Wii elbow?

As I predicted, the Wii remote is proving to be too much exercise for gamers in US. Here comes the "Wii Elbow".

Voodoo Forcast For Games

The following came from gamasutra

The latest issue of Jason Kraft and Chris Kwak's 'Video Game Journal' for the Susquehanna Financial Group examines the software attach rate for the Xbox 360, and explores why such an “alarmingly high” rate may not bode well for Microsoft's next-generation console.

Specifically, the report cites the recently announced Xbox 360 attach rate of around five games per console sold as confirmed by Microsoft in October, a number that was up from the roughly four games per console attach rate announced by the company at the console's launch in 2005.

While traditionally a growth in attach rate is considered to be a positive, the report suggests that such an increase could mean that even though Xbox 360 software continues to enjoy brisk sales, the hardware itself has not seen similar increases in consumer demand. In fact, it concludes: “We believe the unusually high attach rate on the 360 is a sign of an increasingly unhealthy console growth rate, and should be worrisome to publishers and investors.”

The analysts further explain their hypothesis by offering that a significant portion of the Xbox 360 consoles currently in circulation were purchased by hard-core gamers, who, by definition, purchase a lot of games.

Because of this, even if the hardware installed base were to remain relatively unchanged over the next 18 months, the software attach rate would continue to climb. Thus, while the numbers would seem to indicate a healthy consumer trend for the Xbox 360, the report concludes that “its growth will be capped fairly quickly without an ever-expanding hardware installed base.”

The report further adds that the Xbox 360's high software attach rate is “a damning commentary on the limited hardware installed base, most of whom are hard-core gamers.” The analysts add that what is actually needed by Microsoft for its latest console, as well as by third party software publishers, is “quicker adoption of hardware and a rapidly growing installed base on which to sell progressively more game units,” rather than just more games sold per existing Xbox 360 owner.

In conclusion, the authors state, “If the Xbox 360 sports an attach rate of ten by holiday 2007, it will probably be because it has failed to gather critical momentum. What does it benefit publishers and investors if ten games are being purchased by a total audience of 10 million 360 owners? It doesn’t take effort to see that a console with an attach rate of 8 and an installed base of 50 million is superior to a console with an attach rate of 12 with an installed base of 20 mln."

So basically, the more games you sell, the bigger the failure your console is?

PS3 Media Backlash

Looks like media backlash is in full force.

Times: Sony's Playstation 3 is Not Worth the Hype

CNN: PlayStation 3 can't hide its flaws

PS3 Grill

Someone took a Japanese PS3 and turned it into a grill.

Wii Remote Cracks TV

The following is someone's first hand account of how it happened, complete with pictures.

We brought the Wii home and played it pretty much nonstop for the past 24 hours. At 12:10am, during a slower couch-sitting game of Wii Sports: Bowling, my Nintendo Wii got angry with me.

My buddy Troy reels back to roll his ball as he's done about 300 times tonight suddenly feels the controller slip from his hand. (THANK GOD for the wrist strap right?)

Nope. Wrist strap snaps. The Wiimote flies across the room impaling my 60" rear projection TV square in the upper left corner.

Be warned: Sweaty hands + faulty Wiimote wrist strap = broken ass TV.

Xbox 360 for $100

Amazon put up a page for customers to vote on one of the 4 deals. They will offer the winning deal on 11/24 2PM. So far, Xbox 360 for $100 is leading with 88% of the vote. I wonder why. :)

Buy PS3 Because It Will Be Relevant?

"If you become a member of the PlayStation family, that investment is going to be relevant for 10 years," Hirai said at Dow Jones & Co.'s Consumer Technology Ventures conference Wednesday in San Jose, Calif. "If you look at it from a 10-year perspective, it's a great investment."

Apparently Sony feels PS3 will last 10 years. I find that not so likely. PS2 only lasted 6 years. (2000-2006). PS1 was also 6 years. (1994 to 2000)

Firefox 2.0 Beats IE 7 On Phishing Prevention

I know we are all very shocked here. In a test designed to see which of the two new browsers catches more phishing attempts. Firefox wins.

The result is Firefox blocked 243 phishing sites that IE7 overlooked, while IE7 blocked 117 sites that Firefox did not.

There is another point in Firefox's favor. IE is more used than Firefox. Still at 88% the last time I checked. So most of the attempts will be tested with IE but not Firefox.

Long story short, use firefox, don't use IE.

Java Opensourced Under GPLv2

It's finally happened. Java has been opensourced under GPLv2. Now various Linux distributions can include the JDK. And maybe we can bury mono now. I hope to see more Gnome apps in Java.

MacBook Go Core 2 Duo

MacBook has been updated with the new Core 2 Duo. With this update, now all of Apple's offering from Mac Pro to MacBook are all 64bit x86. Oh decisions decisions, 17 inch MacBook Pro or 13 inch MacBook?

PS3 Japan Launch Down To 80,000

Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun mentioned that Sony will only deliver 80,000 units of PlayStation 3 for the Japanese launch on November 11, 2006.