Random noise, incoherent thoughts, whatever.
How does a company go from producing a music magazine for churches to publishing a “greatest hits” compilation album to making area rugs and hardwood floors to manufacturing automotive GPS devices to manufacturing a portable video gaming system?
Read all about Gizmondo’s business history and you’ll find out.
With all the red flags in Gizmondo’s history it’s amazing investors kept on giving them money. Apparently the investors didn’t believe in due diligence.
-TPP
New York City Journals is documenting one person’s project to replicate New York City in Sim City 4.
This thing is incredible. It is extremely well done. The amount of work gone into it already must be ridiculous.
-TPP
RampRate.com has published an excellent paper on the likely impact of lack of net neutrality on online gaming.
The paper argues online gaming will be killed, if net neutrality is not enforced. The argument made in the paper says unlike for practically all other low latency services over the Internet, online gaming has no other alternatives, so it will be effectively killed, if ISPs start charging premium fees for online gaming packets.
-TPP
This week is big in the video gaming industry. There are two new video game consoles coming out in the US this week. The Sony PlayStation3 (PS3) is getting released this Friday, and the Nintendo Wii this Sunday. The demand is expected to be high, and the supply, especially for the PS3, is expected to be low.
Nobody really was surprised to see scalpers (*spit*) crawling out of everywhere and reselling PS3 and Wii pre-orders on eBay for more than 100% profit. What people didn’t really expect is to see mostly reputable retailers getting in on the act and royally screwing up their customers.
Let’s start with our first contestant: CompUSA
CompUSA has decided it doesn’t want to just sell the PS3 (at $600 + games and accessories) to customers. No, no, $600 is way to little money to spend on a gaming system. Instead they’re bundling their PS3 with a 40″ Sony HDTV. If you don’t order the 40″ TV, which has a 15% restocking fee in case you decide to return it, you can not buy a PS3 from CompUSA. How brilliant is that?
Our second contestant is Fry’s Electronics.
Fry’s wants you to REALLY enjoy the PS3, so they have you buy 8 games for your PS3 (see upper right corner of the ad). What makes this forced bundling really interesting is that there are only 13 games available for the PS3 at launch. Furthermore BestBuy got into a LOT of trouble with forcing bundles on their customers when the XBox 360 was launched. You’d think retailers would’ve learned from their mistakes. I guess not.
Our third contestant is NovaDataCom, a “network technology warehouse” (aka technology product distributor).
NovaDataCom is holding a PS3 launch party at a dance club called Ultra Bar in Washington DC this Thursday night. Each party goer has the privilege of buying one of the 1,000 PS3s available through NovaDataCom for the low, low price of $1,200 (MSRP is $600). Way to go NovaDataCom!
Our fourth contestant is GameStop / EB Games.
Their chances of winning the contest are somewhat difficult as they got some help from Sony on this one. Just like with the pre-orders for the XBox 360, GameStop recently announced that a lot of people who pre-ordered a PS3 from them are not getting one on the first day as promised. It turns out Sony cut the shipment quantities quite dramatically earlier this week. Still, you can’t help but wonder what exactly did GameStop learn from their mistakes during the XBox 360 launch. I have friends who waited for four months for their pre-ordered XBox 360 from EB Games.
Our fifth, and final, contestant is Toys’R’Us.
Toys’R’Us was wooing potential Nintendo Wii buyers with some attractive offers for free games and other goodies. Well, they changed their minds. No more free games for you, our valued customer. Go Toys’R’Us!
Who will the winner be? Will we get new contestants? Who knows, but we do know, the customer always gets screwed.
[Update 1, 11/15/2006 4:22pm]
We have a new contestant! I’m so excited!
Our sixth contestant is an enterprising scalper scum from Inwood/Washington Heights in NYC.
He’s selling his spot on the PS3 purchase line for a mere $2,000. He’s not selling a PS3 that he owns, or a pre-ordered PS3…he’s selling his spot on the line to buy a PS3. For $2,000. You still gotta pay the $600 to actually buy the PS3. The thing is…he’s 30th in line at this retailer. Very few retailers are getting that many units to sell on Thursday. There is absolutely no way in hell whoever buys his spot is getting a PS3 at this location. Consider this Craigslist ad gone as soon as the content cops at Craigslist get to it.
