Our household appears in the minority that craves the Xbox 360 over the Wii:

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 Xbox 2008 fall update is now available and provides a number of new features including the New Xbox Experience (NXE) which is a complete redesign of the blade. I was glad to see it didn’t include some nonsensical virtual world that didn’t add anything worthwhile to the experience.

After the update which only takes a few short minutes to patch, you start by creating your own avatar, mine pictured below:

The process of creating an avatar involves choosing a model to begin with from a group and then customizing. It’s all point and click and a snap to do. This avatar is used in only three arcade games and doesn’t seem as central to the interface as Miis are on the Nintendo Wii.

After creating your avatar, you will immediately notice that windows for items now scroll from the right to left. It takes a few minutes to get used to, but seems to work alright. I need more time playing around with and getting used to it before I say if I like it better than the old dashboard.

Netflix streaming from thousands of titles

I briefly checked out the Netflix option. Since I don’t have an active Netflix subscription, I’m not on board with this yet, but likely will be trying this out very soon. We’re still wading our way through the $200 worth of movies that came with our Vudu. You can subscribe to Netflix through the Xbox, so no need to go to your computer. Handy.

obessable points out there are a couple gotchas making not all of the reported 12,000+ titles available:

Sony owned Columbia Pictures movies studio won’t license movies for playback on Xbox, and other movies face similar licensing restrictions.

Sony not on board with the Xbox? Makes sense. I wonder if/when this will change should the PS3 get similar functionality someday?

More descriptions of game features including resolution

Like that you can now tell what games are in 1080p (answer: not many). Wolf of the Battlefield Commando 3, Feeding Frenzy 2 and Portal are all 1080p and have been added to the Hmm Xbox 360 1080p games list.

Also, not every game has complete information. I went through 178 Xbox Arcade titles and found a dozen or so that didn’t have resolution information.

Xbox Live Parties

You can connect with other Xbox Live users in a party and then play games together without having to go through the old invite one at a time route.

Access to XNA Community created peer reviewed games

Games that pass peer review created with the XNA Developer studio can publish their games to the Xbox Live world at large. This is an immediate audience of millions of gamers.  A barrier still exists for you to be able to share something you created with me and vice versa regardless of peer review results, but hey, maybe we’ll get that in a future update.

Hey Dorothy, er Sony, when will we ever be able to see Home?

As a PS3 owner, I continue to wait, somewhat impatiently at this point, to see Home. I’d love to write about how cool this is — or isn’t, but I’m not worthy yet. And neither is anybody I know on the PS3. I fear that Home is going to go down like Spore did earlier this year: one gigantic disappointment.

But I’m holding out hope that Sony does something cool. If they add some of the goodies that Microsoft added in this update, I’ll be stoked.

For as long as Microsoft has charged $49.99 a year for Xbox Live Gold subscription, we’ve seen people saying it should be free.

I’ve had a few discussions with non-Xbox Live gaming friends who think Microsoft is being greedy by charging. Don Reisinger at CNET news is among the latest to complain:

So what does Microsoft need to do to right the ship and really turn things around? Announce that all Xbox Live memberships will be free and all gamers can play online without a hitch. It’s radical, for sure, but it’s the best move Microsoft can make right now.

The "best move Microsoft can make" … really?

And turn what things around anyway? Sales results in relation to Xbox Live tell a mixed story at best. The link Mr. Reisinger provides to Gamespot as evidence of sales slumps offers the following quote: "While Microsoft roundly thumped Sony in software sales." Huh?

Just recently the Xbox 360 bested the PS3 in Japan in weekly sales for the first time ever. Again, looking at the Gamespot link, the system sales for the PS3 and Xbox 360 are about the same with the Nintendo DS and Wii way ahead of both systems.

What about hot games like Soul Calibur IV? The Xbox 360 sold 218,900 while the PS3 sold 155,800. What was the #1 selling game? Not Wii Fit, surprisingly, which clocked in at #2 with 369,600, it was NCAA Football 09 for, you guessed it Don, Xbox 360. The PS3 version sold 242,500.

