In their ongoing quest to bring quality content to the videogame podcast and video-blog arena, 1up and their partner GameVideos.com have posted an OCD analysis of the latest Halo 3 video released by Bungie. For Halo fans, I’m led to understand it’s a treat for the "reasonable speculation" centers of the brain. Being only a casual Halo player, I’m largely bemused by the details, and, like a child returning to the quintessence of personal playground attacks, my only recourse is to ask, "Will I have fun?"
Rumors have been a-sailing (over the bounding Maine) of retail chains dropping supplies of the cheaper SKU of the PS3, the one with the 20GB hard drive. Evil Avatar brings us word that Sony has been paying attention to the lack of retail demand for the $500 version, and have cut supply to North America. Henceforth in this great continent-with-a-penis, you will only be able to purchase the 60GB, $600 version. Initially, I figured that this was a natural response to a lack of demand for the lesser SKU, but the commentator at Evil Avatar makes the claim that the initial offerings of the SKU were skewed in supply toward the $600 one. Thinking back, I never encountered the 20GB box in any of the big-box stores I visited. What was your experience?
I’m occasoinally oblivious to the happenings around me, which explains why this story from 1up came as a surprise to me. (Incidentally, it also explains why my wife is angry at me today.) Apparently, there was to be a patch released for Marvel: Ultimate Alliance on the 360 to prepare the game for upcoming downloadable content, including eight new playable characters. Of course, this could all be an elaborate ruse, because the patch has since disappeared from Xbox Live, after many users reported that applying it corrupted their save game files. Now I’m all excited, because Nightcrawler is among the new playable characters announced, and I have no outlet.
I haven’t purchased any of the downloadable tracks for Guitar Hero 2 on my 360, yet, because I adapt to change at the speed of a sated hippo, but there seems to be some uproar regarding the pricing scheme. 500 MS points for a three song pack equates to $6.25 / 3 or about $2.08 per song. This doesn’t seem extraordinary to me, but Tycho from Penny Arcade isn’t very keen on it, nor is Ars Technica. There’s the argument that, aggregating all the possible downloads, assuming all the songs from the first Guitar Hero are released in this fashion, the total price will be more than what you paid for the Guitar Hero 2 package. Of course, that’s why the songs are being offered ala carte. Two bucks for a song that will provide a player with an amount of fun that lasts potentially many times the song’s length seems not at all outrageous to me. Of course, neither does paying a buck for a song through the iTunes store. I suspect that, as my father has implied, I do not know the value of a dollar.
Michael at MMOGNation has posted a thoughtful editorial about objectivity in gaming journalism. His conclusions are the stuff of opinion, but they’re mostly reasonable, and at least raise some excellent questions regarding accountability, the extent to which game news writers are actually journalists (for example, I’m not one), and how technology is ruining objectivity. It’s a good read if you feel like concentrating a bit, this morning. My doctor says that concentrating on something for fifteen minutes every day will help me become less awkward around girls.