[Update 2, 11/15/2006 4:34pm]
That was quick. The Craigslist ad is now gone.
[Update 3, 11/19/2006 9:35pm]
Another new contestant, FYE.
FYE is running a classic bait-and-switch scam on Nintendo Wii pre-orders. When people who ordered a Nintendo Wii try and pick up their system, the retailer is forcing them to buy accesories and games with the system bringing the total price of the package from $250 to about $400. No mention of the bundling was made at the time of the pre-order. Scamalicious!
-TPP
If you play a lot of video games, you’re undoubtedly familiar with what the controllers do to your thumbs. Marathon sessions in games that require a lot of lateral movement (e.g. racing games and tennis games) will completely destroy your thumbs. Your thumbs will literally hurt after a few hours, and they will continue hurting well into the next day. It’s very uncomfortable.
A friend of mine has a great little product that almost completely eliminates the soreness. It’s a little U-shaped add-on that attaches itself on top of the thumbstick. It’ll allow you to control the thumbsticks with less pressure and force. It works with the “S” controller for the XBox and the XBox 360 controllers.
I beta tested the product for my friend and found it doing exactly what it was designed to do.
His company is called Kontrol Freek and the product is called U-150. Go take a look and pre-order one, if you like what you see.
You can also read a review on IGN.com.
-TPP
Video gamers’ favorite lawyer, Mr. Jack “Thumper” Thompson, has been caught schmoozing with the main character from the video game Bully.
We’re eagerly anticipating further developments in this breaking story.
-TPP
You know, every time I start thinking EA might’ve done the right thing and I’m considering taking them off my shitlist, they do something so completely boneheaded you have to wonder if all their people have sold their souls to the devil.
This time, instead of f***ing their employees, they’re f***ing their customers. That’s not really new to EA, but the way they’re doing it this time is pretty incredible.
Battlefield 2142, a new shooter game from EA, is accompanied by a piece of spyware that scans your PC for your browsing activity and “other computing habits”, whatever the hell that means, and then send all that data to EA. You can not play the game without installing that piece of software on your computer.
-TPP
Wired has an excellent article about the rise and fall of Stefan Eriksson, a one-time organized crime boss in Uppsala, Sweden.
Mr. Eriksson was first convicted of a crime when he was 19. He tried robbing an armored van. He continued progressing on his criminal career until 1993 when he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for fraud and trying to spread counterfeit currency in Sweden. He got out at 2000 and disappeared for a year or two.
He joined Gizmondo, a manufacturer of a portable video gaming device, with some of his fellow criminals soon after his release from prison. His compensation in this startup that had no revenue was almost $3M in 2004. Interesting way to run a startup. Not surprisingly Gizmondo filed for bankruptcy soon after it became apparent their portable gaming device would never be able to compete with the Nintendo DS and Sony Playstation Portable. The creditors’ accounting people are now wondering how did this company manage to spend nearly $400M USD in three years while generating little or no revenue. One can only assume the several luxury cars and over-the-top compensation of the company directors has something to do with it.
The downfall of Mr. Eriksson begun when he crashed his (stolen) Enzo Ferrari in Malibu last February. The police thinks he was driving the Enzo at more than 160mph at the time of the crash. Some estimates even say the speed of the vehicle might’ve been as high as 190mph. Mr. Eriksson first tried lying about who was driving the vehicle. He told the police at the accident scene a man named Dietrich had been driving and he had fled to the surrounding hills. Too bad the driver’s side airbag in the car had Mr. Eriksson’s blood on it. That’s not the only thing his blood revealed…his blood alcohol level was .09. The legal limit in California is .08.
