Wireless age my butt

So I’m moving in two days, and I always pack up my comptuer stuff first so as nothing gets lost.  My last few moves I had a whole bunch of random boxes of computer stuff but as I moved I found that the boxes migrated around thus causing much chaos and chord loss.

This time I just got one long tub thing that’s meant for rolling under a bed frame or such.  Pretty much everything fit in around my monitor.  Yay!  Don’t worry, the 2405fpw is in there upside down on top of a very squishy towel. 

E3

http://blog.wired.com/games/#1530936

Poor E³.  Well, it was getting a bit…big for its own good.  A smaller affair will def ease the cost on some smaller developers, or even for the bigger ones.  Cost is an issue with everything right now.

Personally, with blogs and the free advertising of ‘teh internets,’ a E3 is kind of useless.  I’m on the side of the fence that this is a good thing, but we’ll just have to wait.

Riding the middle ground: paying the rent and getting the job done

Three years ago if you announced “I bought a laptop for $600!” you would have been shunned from humanity for being not only a cheap-ass, but a stupid cheap-ass.  Now?  You would be the average consumer.

 Let us discuss this concept of ‘good enough’ for a moment.  ‘Good’ implies a certain level of functionality, and ‘enough’ implies that for every person there is a level of required goodies.  Some need hard drive space, processing power, or video cards that are half the cost of the computer.

Think about a product, such as a computer.  Then think about the cons you would say about that product.  Not enough RAM?  Motherboard based video card?  Celeron?  Well, believe it or not, but there are people that wouldn’t notice a different if they had otherwise.   Not everyone games, not everyone needs full networking tweakability, not everyone needs hundreds of gigs, and believe me when I say there are some people that don’t even need a computer.

However, this discussion shall not be solely about computers.

Recently my Sony MDREX71 headphones died the death or their brethren.  The sound quality was just about on the spot for my requirements.  I’m not a ‘phile for anything (except for proper aspect ratio in video, but that’s more militant than ‘phileish), thank you.  I am quite happy in my middle road of balancing suck against my pocket book.  That balance, however, does not imply value devices.  Thank you I like my brand names, but you can kiss my ass if you’re think I’m going to pay for stuff I’ve no need for. 

While reading through the reviews out there for other brands, it seems that very few people realized that not everyone can hear the difference between their middle end headphones and high end expensive ones.  I was very temped by the Shure series, but eventually settled on the Sennheiser CX300B ear buds.  Good brand, but still within my price area of $50.  Yes, I know there are people that would like to flog me for even considering those Sony’s in the first place; I’ve had them as customers.  Hell, I own a Saturn, so I know all about people making faces when I tell them what brand it is.  But you know what?  They both work just fine for me.

Everyone has their own standards and needs for products, something good for you might just be overkill for that person next to you.  Keep this in mind and you might just have some happy customers.

iPodBoy

So we all know about Apple's call for "coders with gaming experience" thing, and according to reports, those hiring criteria might actually mean they are coming out with games for the iPod.  Now most rumors get me looking forward to any mention or a press event, but this?  Ya, not really.  I'm not that impressed by the idea of games on the iPod.  Now, I'm not a hard core user of my ipod.  I'm on the interstate a lot so it's mainly a method of avoiding 8,000 CDs in my car.  I don't ride the bus (although I'll be on the train a lot in the fall) so I've no reason to sit and stare at my iPod for hours on end.  I do have a 5G ipod with all my DVDs copied onto it, but I don't sit and watch them on the ipod.

I guess I'm just not their market person for those type of developments, so they woudn't care if I don't like them or not.  However, that's not my main beef with the idea of games on an ipod.

Apple values form over function.  There are a lot of people that hate the clickwheel because it's too dumbed down, some of us happen to like buttons.  There are also some of us who happened to have setups built around using firewire to connect our ipods, and its removal was a highly irritating development.  I've used the built in games on my ipod, and found them nice for a 5 min break, but not for serious game play.  I honestly can't see how the clickwheel could be functional enough for serious gaming, or at least serious enough to hire gaming coders.

Unless they can pull off a new design for the ipod, or make their games damn good with the clickwheel, I retain my opinion of "And then?" towards an iPod gameboy.