Results tagged “Amazon.com”

A middle finger raised to my ISP and a little date adjustment and away I go with the news that would've been posted last night.  I should probably raise my other middle finger to Apple, since that seems to be what everyone else is doing.  The iPad was just supposed to be another device used to simplify our lives and make Apple a lot of money in the process.  Instead, there are people smashing it with baseball bats, blending it, and putting it through a rather strenuous and some would say unnecessary stress test.  I wonder, did the Nintendo DS have to go through all this?  The Sony PSP?  Even the Nokia N-Gage, for all it was hated, wasn't destroyed so publicly and so thoroughly.  And in Japan, I bet no one ever decided to buy an Xbox 360, destroy it, and upload the video to YouTube.

There's also been "the first ever ritual reboxing of an Apple product", where a blogger decided that the iPad isn't necessary for his daily life.  What makes him an awesome person is that he did not smash his iPad or crush it or throw it out.  He calmly reboxed it, even polished up the screen, and went to return it.  He was even willing to swallow the restocking fee.  I sincerely hope that the people at his local Apple store weren't complete asses to him when he returned it.

(As a side note, the search for the Canadian lingerie product known as the iPad continues.  I'll have to go to the local sex shop and see what they have available.)

A symptom of my ISP problems yesterday is that, while I can report the rumour that EA is trying to woo the former Infinity Ward executives, we all know by now that it's true and has already happened.  Respawn Entertainment is their new company, and currently consists of two people.  Themselves.  They have a website that pretty much only says they're hiring, and their office is currently anywhere they can find a couple chairs, as they pretty much stated in their interview with Eurogamer.  I should fire an E-mail their way, just to see what happens.  I'd be far from eligible and if they respond, I'll have to admit that I'm not really interested or qualified, I just wanted to see what would happen.  Besides, I have other plans for the near future.  Activision has plans for their future, too: they've countersued Mr. West and Mr. Zampella.

Another update to some previously reported news: in Europe, Amazon has given a PS3 customer a partial refund over the Other OS debacle.  Due to how European law is written (and as far as I can understand), if Sony decides to remove some features in their PS3, the onus is on the retailer to make things right with the customer, despite the retailer having no control over what Sony does.  Meanwhile, George Hotz (the hacker who said he was going to restore Other OS into 3.21) has done what he said he would.  And no surprise here: 3.21 has bricked more fat PS3s.

This past week has been a shitty week.  First, a friend from New Jersey sent in a news article talking about the upcoming change to the rules of Scrabble.  Then one of my co-workers told me about it the very next day.  Then they had the nerve to mention it on the radio later that day.  What the rule change means is that players will now be able to use proper nouns in a Scrabble game.  As if Scrabble players needed to be reminded Beyonce exists.  Mattel was quick to point out that the traditional sets would continue to be sold, and that the new rule would only apply to a new variation they'd be marketing.  As for my opinion, well, here it is.

It's worth 81 points for those of you who care about that.  I would've presented a much stronger opinion, but it wasn't allowed in the Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary, 4th Edition.

One of my favourite comedians posted this Tweet last month.  Well, he may just get his wish, just not for the problem he wanted solved.  An alternate reality game is supposedly going to bring gamers all around the world together to solve all the major problems of today.  World hunger, poverty, disease, they're all there.  I want to say something sarcastic right now, but part of me wants this to work.  More power to this.  After all, if a gamer can suddenly decide to break the longest standing video game record of all time, and then succeed in his three day marathon attempt, who knows what we're capable of?

Cheating, is apparently what we're capable of, at least in Korea.  Yes, a video game scandal is being compared to the White Sox scandal, the biggest sports scandal of all time.  Anyway last but not least, in Australia... hey, nothing new to report from Australia regarding gaming this week.  Sweet.

This week, the Geek News Roundup is being posted earlier, for I have something I need to post.  Skip ahead to the last four paragraphs if you're impatient.  But first, the news.