These numbers between the PS3 and Xbox 360 from an Xbox Live standpoint would mean more if there were an equal number of systems in circulation. As it stands, one can’t say that more of the same game was sold on the PS3 because gamers could use network play for free. I don’t know if/when the PS3 sales will catch up as they are still sluggish for a system that offers something the Xbox 360 doesn’t: built-in Blu-ray player and better hardware durability.

No, they aren’t "basically the same" online gaming experience
Mr. Reisinger needs to go back and spend more time comparing and evaluating the game libraries with networked gameplay for each of the three systems and revisit what he wrote. He couldn’t be any more wrong about them being "basically the same."

We own all three game systems (3 working Xbox 360s 1 working Xbox 360 Elite, 1 Wii, 1 PS3) and the Wii from a networked gaming experience is easily the worst, very little in the way of being able to play networked games with your friends. The Mii system, although typical Nintendo cutesy comes up short. I am puzzled why Nintendo hasn’t stepped up their network play games strategy. They could kick both Sony and Microsoft’s butts — if only they’d try harder.

The Wii needs more game titles with network play. They are slowly adding more networked game titles, but if you follow the history they didn’t see online network gameplay as that important, and their lackluster networked game library shows this weakness. The Wii didn’t get the hit game Rock Band until recently and last time I checked you couldn’t buy individual Rock Band songs through the Wii network. You can do that on both the Xbox 360 and PS3. Basically the same as the Xbox 360 and PS3? No way.

The Playstation Network, also free, is definitely gaining ground on Xbox Live, but there are still too few games that offer networked gameplay and they need more classic arcade ports. My favorite shooter on the PS3 is the gorgeous game, Super Stardust HD. If you have a PS3 and don’t have this game, stop reading and go buy it now. Sony released a $4.99 upgrade for the game recently, but we still can’t play co-op over the network. Major bummer.

At the same time, the PS3 does have some really fun games that are network playable. Their network strategy is a lot better than the Wii. I also like the fact that they built in a web browser and use it effectively throughout their system. My biggest complaints with the Playstation Store are inventory and to a lesser degree organization. I’m hopeful when HOME hits this will creatively solve the organization part, but games are still coming a little too slowly. More great games = more players = stronger network.

And where are all the cool old school arcade titles? In the Xbox Live Arcade. It’s one of the major differences for Xbox Live over the other two. The Wii store allows buying old NES, SNES, N-64, NEO-GEO, Sega, etc games and you can get a few arcade titles like Q-bert, Sprint and Joust in the Playstation store, but one only has to surf the Xbox Live Arcade library for 30 seconds to realize how much deeper and broader the Xbox Live Arcade titles are comparatively. No competition.

On the Xbox 360, although I don’t have an accurate count, there seems to be hundreds of games, including the aforementioned diverse lineup of arcade games that allow networked play with voice chat. It’s more the exception, than the rule, that an Xbox 360 version of a game does not come with some sort of networked play or at the least an active leaderboard. And the Xbox Live blade is a much better UI than the Wii and I like it better than the Playstation Store which sends me through too many submenus. I don’t want to click forever to find out what games I don’t already own.

Some of the comparisons I made between the networks are admittedly subjective, but the body of evidence suggests that there is no way these three networks are basically the same. I didn’t follow

How Microsoft could make Xbox Gold more valuable
In our household of five we currently have *4* Xbox Live Gold subscriptions and sure, I’d love to have that extra $200 a year, but I’d rather see the Gold membership give us more perks for the paid memberships than going completely free with heavier ad saturation.

