I am huge fan of first person shooters, and specially online multiplayer action.

Years ago, my friends and I would lug our ancient Macs to my studio apartment just to spend the day and night playing Doom 2, Marathon and Quake.

Later, I purchased a dual channel ISDN line just to get the competitive advantage over 28k and 56k competitors during nightly frag-fests.

When it came to consoles, it wasn’t until the Sega Dreamcast was released that consoles caught my eye.

Quake 3 Arena worked well, but the Dreamcast was mostly limited to modem connectivity, and using a console controller just plain sucked for FPS games.

Next came the original Xbox. Which only came into its own toward the end of its life. Gone was the crippling modem latency, and the controller issue was partly tackled by smart aiming assistance.

This week I tried to find playable games of Ghost Recon and Call of Duty 2, on my spanking new Xbox 360.

To my dismay, it is a difficult and time consuming process.

Today’s console games lack the basic feature which have been a staple for years on PCs.

The ability to find a game quickly!

After growing frustrated, I decided to install the latest Universal Binary version of Quake 3 on my MacBook Pro.

Within minutes I was fragging away with silky smooth performance.

Quake 3 Arena is still the gold standard in my book.

The game browser is fast and easy to understand, players come and go as they wish and one players lag does not bring down the entire game.

Hopefully future console games will take a step back and relearn the lessons from 7 years ago.

I finally picked up an Xbox 360, and despite my continued criticism of Microsoft’s launch process, it is an excellent replacement for my original Xbox.

Microsoft definitely got the online marketplace right. Downloadable trailers, demos and skins really takes the idea of a connected console to the next level.

One nice surprise was the ability to play DVDs without having to purchase the remote.

Also, I wonder how much of the Virtual PC technology they acquired is in the 360?

Sony’s PSP is a cool product. I owned one for a few months, loved some of the games, but eventually parted with it do to the poor placement of the analog control pad, poor text entry capabilities (given the applications which use it), but most importantly, the lack of video output and adequate storage.

If you could play UMD movies on an external device, as well as store 10-20 GB of data on the device it would be an excellent entertainment device for traveling.

As it stands, why buy a UMD movie if you can only view it on the PSP?

It makes no sense at all. I don’t want to own 2 copies of my movies.

Which is probably why Sony is scaling back production of UMD movies.

Hopefully, Sony will either address the output issue or scrap movie playback and focus on improving the gaming aspect of the device.

has an amazing Machinima video titled Still Seeing Breen.

It was created using the Half-Life 2 game engine, and features the Breaking Benjamin track So Cold.

Is it art? A mash-up? Or simply illegal use of intellectual property?

I guess that depends on which country you live in, right?

While catching up on some podcasts, I was reminded of the Xbox 360 Tracker, to which I promptly subscribed.

After watching the results over the last week, I found it interesting that while stock did show up quite regularly, the items for sale were never the standard Core or Live systems.

Instead, bundles were being sold, which included a plethora of accessories and games, and the prices rarely dropping below $900-1000.

One would expect the retailer to gouge consumers a little, given the scare inventory, but I think there is more here than meets the eye.

Depending on which press release you believe, either Microsoft purposely scaled back production to sustain interest and sales, or demand exceeded their goals.

We know from launch numbers, demand was luke warm in Asia, and dwarfed even by the ill-fated Sega Dreamcast launch in the states.

So why blow your lead and opportunity in this manner?

After observing this the launch over the last few months, I think this boils down to something simpler.

Financial survival.

Having lost millions on the first Xbox, and the reported cost of producing a 360 somewhere between $550 and $725 per unit, even Microsoft can’t afford to sell millions of standalone units.

By tightening supply, they’re encouraging retailers to help them offset the loss up front.

Knowing that the gamers will shy away from forced bundling experienced during previous console launches, they are simply counting on the instincts of the retailers to help them

Subliminal bundling.

In this way, Microsoft is softening the financial impact during the first few quarterly reports. Instead of having to trot out the tired “razor blade” excuse to justify the massive losses incurred during the launch.

When the 360 sold out at Thanksgiving, in response to Microsoft’s PR spin, that the shortage was planned, I said they blew it.

At best they had a few months before the window would close, and gamers would turn to the Revolution and PS3.

Most PR-dependent blogs, like Gizmodo, Engadget and Joystiq, weren’t phased.