There is a fourth state of matter beyond that which is known to most men.  It is a state of matter as vast as space and as timeless as infinity.  It... okay, it just falls apart the further I get.  But anyway, plasma is being used to disinfect human skin and kill germs.  Personally, I feel cleaner if I use actual soap and water, but if this kind of thing takes off into personal use, then maybe it'll help stem the spread of stuff like the Swine Flu.  The Swine Flu is now the Swine Few.  There are a few distinct variations in the flu, and that is causing some people a great deal of worry.  Hey, if I get the piggy flu, I'll just stay in bed for a week with my video games.  And while scientists are having trouble with the flu, other scientists are making progress in fighting certain kinds of cancer.

In space this week, more evidence of life on Mars has been discovered, and it's looking more and more like a certain red planet was once full of life.  Small, microscopic life, but it still counts.  Also, if you're planning a trip to Saturn any time soon, you might be in time to see a spectacular light show.  What is called the aurora borealis to those living in Alaska can also be seen on everyone's favourite ringed planet.

Microsoft sucks this week.  It looks like they don't want anyone drinking the COFEE anymore, they've issued takedown notices to many sites hosting the software.  Silly Microsoft, people will find other ways to distribute it.  Sarah Palin sucks this week.  She claims that her family used to play Scrabble a lot.  Yeah... no.  Take it from a Scrabble fanatic: I don't know how you play Scrabble in Alaska, but in the rest of the English speaking world, you don't want to hoard the Q, you want to get rid of it and hoard the Ss.  RPGs suck this week, according to Pixel Poppers.  Apparently, as an RPG gamer, I automatically suck at hard puzzles.  Hey Angela, thanks for helping me acquire a copy of Picross for the DS.  I've been enjoying it quite a bit, especially the level 10 (hardest) puzzles.

How's this for interesting?  A book called "The CIA Manual Of Trickery And Deception" is available on Amazon.com.  But wait a minute, one of these authors has already written quite a bit about the CIA, and all of a sudden, he comes across an old spy manual and decides to sell it?  It's not like it just fell into his lap, he had to go digging for it.  But anyway, as for my own writing, Adventures in Canadian Gaming will resume in December, after the end of NaNoWriMo (I am currently at 48455 words, which means I have 1545 words left to go), provided I am still alive.

In an earlier column, I mentioned Canada's Worst Driver, and made flippant, almost self-mocking comments about my own death by motorist.  It was totally and completely a joke to me.  I even mentioned the corner I figured it would happen on.  Well, at approximately 5:13pm on November 5th, five days after I posted that entry, a motorist driving a dark truck didn't even look in my direction when he was stopped at a stop sign on the corner of Campbell and 1st in my home town of Revelstoke, Canada, exactly one block away from my predicted scene of death.  I was on foot, and I hesitated because not only did I not know what he was going to do and didn't have eye contact, but he also had stopped in the middle of the crosswalk.  I didn't have to stop for him.  It was my right of way to continue walking.  If I had, he would've plowed ahead and mowed me down.  I would most likely have died on the scene or on the way to the hospital.  I hope the extra five seconds he saved driving to the bar was worth it.

On last Monday's episode of Canada's Worst Driver (rerun Fridays, when I watch it), one of the bad driver nominees who was going through the driver rehab course got a phone call.  Crystal Farao's brother-in-law, Thomas Stagno, was killed when a bad driver failed to yield for him.  The driver, Tom Marion, was charged.  Failure to yield carries a $150 fine in Canada.  It might've been worse for the driver who almost struck me, but for Thomas Stagno, that's all his life was worth.  $150.

I had someone's life in my wallet earlier today.  Could've been mine.

I could lie and say that my pile of unfinished games is the reason why I was suddenly absent from the blog for a few months, but I won't.  I haven't even touched The Chronicles of Spellborn since writing about it.

There can be disadvantages to procrastination, and that is that your opinions tend to become outdated rather quickly.  I'll see if I can recycle stuff from a column I wrote (and then didn't post) about a month or so ago, and post that next week.  I guess I didn't care enough about how out of touch Nintendo can be with the used items market to make my opinions known in a timely manner.

But if there's something I do care about, it's the acquisition of certain games that I've been looking forward to for months (and in some cases, years).  True, some of these games can turn out to be outright disasters, but for the most part, I'm usually pretty good at sniffing out quality.  If anyone wants to look for a copy of Brave Story: New Traveler for the PSP, you won't be disappointed when you do buy it.

