Malik
(4/23/04)
For those of you
who have seen my past work on lazy.GEEKS, you probably remember one
of my old features, The Collector's Bitchings. Well, I may be
under a new name, but I aim to bring the same quality news/editorial
hybrid that you loved, but with some new flavor. Now for those
of you who don't know...I could try to explain, but I think this
feature should very easily speak for itself...however, if you do
need some explanation of what you're getting into, I'm a bitchy,
cynical, sarcastic person who, quite frankly, refuses to dismiss
reality and that all the crap announced by the common media and
various electronics companies at face value (like when various
magazines started announcing last year that Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu
would be that amazing game that would redeem the Batman gaming
franchise...am I the only person who has learned anything from
countless crappy Batman games and no good ones? I hope
not...but that hope always turns out short lived). So, without
further ado, I'm Malik and you're in my world now. Who
Needs Technology to Move Forward When Backwards is so Much More Fun! There
has been plenty of talk in the last few months about the next
generation...despite how this current generation of consoles is far
from over (estimations by various makers of consoles are looking at
about 2 more years on average). Some of this news is pretty
exciting; I mean the supposed abilities we can get out of a PS3 with
a cell chip in it. If these promises of amazing visuals,
uber-fast processing, etc, all come to fruition, then the games will
hold some promise (as long as the games revolve around some good
game play and great innovations to make the technology worth
it). Also, news of new memory devices are exciting to hear
about. Like the speculation from a few sources about XBox 2
(or whatever it's titled by those all-so-creative Microsoft
marketing department drones) using flash memory cards or USB memory
sticks. Personally this excites me a lot since I have the most
useless accessory ever made for a console. Worse than the N-64
Disk Drive (Japan), the 32-X, or the wonderfully rugged
Intellivision controller; Yes, I'm talking about the XBox officially
licensed memory card that holds enough information for saves from
about 1% of all XBox games...yet it costs a whopping $20+ dollars
for a XBox memory card...someone out there cares that I get my
moneys worth... However,
while this excites me, I must say that the rest of the news
surrounding the XBox 2 memory system is a bit on the retarded
side. One of the companies that has been asked to make the new
memory device announced to the media that because of the amazing
abilities of their technology, the next XBox would be hard drive
free...now there's a couple ways of looking at this; On
one hand, you can look at this announcement and say that Microsoft,
which has not been raking in the dollars from the XBox, would
welcome this situation as a chance to cut the costs of the XBox
2. I mean if you remove the hard drive, some obvious costs in
development are cut. So there is some credibility to this
claim. On
the other hand, you can say that this certain company is trying to
trump up their importance by making it sound like they mean a lot
more to the XBox 2 than they might in actuality be worth to the
process. With this mind set, you'd also realize that Microsoft
has deep pockets...I mean they have the type of money that'd open
anyone's legs...and by not having to worry about their profit margin
as much as Nintendo, who needs their console to keep their employees
wealthy enough to meet their basic needs, Microsoft can still keep
up their XBox (the original, not number 2) strategy of losing money
in the short term to win over enough consumers to get the long range
money. Not only that, but if Microsoft de-evolved their next
generation system by removing features, two things must in turn
happen. For one, the XBox Live service (which is supposed to
continue to the XBox 2) would be cut short and reverted to something
that would lose customers; do you want XBox Live, which currently
has upgrades that affect it's use, to cut into the memory you must
shell out money for (aka, memory card) and the great risk of losing
that XBox Live service data (and the service itself) if the memory
card becomes misplaced, or more likely corrupt (I for one can count
the number of times a hard drive has crashed on me on one hand, and
the number of times a memory card has crashed on me on...wait, I
don't think an inbred redneck freak could even have enough digits
for that counting). Plus, XBox Live prides itself on having
that wonderful downloadable content. It's pretty safe to say
that downloadable anything will be greatly reduced if there is no
large internal memory, but rather far smaller external memory (which
will undoubtedly come at a large price if it's using current PC
memory technology, such as USB sticks and/or flash cards, etc). So,
I personally would have to say the answer seems almost
obvious. If Microsoft wants to win over additional customers
from the old standards (Nintendo and Sony), then they need to
impress people...not offer then something less than
revolutionary. Plus, if Sony recently has taught us anything
it's that a hard drive is a desirable idea for the console makers
(why would Sony have an add-on HD for the PS2 if it is not a
desirable accessory?). Plus, if Nintendo and Sega ever taught
us anything about add-ons for consoles, it is the sad fact that a
built-in accessory is far more desirable that one the consumer must
purchase later...don't believe me? Then you need to simply
think of the added memory chip for the N-64 (how many unit did
Nintendo have sitting in their warehouses after the fall of the
N-64?), the Sega CD (one of the worst selling peripherals of all
time), or the Sega 32-X (the worst selling peripheral of all time). Solution If
Microsoft is even considering dropping their hard drive for the XBox
2, then they need to wake up. Besides pissing off their
customers, Microsoft looks to gain nothing substantial from such a
short term solution to fix profit issues. However, in all
likelihood, the supposed maker of the memory card for the XBox 2
should instead shut the hell up and stop trying to stroke their egos
before Microsoft gets pissed off and dumps them for some other
company that has more credibility and enough sense to know their
role. While
We're Talking About Next Generation Consoles... Sony
should consider more than just the amazing abilities that the cell
ship is supposed to give the PS3...maybe they should consider their
amazing track record of making high quality electronics and low
quality consoles. Don't get me wrong; the Playstation 1&2
have both given more more joy than I thought any device could
without me entering the disturbing world of adult entertainment
stores. However, this is due entirely to the games...not the
crappy systems that have a shelf life of about one day more than the
warranty. I
for one have gone through 4 Playstations (as in I'm on my fourth
right now) and have been fighting my barely functional PS2 for the
last two years. The life span of the Playstation CD drive is
as short as a Fox Sunday night sitcom in the 7:30 timeslot.