Initial response to the shortage, was to claim success and revel in the chaos moms and dads endured to secure a 360 for little Timmy, last Christmas.

Now the press is starting to turn.

If this keeps up, many folks are just going to wait for the PS3 with Blu-ray and forget about the 360. So let’s get the party started, ok Microsoft? (Via Gizmodo.)

Consider this, the Xbox 360 sold less at launch than Sega’s Dreamcast, and they missed the year end sales goal of 3 million units, selling only 1 million.

How does a company with Microsoft’s war chest screw up this badly?

It will never happen!

Microsoft is a monolithic American company. In general, most customer are noting more than an entry on a spreadsheet at a company the size of Microsoft.

But they could learn a thing from Nintendo, in regards to PR.

When Nintendo’s DS sold out in Japan over the last month, they issued an apology.

We heartily thank those who bestow their patronage on our humble company.

Over the New Year season, demand for our portable game system “Nintendo DS” has vastly exceeded our predictions. It has gone out of stock, which we know has caused a great deal of trouble to our honored customers and retailers. For this we apologize from our hearts.

We will begin to ship our product by air mail, as this will help it get to retailers a bit faster. We are shipping product every week, but as supplies will not be fully replenished until the end of January, we humbly supplicate ourselves before you and beg your favor.

Source: Wired’s GameLife

Apple when running short on iPods, or Microsoft creating a shortage for the Xbox 306, could gain a bit of goodwill with some humble communication.

Most US companies should take note of this social communication.

Joystiq: “It costs Microsoft approximately $715 to make, the manufacturing costs are still too high, another reason why they’re producing relatively small quantities.”

Can you say oops?

This is what you get when a software vendor, with too much cash and not enough experience, decides to buy their position in a new market.

Considering the lack of truly inspiring launch titles, complaints of buggy hardware and noisy operation, it is probably good for Microsoft to avoid too much market penetration.

Still come the release of Gears of War, I will be hard pressed to find a reason not to buy a 360.

Microsoft Xbox 360 a “failure” in Japan? It seems as though the Xbox 360 has been a “failure” in Japan. With reports of less than half of the allocation for Japan being sold and from what I’ve seen first hand in Tokyo, it really does not appear that the sales are going as well as Microsoft had hoped. The first-hand reports from Microsoft employees seems as if they were drinking too much Kool-Aid when one compares their accounts of the events with actual “news” reports.

In my opinion, This analysis of the Xbox 360 failure in Japan hits the nail on the head.

Microsoft generally doesn’t get it. They never have, at least not in the gaming world.

Why?

Because, as a company, they have no passion for gaming. It is merely another market to conquer. A way to grow their earnings and reassure stock holders of a bright future.

Halo is all well can good, but the Xbox doesn’t have any culturally significant titles for the Japanese gamers.

It takes 30 seconds playing Halo 2, to know it would not be a huge hit in Japan. There isn’t enough emotional expression in the main character, and a rather dry voice. Far too sterile a proposition for the Japanese market.

Gaming reviews, like G4 TV’s X-Play, love to bash on games from Asia for having too much emotion or asexual visuals.

Until U.S. game developers embrace the cultural aspects, and as noted in Unsanity post, launch Japan exclusive content adhering to the elements valued by those gamers, they will fail.

In the end the Xbox 360 will be a successful product outside Japan, but it is obvious that it was rushed to market.

Gates and Ballmer should have put their foot down and not launched until more truly spectacular titles like, Gears or War, were ready.

Are they even testing this stuff?

First they can’t produce enough units for sales in the States or Europe, but over supply Japan.

Now they release patches that break fundamental features of the console.

Microsoft released a couple patches for the Xbox 360 over the past few days, the latest of which has a massive install bug, rendering backwards compatiblity broken on a bunch of systems, including yours truly’s.

Read more at Russell’s site.

The real issues lurking under the surface may be a double shot.

In their mad rush to beat the stalwarts of the industry to market, Microsoft shipped a slightly buggy product, relying too heavily on patching the product in the field.

In my experience with consoles, Sega, Nintendo and even Atari, I don’t remember a console that was patched after launch. The beauty and appeal of game consoles. It is supposed to be a pristine platform that “just works” for both users and developers.

Microsoft may have failed to learn from Apple’s very public lesson regarding IBM’s inability to deliver PPC chips in both quantity and quality.

IBM is supposed to deliver a 64-bit chip utilizes a whopping three processor cores, each of which runs at 3.2 GHz for each XBox 360.