But be careful of who you buy it from, or you may not be allowed to purchase it.  Especially if you live in Canada.  The unfortunate thing in the gaming industry is that there are less options for purchasing games that are available to you as time goes on.  As gaming retailers merge and/or buy out one another, the consumer gradually finds themselves having to buy from the same company, no matter where they go.  I was dismayed to find that if I want to buy games from EB Games here in Canada, I have to deal with GameStop in the US.  It doesn't matter that you're going through a Canadian site that says EB Games on it, these days it feels like it's just a mask; if you approached someone with a horse mask on, it doesn't make them a horse.

Also, giant gaming retailers can be as cruel to the customer as they want, since they all know they're pretty much the only game in town anymore.  When you swear one off because of a bad customer service experience, it's like deciding you won't eat at a restaurant with the letter E in its name (and yes, that includes places who use the word "restaurant" in their name).  You are left with hardly any choices afterward.  But now that I've mentioned it, EB Games (and GameStop, since you own EB now and have for quite a long time), tell me this: if the country my credit card was issued from has to match the country I want the game shipped to in order to get you to not cancel my pre-orders, how then does "CANADA" not match "CANADA"?

So after I found out the hard way that EB Games GameStop didn't want my money last November, presumably because I'm Canadian, I've been left with few other options to purchase the kinds of games I want.  Some publishers have set up their own on-line stores to help with the demand for their titles, and they're to be commended, especially since publishers see no problem with shipping their product across the 49th parallel.  But when it came time to find someone willing to sell me the new Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled game for the DS, I ran into a few rather annoying problems.  First of all, the game was developed independently, and therefore is too far under the radar for certain gaming markets to bring in.  Second of all, they had to take the time after it was released to print French instruction manuals for their game, so they could sell it in Canada.  Instead of waiting a few weeks for the Canadian market to finally acquire it (I put the blame entirely on the whiny French), I naturally took the plunge and tried out what Wikipedia calls America's largest on-line retailer, Amazon.com.

I've already purchased from them before; when my mother received a gift certificate for the site, she purchased an item and I added a few as well, so that we could save on shipping costs.  It was my credit card we were using in the first place, to cover the difference in the item that mom was purchasing, so it wasn't a problem that I wanted to buy a few things as well.  The transaction went smoothly, and at the time I had no idea that the only reason I didn't have a problem was that I was buying books and music, two items that can usually pass unrestricted across the Canada/US border.

While Amazon.com has shown that they're pretty reliable when it comes to printed and musical materials, electronics are another matter.  I admit that I don't quite understand the law as it pertains to electronics and electronic media, but it seems like there's a few things here that doesn't make sense.  Bear with me as I ramble.

As I've stated in the past, I work in an electronics retail store, a store that also happens to sell video games and music.  We're a small store, so we don't have access to as large a library of games as an EB Games or a GameStop.  Still, we seem to have access to whatever title our suppliers can get their hands on, and they're only restricted by whatever titles they're willing to risk carrying.  Games like Super Mario Galaxy and Final Fantasy XII obviously seem like sure hits, and they can afford to buy many lots of them (I don't know how many games are in a lot, I assume each lot is equal to 500 or 1000 or some other high amount of games that's easy to track by the publisher).  Games like the aforementioned Black Sigil are more risky, and so they may only choose to buy one lot, or even no lots at all.  Also, near the end of the life of a console, a supplier might choose to discontinue carrying games for that console, even if there are more games still on the way.  At least one of our suppliers has already discontinued their support of the PS2, despite the long list of upcoming PS2 games, but that's a story (and a rant) for another time.

Usually, I don't mind waiting for a game to arrive locally, but I was unwilling to wait a few weeks to see if I could get the game through my usual sources, especially since there was a chance that I couldn't.  With EB GameStop already out of the picture, I turned to the Amazon to see if they had the game.  And they did!  Naturally, I was happy to give them my business and go on my merry way.

But there's a certain wisdom you acquire when you live in a small city, and that is, if you're going to bring something in from out of town, you might as well bring a lot of that something in and save on shipping.  It's a true enough adage.  Most retail stores in town will only order from certain suppliers once or twice a year in order to lower the overall cost of bringing their merchandise in.  I found that out the hard way when I tried to order a shirt I liked through a local clothing store many years ago (this was before I had a credit card, and was therefore unable to buy from most on-line retailers).  And so after finding Black Sigil on Amazon's website, I browsed their site for other games they might have.