Give Gold Members added perks like the following:

• one free arcade game a month or quarter as part of my Gold subscription and/or a certain number of free Microsoft points so I can spend them on songs from Zune Marketplace, arcade games, whatever
• free Creators Club, none of that $99 a year extra garbage
• HD video rentals at the same price as standard definition. And offer a 1080p option, I can get those through DISH, why can’t I get them through Xbox Live?
• the ability to turn off and/or customize blade advertisements. The Xbox Live blade has gotten increasingly worse with ads. Sure, they are targeted mostly to promoting content available in Xbox Live and I can understand the need for ads with the free Silver membership, but I’m getting more annoyed by them as a Gold subscriber
• let us have a freaking web browser! This should be free to both silver and gold level, but if they want to give additional perks to Gold, then maybe it could be a more powerful web browser that is integrated with special features for some games.

The Xbox Live Silver subscription has always been free, but gamers quickly learn that for online networked play you need a Gold subscription.

Silver should have free networked gameplay
Being able to play with as many friends as you can, the global arcade if you will, is the best part of online gaming. Comparing scores is alright, but being able to play co-op with a friend across the globe and kick butt on the videogame bad guys is where the real fun is at.

In that spirit, I actually agree with Don and Alfred at Zune Max that Microsoft should make online networked play free for Silver members. I still very much disagree that they should completely do away with the paid Gold subscriptions. It’s not a bad model to charge for subscriptions. Just make sure the paid subscription has worthwhile features. I think Microsoft could stand tweaking the Gold subscription a bit and would definitely deal a blow to the PS3 if they made online networked play free for Silver members. Will they? Time will tell.

Five months. That’s the average amount of time each Xbox 360 system has lasted before dying in our home. Yes, we use surge protection. No, we don’t beat up the hardware.

Now 2 of 6 our Xbox 360s have crapped out in the time since we’ve bought the PS3 and Wii.

The word ridiculous, maybe even astounding, comes to mind when describing how poorly the Xbox 360 hardware has performed for our family since April 15, 2006. I can think of only one other piece of gaming hardware — the Rock Band drum pedal — that has failed more than twice per year. We’re on drum set #3 since our first purchase November 2007, and I’m hoping Rock Band 2 drum kit which comes out soon will be more durable and have a longer lifespan.

At least two times per year our family is reminded of the lousy workmanship of the Xbox 360 hardware. Two times or more a year to say: “this sucks” or using today’s hot buzzword: FAIL.

You’ve probably guessed what the picture above means by now. Around dinner time last night we came home with Soul Calibur 4 and tried to fire up in my seldom used Xbox 360 Elite.

Three red rings. Nooooooooooooooooooooooo.

And here I was thinking the Elite would be different. This is a machine that had maybe an average of two plays per week over the course of 16 months. Still it holds the record in our home for the longest lasting Xbox 360, but that’s not anything to brag about. A discouraging 16 months before lighting up the three red middle finger salute. Thankfully we were smart enough to purchase the Best Buy warranty plan for 80 bones. We took it back and above you see me holding Xbox 360 #7 and Xbox Elite #2.

An now the history of our Xbox 360 carnage.

Xbox 360 systems that have died since April 15, 2006
#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.

Moral of Xbox 360 story: always, always, ALWAYS buy an extended warranty
I can’t recommend more strongly based on our own customer experience that not buying an extended warranty for an Xbox 360 is like having an orgy with a bunch of streetwalkers without wearing a condom.

The Xbox 360 still has the best live gaming experience out there, including the best selection of games to play online, and we will continue to replace the systems as they fail within warranty. But based on our experience to date, it’s reasonable to assume that out of warranty breakage heretofore could result in there being less Xbox 360 systems in play in our home. I love gaming and would replace dozens of game systems to play games that I enjoy, but having more than one of the same system constitutes a luxury and the Xbox 360 luxury tax has become very high.

Calculating an average of $300 per system and average Xbox 360 death rate of 5 months equals $60/month for the hardware cost only, not counting Xbox Live or the cost of buying games. Talk about an expensive hobby!