If IBM couldn’t produce chips at significantly lower speeds for Apple’s computer business, why would anyone believe that IBM can produce enough of these monster chips for a mass consumer product like the XBox?

I am just speculating, but with no XBox 360s on store shelves less than 2 weeks before Christmas, does any analyst really believe this is a planned shortage?

I finally kicked the habit. Tonight I nuked World or Warcraft from my Powerbook.

After having ran the marathon up to level 60, explored the world thoroughly, I attempted to start a new character.

After a few sessions I realized that the game had lost its luster for me. The graphics are gorgeous, mechanics decent, but it lacks the grand events to generate more social interaction or build a real mythology.

Like the time the Alliance raided Orgrimar taking down the server I play on, or the bug that caused a nasty disease to spread throughout the cities, killing even NPCs.

Why aren’t NPCs raiding the towns and cities? A million players grinding through a valley of Yeti, or cave full of baddies should trigger some revenge you would think.

But no.

Instead we are expected to rinse and repeat with the occasional new raid or dungeon being added.

Sure, an expansion pack is coming, but it doesn’t need too.

The game needs to get smarter, not bigger. Faster not more cumbersome.

Black Friday has come and gone.

There were no 360s anywhere.

The new excuse, stockpiling for the international launch in 2 weeks.

Does anyone buy this crap?

Seriously, the launch leader in the console market managed to have zero inventory on store shelves on Black Friday!?

Right.

Microsoft’s CFO must be looking forward to explaining this debacle to shareholders.

After finishing a particularly grueling day doing CSS browser compatibility coding, I ventured out to see the vast retail wasteland left in the wake of the XBox 360 launch.

Sure enough not a single XBox was to be found anywhere, expect for the insane gamers purchasing them for $5,000 or more on Ebay.

Best Buy actually had the gall to sell the old XBox for $149.

With my amazing wife being a expert retail shopper, I am keenly aware of Black Friday. The mythical day of the year when retailers move from red ink to black in their books.

Microsoft must be keenly aware of this day too. Because they are spinning furiously that they planned this shortage all a long, a PR stunt to drive consumers into a frenzy.

Is this shortage the worst planning in both gaming and Christmas retail history?

Black Friday will determine the truth.

If XBox 360’s are not lining the shelves of retailers Friday morning, for the little Timmy’s mother to purchase, Microsoft will have blown it. Big time!

A week ago, I swung by the local EB Games and GameSpot, to see what the prospects were for getting an Xbox 360 for my annual Thanksgiving slack-a-thon.

The nice guy at my local EB Games laughed, stating I would be lucky to get one before Christmas. He said they could cover only 40% of their preorders. The same story was repeated at GameSpot.

Figuring most sales had moved online, I checked out the news over the last week. Story after story told the same tale.

Microsoft has supposedly produced less than 1 million consoles to satiate the 2-3 million gamers eagerly awaiting the new Xbox. The rumor being, this is a deliberate tactic to create a higher sense of value and demand, while avoiding a sales spike, followed by a slump.

If this is NOT an attempt to simply cover their asses for being late to production, it the dumbest thing I have ever seen in the game industry.

Microsoft, whom has lost billions buying second place in the console market, purposely slows the saturation of the Xbox 360?

Can I call bullshit!?

They have might have 4 months before gamers will be within the Nintendo Revolution launch window.

Every day a gamer waits for the XBox 360, between launch and that window, is an opportunity for Nintendo to grab second place back from Microsoft.

Why was Microsoft incapable of producing enough units to saturate the market?

This summer at E3, Microsoft was still not coming clean on backwards compatibility. But they heard from consumers and industry pundits loud and clear, backwards compatibility was all but a requirement.

So, Microsoft probably sent the engineers back to the drawing board to figure out how to wedge some form of compatibility into an already locked down design.

Why would Microsoft have not included backwards compatibility into the 360 design?

The boat loads of cash they lost on the first Xbox.

If they left out compatibility, consumers would have to buy all new games. The icing on the cake, or blades for the costly razor they just built.

Compatibility being a late stage hack makes sense, given the news this week that an important UI element in the 360 is not available when operating in compatibility mode.

At the end of the day, it seems Microsoft is true to their stereotype.

A company incapable of wielding their clout, wealth and technical assets to achieve the mythical dominance of yet another industry.