This is where I began to run into problems.  Apparently, not all video games are available to be purchased if you just happen to live outside of the United States, and the site can be very tight-lipped about which games can and can't be imported, especially when you're a first time buyer.  What does this mean for Canadians?  Well, there's always the Amazon.ca site.

Or not.  Valhalla Knights, for example, is available for purchase directly from the US site, as long as you live in the US, but on the Canadian site, there are only third-party copies available, and a limited quantity of them.

But that's alright, I can deal with that, since I can't afford to buy all the games I want, not yet.  So I selected a few that claimed they were available to me and went to check out.  That's when Amazon decided to change its mind on what it could and couldn't sell me.

It doesn't help that some of their shipping policies are vague and improperly explained.  Oh, I understand the pages that say "Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses." quite clearly.  But there are certain pages that say "This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.".  Okay, which countries?  Their help section gives the list as "Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom"  I note that the fourth name on the list is Canada.

Apparently, not everything that can be shipped internationally is allowed to be shipped internationally.  Case in point: Picross DS.  Notice a lack of sign posts saying Canadian Dogs Not Allowed on the page.  But when I went to the check-out page, I came across an error trying to get it, and all the other games sent to my post office box.  It's rare that a company is unwilling to accept a post office box as a mailing address, but so be it.  I added my home address even though I would probably be at work when the package arrives.  No dice for Picross: although three of my six games were suddenly allowed, this time a more succinct No Game For You message appeared beneath the other three.  The help section offered no advice for me, and short of shipping to one of my American friends and expecting them to forward the package to me, I was stuck with no other option than to cancel three of the six games in my order.  I'm not about to start treating my friends as middlemen in all my on-line transactions, just so that I can add to my unfinished games pile.

As it turned out later, there is something called Amazon Global, which claims it "takes the guesswork and heavy lifting out of international shipping."  There is also a category you can search called Video Games Available for International Shipping.  And quel suprise, Picross DS is available.  I feel like I've been given a separate water fountain to drink at, because of who I am and where I was born.  It makes no sense that you have to go to a separate page in order to purchase a game, and it does nothing but discourage me from doing business with them.

Oh, and to top it all off, now that I'm registered with them and they have my address on record, there is a handy little message that comes up and says "We are not able to ship this item to your default shipping address." when I go back to the first Picross page.  I would've liked to have had that notice before, thank you very much.  And what of the Canadian version of Amazon?  It's pretty piss poor.

The story doesn't end there, with the placement of my order.  It usually takes a couple days to process it and get it sent.  If you pay them even more money, they'll put your order to the head of the line and process it within a day or two.  Never mind the fact that they're pretty fast about shipping anyway, so you're wasting money if you want it any faster.  Also, if you don't mind receiving your order later, you can select free shipping (although France seems to hate such a policy, and calls it anti-competitive, and even fined Amazon.com a thousand euros a day over such a policy... overkill, if you ask me).

About a day after I placed the order, they randomly shipped me three of the books, but none of the games or music I ordered.  After a week of waiting for the rest of the shipment to be sent, I investigated and found on one of the items I ordered, there was another message they hadn't shown me before, and only shows up if you're already registered with them: "Shipping this item to your default address may require an additional 1 to 3 weeks to process."  So I canceled the item and they shipped the rest of my order the very next day.  Such a message probably would've been seen if I'd have already been registered, but there's no way a first time buyer will see it unless they register first before they know whether or not they'll want to use Amazon's services.  It's almost like Amazon is discouraging first time customers from even trying their service, especially if they don't live in the US.

After all that, I have to conclude that with the random way they jerked me around regarding their merchandise, Amazon.com doesn't want my money any more than GameStop does.  And with the United States government encouraging a Buy American policy, it discourages me from buying anything from an American company ever again.  A Buy Canadian policy suddenly looks like a good idea, except as I've found out on many such occasions, it's very difficult to Buy Canadian when something just isn't available in Canada, and it's not like video games are a Canadian product anyway.  Well, other than the rubbish that Ubisoft spews forth, but I've already said enough about them.