We still have 4 Xbox Live Gold accounts, although we’ve setup one of those to non-renew. Our oldest son doesn’t play Xbox enough to warrant having a Gold ($49.99/year) account. He’s 18 now, he can pay for it himself if he wants. If he looks at extending the life of his Xbox 360 he might be wise to play it only a couple times per year and maybe, maybe it will make it to his 21st birthday.

How long until Xbox 360 death #7 is recorded? Early 2009 if you play the averages, but wouldn’t bet against that happening by the end of the year. Double digits by 2010? Only the Xbox afterlife knows.

With Toshiba dropping support for the HD-DVD format, the PS3 is picking up sales steam as a Blu-ray player.

via Bloomberg:

The PlayStation 3 outsold the Xbox 360 in the U.S. in the first five months of 2008 after trailing Microsoft’s console in 2007. New exclusive games, such as “Metal Gear Solid 4,” and the rise of Sony’s Blu-ray as the dominant high-definition DVD player may enable PlayStation 3 to hold onto its lead.

One has to wonder just how much of an impact that has had on beating the Xbox 360 sales numbers at the start of 2008?

I’ve never seen the logic in purchasing a standalone Blu-ray player versus buying a PS3. The prices are about the same and with the ability to update firmware in the PS3 it’s a no brainer. What kind of ruthless salesperson tells an uninformed customer to buy a standalone Blu-ray player?

The PS3 improved sales are not all about Blu-ray of course, noticeable improvements have been made on the Sony gaming front. HOME still isn’t here, but several high quality games have been released plus PS3 customers received token achievement system support in the form of trophies with 2.41 for free last week. I still haven’t bagged any trophies yet, but hope to be able to change that soon.

Microsoft isn’t standing around completely flat-footed though, they are dumping the Xbox with 20GB hard drive at $299 and introducing a new standard 60GB version at $349. The Xbox Elite with 120GB sells for $449 and if you’ve got the dough, that’s the one to get. There hundreds of Xbox Arcade games, not to mention movies and TV shows; you’ll want the extra hard drive space. Sony’s Playstation Network still doesn’t hold up to Xbox Live. I realize it’s pay vs. free, which is a debate in itself, but why can’t I play great PS3 games like Super Stardust Co-op across the network with another player? When Sony answers this call, the real gamer competition will be on.

I wrote last year that I felt this coming holiday season would be the first time we’d have a true competition between the game systems. In speaking of who will be in second place that makes sense (I don’t see Microsoft or Sony unseating the Wii this coming holiday season). That comment assumed that the PS3 would have HOME which is due out (in beta, finally) this Fall. Microsoft will release their Fall update to the dashboard.

Meanwhile, the Nintendo Wii continues to kick both systems in the hiney sales-wise. Nintendo’s network is still a joke compared to Xbox Live and less so to the Playstation Store, but nobody seems to care. The Wii has catapulted Nintendo back into the game console manufacturer driver’s seat. So much for the one year lead Microsoft had with the Xbox 360. And I have yet to see Wii Fit in any store in stock locally. Step up the production already, Nintendo!

I’m not into ‘why I haven’t blogged’ posts and try to spare you the exercise. For future reference, I write when:

1. I have the time
2. Something external (another blog post, news story, new site/service, etc) moves me and/or
3. I have something (fresh, preferably) to say or share

With #3 I’m being more challenged lately. This blog has well over 1.5 million published words and has covered a lot of different web terrain. Fortunately it isn’t niche, so finding something to make us both go hmm for the rest of my lifetime shouldn’t be rocket science. It’s not as easy any more, though because I keep getting literary deja vus. I’ve got to get back to more deeper web exploration.

You don’t care, I get it, just publish mon, publish!

I’ve found the editor in me getting much more picky about what gets published though. That’s really the problem. I just looked in the draft queue and see I’ve written around a dozen posts since April 2. Blame the editor, that’s it.