That would’ve made the accident pretty routine, although expensive and high speed, DUI, but that’s not all that happened on that highway. Soon after the accident two vehicles stopped and two people stepped out. They flashed some official looking badges and identified themselves to the police as DHS officials and demanded they speak with Mr. Eriksson immediately. The following morning, a motorist who had stopped to help found out that a revolver had found itself under the front seat of his car. Apparently Mr. Eriksson’s associate who had come to the accident scene had dumped the gun under the seat while borrowing his cellphone.
The police investigation that followed soon found out that most of the Eriksson’s associates, incl. the two “DHS officials” were members of a police force for a local bus company, which owned not a fleet of buses, but one bus. Everyone was puzzled as to why a bus company operating a single bus would need a police force. It turns out Mr. Eriksson had made a business arrangement with the owner of the bus company. In exchange of installing free security equipment in the bus company’s premises, the owner of the bus company agreed to hire Mr. Eriksson and his former crime buddies as his police force. California state law allows bus companies to operate their own security forces and gives them some of the same powers than regular police forces have. Specifically it is easier for the members of such security forces to acquire guns, which is apparently why Mr. Eriksson and his buddies were attracted to the idea of becoming police officers. Several guns were confiscated from his and his associates’ homes. Some of the people involved are now charged with impersonating police officers.
As if that wasn’t quite enough, it turns out the Enzo Mr. Eriksson crashed wasn’t owned by him, but a bank in United Kingdom, which leased it to him. Mr. Eriksson had smuggled the Enzo, along with a second Enzo and a McLaren SLR, to United States when he moved there. His leasing agreement prohibited that, and additionally he had stopped making car payments, so all cars techincally belonged to the banks. One of the cars was, in fact, had already been reported as stolen by the bank financing it.
As a result Mr. Eriksson is now looking at seven felony and two misdemeanor charges.
Fascinating story of high life, crime and video games.
-TPP
Mark Warner, former Governor of Virginia, had an interview in Second Life, a virtual world game (kind of like MMORPG, but without leveling and fighting), earlier today.
He’s the first politician in the US, and possibly in the world, to hold a political event in a virtual environment. The interview is a precursor to a virtual town meeting he’s holding in Second Life later this year.
Governor Warner was interviewed by James Wagner Au (aka Hamlet) of New World Notes (NWN). NWN has the transcript of the interview.
It’s certainly an encouraging event when most politicians seem to be more interested in scoring family-value points by scapegoating video games and social media for all the sins in the world.
The Washington Post also has an article about the interview. Looks like there’re a few things they might want to sort out before the town hall meeting.
-TPP
Yesterday a Federal District Court Judge James M. Rosenbaum ruled that the Minnesota Restricted Video Games Act is unconstitutional. Specifically the judge ruled that the State of Minnesota has not proven violent video games lead to violent behavior. Here are some quotes from the ruling:
The State’s concerns are inchoate. It is impossible to determine from the data presented whether violent video games cause violence, or whether violent individuals are attracted to violent video games.
Further, there is no showing whatsoever that video games, in the absence of other violent media, cause even the slightest injury to children.
GamePolitics.com reports (via St. Paul Pioneer-Press) on the reaction to that ruling from various Minnesota legislators.
State Senator Sandy Pappas (D) had this to say about the ruling:
“The whole ruling defied common sense. I am so disappointed. The federal court said we don’t have a right to protect our children, but we protect our children from other things. We don’t let them smoke or buy liquor. You score points (in video games) for how many women you rape, how many cops you kill. How could that not affect them psychologically?”
Say what?
She’s, of course, talking about Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the current favorite whipping boy of politicians and insane lawyers from Miami. The problem is that’s not what the game is about. You don’t get more points for raping women or killing cops. In fact, you get into quite a lot of trouble (in the GTA game world) for killing cops. Furthermore smoking and alcohol have known and PROVEN negative effects to the well being of children. Somehow she failed to notice the part of the ruling that stated there is no evidence that says video games are harmful to kids.
Maybe the good Senator would like to also introduce bills protecting children from the baby-eating monsters that live under every child’s bed. They are, after all, just as real as the video games she’s trying to protect children from.
-TPP