Then there's the PS2 with it's amazing Disk Read Error (for those
who have a PS2 and have not gone through the hell of a DRE...consider
yourself blessed by the god of geeks...sadly he does not smile down
upon me or tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of other
geeks). I've seen more message boards threads on PS2 boards
dealing with DREs than there are threads for even the most
over-rated of games (FFX-2 doesn't have shit on Mr. DRE). One
figure I saw stated that possibly up to 1/4 of all PS2 owners have
suffered DREs. 1/4!!! That's incredible...in the sad and
pathetic meaning of incredible. This got to be so bad that
Sony is now offering a deal that if you suffer a DRE, you are
entitled (legally entitled) to a
free fix...the only catch is that you must be sans PS2 for a few
weeks while it's shipped off to Sony, being repaired, and sent
back. I for one am too hard core of a geek to go that long
without my PS2 as long as I have my miracle cure (that would be that
I have to hold my PS2 in the air at a specific angle while my wrist
cramps as I wait for the disk to be read...usually no more than 1
minutes each time I boot up my PS2...damn you Sony). Why does
Sony offer this repair for free, you ask? Is it because they
care so greatly for their customers? Yup, it must be...and
Marvel dropping their affiliation with Capcom to be teamed up
instead with EA is a brilliant move (who needs Mavel vs. Capcom
fighting games made by the master of fighting game, Capcom, when you
can have EA's experience with quality fighting games and their vast
library of pre-made fighting characters...Mac from SSX vs. Spiderman
sounds far cooler than Ryu vs. Spiderman). Actually, Sony
offers this service because they were sued with a class action
lawsuit. Solution How
about Sony stops stroking their egos with such cool buzz terms like
the cell chip (which probably will be cool, but it doesn't exist
yet...so it means nothing but shit to us who live in the real
world), and they tell us some better sounding concepts for their
next system...something along the lines of, "we will install
some quality CD/DVD drives that are made by something wiser and more
competent than 4 brain-damaged monkeys who currently design our
hardware". 'nuff said. Now
for a Little Humor Since
I'm in a good mood, here's a little,
pathetic joke for you all. For those who don't
understand...check Penny Arcade's archives...for those who do
understand, you are a geek's geek. "The
Critics, The Cynics, The Detractors, The Doubters WILL BECOME
CONVERTS"...sure...but what about "Those Who Are Grounded
in Some Sense of Sanity, The Realistic, The People With Common
Sense"...I guess those of use who fall in these categories are
out of luck...no conversion for me...I feel sad...and after I missed
a chance to become a N-Gage "convert"... Solution I
know it's wrong to say, but you sometimes have to just hope that
certain companies go out of business for their own good. I was
always told if I couldn't say something nice, to not say anything at
all...obviously I don't follow that...I'm too big of an ass for that
type of advice...but just this once, I'll say something nice about
Infinium Labs; at least they know their ABC's...they alphabetized
those who "WILL BECOME CONVERTS". They officially
have a kindergarten education. Maybe
they could team up with Nokia and the geniuses behind the Virtualboy...imagine
the potential...so much stupidity in such a small package...throw in
some 32-X know-how...wow, I feel stupid enough to become a convert
just thinking about it. In fact it makes me hungry...take a
taco from the Nokia people, add an extra stacked on shell from the
32-X team, put it on a tripod for easier handling ala Virtual Boy,
and a bunch of empty promises from Infinium and you'd get one hell
of a silly marketing campaign for a new version of the Taco Bell
Challupa with a good promise of less mess thanks to the tripod...mmmmmm... Concluding
Thoughts I
think that's a good start for today. There's plenty to bitch
about and plenty of time to do so, so why go overboard right
now. Personally, I'm hoping that not too many of the games
scheduled for a late summer/fall release get pushed back
anymore...while I enjoy picking up some of the games I've recently
overlooked, I still hunger for a new RPG to keep my geek mind
happy...maybe I should say a new and good RPG... As
I like to say, why do today what you can put off until tomorrow? Malik
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