I digress. Recommendation: use the Hmm search or click the archive links from the home page to revisit the keyword(s) of your liking. There’s a lot of gold in them thar hills. I’ve been thinking about creating a couple pages with links to heavily trafficked past posts. Maybe one for the highest rated ones too, as that function is getting used more than expected. We tried a rating post feature here before and it bombed. I wouldn’t say the second time is a huge improvement, but more readers and visitors are using it. That helps determine what you like and dislike, so please take the time and rate every post that you read all the way through.

Providing fresh material should be every writer’s goal and I’m seeing — right or wrong — this blog as more like a book than a place to repeat something said days, months or [gasp] years ago. The five year anniversary for this site is fast approaching (July 4, 2008) and then I’ll need to make the call what to do the next five years, health willing of course. A few ideas are percolating. I might bring in some hired guns, what do you think of that?

Missing you
I do miss reading some of my friends when they don’t update their blog for awhile and wonder what they’ve been up to. I’ve been asked: hey, why no Hmm? Is everything ok? What’s going on? Those are questions that a 21 day off period don’t answer. I remember giving blog buddy Kent a friendly stick shake when he went AWOL and he’s been kind enough not to return the favor during my blackjack period.

The picture at the top of this post should answer where I’ve been — at least in part. Yes, I’ve been practicing playing my guitar instead of publishing blog posts. I have been writing a little bit here and there, but time where I’d normally be doing the blog exercise, I’ve been practicing so I can jam with the boys on Sunday nights offline. I’m hoping we get good or bad enough to shoot some compelling video because the Hmmcast is starting to grow some nasty looking cobwebs. It’s not much fun watching video, even in HD, of an average garage band, so that footage might never come to fruition.

The calluses on my left (playing) hand haven’t been there and needed to practice time to build up. This has turned me into one of those guys you see carrying around their guitar everywhere. I’ve always thought that was neat when I see people doing that. Every musician knows that practice is the only way to get better. Heck, any skill takes lots of practice. I’m stealing my writing practice time for guitar practice.

Oh, and couldn’t stand for playing live my 20+ year old electric guitar any more, so threw down for some Gibson Les Paul studio action at one of my new guilty pleasure stores: Guitar Center.

I’m a sucker for red guitars and this red wine style is a beauty. Oh, and it comes with a sweet case too.

What do you think? How many Hmm readers play guitar? I must admit with some embarrassment that despite buying this new guitar a couple weeks ago, it is still unplayed. I brought it home, told my kids they’d be cursed for life if they touched it, set the lock on the case and stored it away in a safe, dry place.

Now before you get on me too much, I bought it to only play live, not for practice. Maybe I’ll feel differently later on, but I’ve never owned a pro quality guitar. All my gear has been fairly low budget. I’ve wanted a really good guitar since I was 14 years old and the timing was right.

I also had a pickup installed in my Washburn acoustic guitar and it sounds great. I’m planning on bringing both of these guitars to our next jam session this coming Sunday night. I’m hoping to become regularly invited to the group which involves three other guys (two are younger, one is older). They asked me to play back after the first session so that’s a good sign. Much too premature to speculate on if we’ll ever get out of the garage. Last time I played in a band was back in high school, so lots of rust to knock off for me.

I’m compiling a list of songs I can play either in part or all the way through. Here’s the current list as of this writing:

Electric
AC DC - Back in Black, Dirty Deeds, Walk All Over You
America - Horse with No Name
Ben E. King (on bass) - Stand By Me
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Blue Oyster Cult - Don’t Fear The Reaper
Dokken - Alone Again
Iron Maiden - The Trooper
Judas Priest - The Hellion, Livin’ After Midnight
Metallica - Fade To Black, For Whom The Bell Tolls
Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train, I Don’t Know
Styx - Suite Madam Blue
Ted Nugent - Cat Scratch Fever
Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak

Acoustic
John Mellancamp - Pink Houses
Five Man Electrical Band - Signs
Ritchie Valens - Donna

Have you got some good guitar song suggestions to add? There are a bunch of songs I’d like to learn how to play and, in some cases, learn how to play again. The song list shrinks if you don’t keep practicing.

