OK it looks like Cyril can take a victory lap around his apartment as this article backs up his arguments in my PS3/Blu Ray post.  Maybe we are looking at Laserdisc 2.0...

Taken from Geekstir.

  

I've been asked to add blogs, forums, and comments for a while now and I've always waited on the right software to come along to do this. I did a quick blog to appease some of the folks but it wasn't what I really wanted. Sure, it was a great way to test out some new programming practices and tricks but it wasn't a real strong blog software with the features that I wanted to have. Now, I think with BlogEngine, we've got a strong base to work with. I've added some minor improvements and extensions to help the guys here do some really cool stuff.

 Comments and forums were also on hold until Yet Another Forum made their latest version. While it is an alpha, I haven't had any glaring issues and so far it's worked out pretty well. Again, I made a few changes here and there thanks to access to the source code so I'm happy how it turned out.

 It just so happens that both software came out with their latest versions at the same time and I set out to see how long it would take me to get them running. Integrating the main site to access the forums to do comments wasn't too bad and changing the styles temporarily also wasn't bad as well. So after I setup a few test environments I went at it. In a span of a few days I got everything working as you see here. It's great to be able to leverage open source software for your needs and to see everything fall into place. It took me a little less than a week from start to finish to get it all working and I've made some small tweaks here and there to both the blog software and forum software since launch. 

I guess I wanted to go out of 2007 with a bang on my to do list for the site so I hope you guys enjoy the new features. 

Aeria Games is taking their latest baby out for a walk around the park.  The open beta/unnoficial release of Shaiya: Darkness and Light is enough to get any MMO-grind enthusiast's heart pumping, with shiny weapons, shiny armor, and a world populated with pointy-eared runway models.  For those that get sweaty palms when they see packs of standstill mobs, or have to wipe the stars from their eyes when surrounded by empty shells of oversized architecture, Shaiya could be your new home away from home.

There's some low-stress, easy grind action to be sought, and I crafted a male elven ranger I named "Reza," representing the "light" side of the Darkness and Light subtitle.  The temptation to make a statuesque female elf is practically irresistable, but in the end ... I just can't roll like that.  I won't blame you if you do it just to admire the artwork though.  All of the women sport a lovely decolletage, if you'll (literally) pardon my French.

Reza appeared on the outskirts of some elven complex known as Aelbaegeu (I think it's pronounced "Ally Baggett") where I deftly dodged -- with flips and air spins -- to the side as new players spawned into the world every couple seconds.  I marveled at the utterly confusing surrounds, as huge snowflakes fell from a largely blue sky, sunlight streamed through deciduous trees doing their best impersonations of evergreens, Monarch butterflies flitted about sunflowers poking out of the snow, while horned monkeys and red-tail foxes meandered through one another's herds.

Aelbaegeu itself seems nothing more than an ivory monument of sorts, with a few halberd-packing guards posing between at-attention and at-ease under open-arched entryways.  The only dangerous-looking creatures in the vicinity were some wild boars sporting meta-plated armor.  With spikes.  They're rather harmless until you blast an arrow at them, however.

As Reza spoke with some of the resident NPCs of Aelbaegeu, it became apparent that the Engrish filter hadn't made its full rounds yet.  One guard asked me "Are you a person participating in a fight newly this time?"  (I wonder how many times they strained that one through Babel Fish.)  While an accessories merchant not 50 yards away hit me with fluent netspeak by proclaiming that "Treeshade Monkeys freaking pwned my shop."

And with player characters running around with names ranging from "Shadowkiller69" to "AoiHitomi" to "Kajsa" -- the last of which I'm quite sure isn't readily pronounceable in English -- having conversations with other players might yield similar variations in lingual proficiency. 

Shaiya opens up with a perfectly shallow backstory, and perfectly shallow gameplay, that just might keep my attention fixated for a little while.  It's everything that the Western Hemisphere has come to loathe about MMOs.  But "oh well" is what I'm sayin'.  I never needed much of a backstory from Pac-Man.  Not when there's so many mobs out here to munch up like little yellow pellets.

All companies copy each other and since the Wii has had a mega hit with the controller being the main star, rumors are going around that Microsoft is looking to make one for their system as well. Right now they are the only console out of the three that doesn't have a motion sensing controller. If they do come out with one, let's hope they don't charge and arm and a leg like most of their accessories. What do you think, is a motion sensing controller just what the 360 needs to get more casual gamers into their system?

 Thanks Kotaku.

I'm surprised we haven't seen one of these sooner. Here's an example of a note chart for drums for Rock Band's Should I Stay or Should I Go. If you really want to study the note pattern without getting into the game, this is the way to do it. Now that I look at it, I think they should rotate the sheet 90 degrees so it becomes vertical.