Currently Playing: Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars & Shining in the Darkness (Wii Virtual Console)

Unlike Amazon.com, the Shop Channel on the Wii is easy to use, and if a game is available to the United States, it's available to Canada as well.  Plus, it only takes a few minutes to download a game, so by the time it's released, you can practically already play it.  No shipping, no "one to three extra weeks to process" crap, etc.  Once you download it, it's ready to go.

Actually, I finished Super Mario RPG this morning.  That's how good the game is.  It felt like a longer game, despite being only about twenty hours (I beat it in twenty two), and in the end, I was satisfied.  Remember when games didn't have to stretch for fifty, sixty hours?  Yeah, this was one of them that didn't.  I'll try to have a review up soon, but no promises.  It is a rather old game, so it's not high on my list of priorities.

I originally intended to use Super Mario RPG to tide me over until the second part of Final Fantasy IV: The After Years was made available, but finished it in about a week, so I might as well give other games a try in the meantime.

While acquiring games via download has its own risks (will the download service be around forever?  Will the medium you've used to store it last forever?  Can the company suddenly decide that you no longer have the right to play it?), it is a convenient and fast way to buy and receive games you might want to only play once.  Myself, I prefer to own a physical copy of a game, but I'd be willing to go digital if given the right incentive.  It helps that it's a lot faster to download a game than it is to purchase a physical copy.

For instance, I timed how long it would take me to walk away from the computer, turn on my Wii, add Points to my account, and download Shining in the Darkness.  I was playing the game after just ten minutes.  You don't even need a Points card, you can just use a credit card to add Points to your account.  For those who prefer an instant gaming fix, downloadable content is definitely the way to go.


Looking Forward To: Lunar: Harmony of the Silver Star (PSP)

When this was first announced, I was talking to Angela about it and I stated that if anyone but Ubisoft was going to localize it, I would buy it in an instant, but if it was Ubisoft, I might skip over this game.  My rationale was that other companies had done much better jobs of games that Working Designs might've worked on if they were still around.  Square-Enix were the ones who picked up the Grandia series, for example.  NIS America could've used it to turn their reputation back around, since lately it's been slipping.  And Atlas has been localizing games like there's no tomorrow.  I totally didn't expect to hear about XSEED picking it up, and I'm kind of excited about it.  They're the ones who brought Brave Story: New Traveler over, and for that, they've earned a high spot on my list of publishers I pay attention to.

Given that I don't own a single copy of the game in its past incarnations, this is a release that I'm closely following.  I may or may not go through Amazon again, depending on if they'll randomly decide that Canadians are allowed to play the game or not.  If not, I may have to look for other means of acquiring the game.  Somewhere out there is someone who is willing to take my money.

Some very vocal Final Fantasy fans most certainly feel betrayed by Square Enix's decision to bring Final Fantasy XIII to multiple platforms outside of Japan. In fact, many of them rushed off to buy a PlayStation 3 years before the title even had a confirmed release date (it still doesn't as if this writing). But with last week's news of FFXIII most likely being monolingual on the Xbox 360, PS3 owning Final Fantasy are a little happier now. In an interview with IGN UK, Square Enix Producer Yoshinori Kitase brought up the possibility of having multiple languages on the PS3 version of the game. As for the 360, the producer said "...when we talk about XIII it's for PS3 and Xbox - with PS3 being on Blu ray there would be enough memory, but on Xbox probably not." Such a move would definitely give the PS3 version of the game another one-up over the 360 version. It works out fine for the PS3 owners who prefer subtitles over dubs. In other words, the majority fans who'd want a multiple language release of FFXIII probably already own a PS3. Not to say there aren't 360 owners out there who care about multilingual options. Square Enix's reason for a probable monolingual release for the 360 version is baffling at best. All fans deserve a multilingual option if it is technologically and economically feasible.