Bought a bass for son
You might have noticed in the list that I snuck a song on bass in there by Ben E. King. Stand By Me is a great bass riff and fairly easy to play. My son was having trouble learning the guitar so I bough him an Ibanez bass. He’s learned a few songs on there and seems to find it easier to play with his smaller fingers.

Our third Guitar Center purchase was a set of Simmons electronic drums and drum amplifier. They sound great and we’ve been jamming a bit with bass, drums and guitar. My son who plays bass is also working on playing the drums too. We got a double bass pedal for it.

Rock Band full albums
I think what has gotten me started back into this was the game Rock Band which I’ve given high marks in the past. And speaking of Rock Band, Harmonix which makes the game yesterday started offering the first complete album: Judas Priest most excellent Screaming For Vengeance available for 1,200 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live. We bought this and played last night for a little while. Great stuff, this could give the music industry something to cheer for as I can see fans buying their album multiple times.

Worked for Judas Priest. Last night we took our youngest to dinner for his birthday and then we went and bough a CD. Which one? Screaming for Vengeance, of course.

Not sure I mentioned it, but we’re on our third set of Rock Band drums now. The newest one seems more heavily reinforced and maybe (hopefully) will last more than a month or two.

Time for me to jump back into my reading list which shows 1,000+ in Google Reader and 1,446 in reBlog and grows by the hour. Before the day is done, I might cheat and mark all as read, but we’ll see how things go.

Please share in the comments below what you’ve been up to, especially if you’re a blogger. Are you publishing less blog posts these days? Playing music or some other hobby offline? It’s good to have some variety in your life.

This morning’s news that Toshiba is officially ceasing support of HD DVD and will shut down production in March signals a (small) victory for Blu-ray as many publications are touting, but also means the price of existing HD DVD inventory will plummet soon:

"We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop," said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation

The writing was already on the wall with Wal-mart and Netflix saying they would only carry Blu-ray following the CES 2008 bombshell that Warner Bros. was going only Blu-ray. Now watch those PS3 sales soar even further.

Where does this leave the Xbox 360 which has the HD DVD as an add-on drive? Making a standalone Blu-ray Xbox 360 drive, possibly available in a few months, if you believe what alleged insiders told SmartHouse:

Insiders at Microsoft in the USA have told SmartHouse that Microsoft has already configured a standalone Blu-ray player that can be connected into an Xbox 360 and that subject to internal marketing and sales approvals the model could be on sale within 3 months

There is further speculation that Microsoft is working on a newer version of an Xbox 360 with a built-in Blu-ray drive, but I don’t think that will happen, at least in 2008. Microsoft would be wiser to continue to promote their Xbox Live Marketplace as a viable next generation movie download platform. They have the best online gaming and video area but Sony has HOME up its sleeve.

One big problem that Microsoft has is that their downloads are all wrapped in a DRM scheme on a proprietary drive while the PS3 supports using any hard drive. You can easily copy downloaded content on the PS3 to an external drive and can even run Linux. The Xbox 360 even with their 120GB hard drive is outclassed by the PS3 storage architecture.

Back to HD DVD, set your bargain bin sensor on high alert. In particular, watch for goodies like the Star Trek Original Series HD DVD sets. Star Trek Original Series Season One HD DVD (affiliate) I’ve seen the first season at the local Fred Meyer and hope the other two will be released. It’s possible all three will be available on Blu-ray.

More TV Seasons, please
I’ve been saying for some time that one major weakness in both nextgen HD formats is the lack of TV seasons.  A few TV seasons are trickling in on both HD DVD and Blu-ray, but not nearly the amount that are available in DVD. When/if this changes, Blu-ray might have a fighting chance for a little while staving off downloads.

It remains important when looking at the future of movies to remember collectors. People like buying and owning physical media. You can touch, display, there’s artwork and inserts and creative packaging. You can’t do any of that with downloadable media.