Being on the older side of gamers, I have never run into this or even given it second thought.  However, Major Nelson had a great post on his blog today regarding why those Xbox Live Members that are under 18 can't download Demos or Trailers that are rated 'M' or 'RP'.  It all goes back to the ESRB guidelines, which impact not only Xbox Live, but Playstation Store and Wii Shop Channel.  Interesting stuff, and something that I was unaware of.

As I read Chuck's post, I got to thinking about Blu-Ray and the PS3 as a player. I've been sitting on the fence not getting any HD DVD only movies or Blu-Ray movies preferring to wait it out and see who wins before I plunk money down on a format. As a machine, the PS3 is a great build since it runs very quiet and it isn't affected by heat as a 360 is. I've kept my PS3 in my entertainment cabinet without any problems. A 360 would die in there in a few minutes. In any case, the PS3 is an adequate Blu-Ray player but I wished Sony had included an IR receiver so that I can use my Harmony remotes. I'm forced to pick up a third party option that adds a receiver but you still can't turn the console on or off with it from a remote. The inclusion of 1.1 does put the extra features capable closer to HD DVD but it's still got a ways to go.

As far as formats I don't care as long as we are down to one. The dual formats are really silly. On technical specs alone, I like HD DVD over Blu-Ray because there's less DRM, more features available currently, and older players won't have problems with newer discs unlike the evolving Blu-Ray standard that can force some players to become obsolete. Capacity is pretty much the same with HD DVD having triple layer options in the future to come close to Blu-Ray's highest capacity discs. However, if HD DVD doesn't become the standard format I won't be disappointed. I would just like it to be one or the other.

Everytime I go in looking to pick up a Blu-Ray movie, something holds me back. That's new for me since I jumped into laserdisc and DVDs from the onset. For now, I'll probably wait as long as possible before giving in and getting a movie on one format or the other. Until then, regular DVDs will suite me just fine.

The Blu Ray player in the PS3 has caused Sony all kinds of grief.  From the added cost of the device or the shortage of Blu Ray parts which restricted supply in the early months of the system's release the Blu Ray player has been a bit of boondoggle for Sony.  Of course with Blu Ray movies continuing to outsell HD DVD movies by a margin of 2 to 1 it looks like that strategy seems to be paying dividends. 

I had an interesting conversation with my cousin over holiday dinner this year.  My cousin is a smart guy, he graduated from the the Air Force academy a few years back, has flown transport missions in and out of Bahgdad, and has just wrapped up a new degree at George Washington university.  He started asking questions about the PS3, not as a gaming machine but as a Blu Ray player.  Sure it was basic stuff but he wanted to know about the variety of movies, the extra features, and how you controlled the system.  For him the game playing was the icing on the cake as the ability to play Blu Ray movies was his mechanism for getting the PS3 past the wife.

We in the press sometimes miss some of the other arguments for getting a console and this was yet another eye opening example of how outsiders perceive the gaming market.  Sure he cared about playing games but his focus was on something other than whoc platform had the best exclusives and which platform was "winning" the race.

"This has way too many buttons" my sister said as she picked up my Xbox 360 controller.  "You've got a full keyboard [the chatpad], you've got these two buttons [triggers], these two buttons [bumpers], two joysticks, and these four buttons on the front".  My sister isn't the biggest gamer in the world but she and I did spend a lot of quality time on the Atari 2600 when we were growing up so here expressing such distress over Microsoft's Xbox 360 controller was a bit intereting.  I pointed out that she had missed the thumbpad and the fact that the joysticks could be pushed down for an additional button push which caused her to roll her eyes a bit.  Spying the Dualshock controller next on the end table she picked it up and repeated the fact that the controller just had way too many buttons for "normal" people to use.

This was a bit of a shock to me as my sister has a little bit of gamer cred (we both spent a lot of time with our Atari 2600 growing up and she played a mean game of Kaboom! back in the day) .I use both controllers on a nearly daily basis without any hesitance so this was something a bit unexpected.  While it pains me to admit it this does seem to lead some credence to Nintendo's philosophy of changing how people interact with the consoles.  Maybe we as hard core gamers need to realize that not everyone is used to the 10+ button controller and that the Wii and DS really are the way to bring in new gamers.  

We played a bit of Rock Band this weekend and that went over well.  After finally figuring out some of the timing issues we were rocking out in style with my sister and fiancee on lead guitar and bass respectively and myself banging away on the drums. This certainly re-enforces every tidbit I've read about the rise of casual gaming this year.  But the question is, do casual gamers become hard core gamers or does the road end once you get a Wii?  If it is a dead end then will the niche of hard core gamers get left behind in the race to bring new gamers into the fold or not.