It is interesting to note that Mistwalker was able release two RPGs on the 360 (Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey) with multiple languages. Sure those games were released over multiple discs, but Final Fantasy XIII is already speculated to be a multiple disc release on the 360-- what's an extra disc or two? Additionally, many game developers and publishers also make language packs available as downloadable content through Xbox Live. It's a bit surprising that a company with so many resources such as Square Enix can't or won't when a smaller studio like Mistwalker can. The company has multiple options when it comes to the 360 console, why not take the time to utilize them? With the North American release more than a year away it's still too early to say what Square will ultimately do, as nothing has been solidly confirmed or denied. But at this point the company once again seems out of touch with North American fans.






Square Enix also didn't help matters last week when it sent a Cease and Desist letter to the team behind Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes. Crimson Echoes was a promising five-year fan project that centered around the modification of the Chrono Trigger ROM to create a new derivative game. The fan-made game is roughly 35 hours long, has 23 chapters, and 10 multiple endings. The game was designed to be a sequel and a bridge between Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross. It would have been distributed to fans via an emulator on May 29th. The game was 98% complete when Square Enix delivered the C&D letter. The letter itself threatens the team with legal action and fines up to $150,000 dollars. Similar legal threats were made against the fan site Chrono Compendium, because it demonstrated how to hack and modify ROMs.

On one hand it is amazing to see the lawyers at Square admit they saw the Crimson Echoes project as a threat, considering how little they've done with the Chrono Trigger franchise. Yes, we've had multiple ports and a messy sequel, but none of it even remotely compares to the company's flagship series, Final Fantasy. Given the fact that small modified ROM projects have been released in the past without objections from Square, and that Crimson Echoes had been worked on for five years already is frustrating. Does the company really see the new game as a major threat to Chrono Trigger DS, or do they have something more planned for the franchise in the future?

On the other hand, despite Square Enix sometimes looking the other way on fan projects, it isn't difficult to see why the company would want to protect its intellectual property. After all, the argument that Chrono Trigger is hard to find, or no longer in print (and therefore has been completely neglected), no longer works as it did five years ago. Even if the Crimson Echoes team had the money to mount a Fair Use defense by arguing the game has transformative value there would be no guarantee they would win such a case. The fact that game itself is a modified ROM is the biggest strike against it, even if it could be likened to an interactive fan story. It is a shame that Square does not seem interested in working out something with the team, because the dedicated CT fans who crave new material for the franchise are the ones who really suffer.

Online downloads and digital delivery aren't passing fads, they're here to stay. Services are increasingly going the way of online distribution as companies follow new consumer consumption patterns, or they attempt to cut down on costs. As a prime example Amazon.com is now in the business of selling Xbox Live points, Gold member subscriptions and Arcade titles directly from its new Xbox Live store. Unlike GameStop, where points cards and Gold subscriptions can be bought online but must be shipped out, Amazon allows users to buy a download code to redeem via Xbox Live. Arcade games can be purchased in the same manner using real money instead of Microsoft Points. For gamers who already buy these products and services through Microsoft this news won't make much of a difference.

In other content delivery news, FUNimation has partnered up with Veoh Networks in order to distribute some of its content. The FUNimation Channel launched last week with over 200 hours of content. Despite this deal more savvy users will still note the abundance of fansubbed shows on Veoh. Otherwise, it's nice to see more official FUNimation content on the web given how slow FUNimation's website can be for video streaming.

Unfortunately not everyone is happy to see online content playing a greater role in everyday life. In fact, many broadband ISPs are looking for ways to limit the consumer and squeeze money from the said content providers. One such example is Time Warner and its metered internet subscriptions. In short, various plans will have caps on bandwidth usage, the lowest priced tiers will cost $15 per month and have a limit of 1GB per said month. The highest tiers or unlimited usage (what users currently have), will carry a price of $150 per month. Additional usage fees will start at $1 per gigabyte with a cap of $75. Suddenly Comcast's bandwidth cap of 250GBs per month looks great in comparison.

One way to cut down on usage would be to buy more physical media, just hope that your DVDs aren't part of the now delayed or cancelled anime releases in upcoming months. Another way would to watch out for virus and worm infested e-mail spam, which can quickly use up precious bandwidth. (Or you could just drop Time Warner if you're fortunate enough to have an alternative.)

Despite the Wii being the little console that could its sales are lagging in Japan. In fact, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata describes it as "in the most unhealthy condition since it hit the Japanese market." Perhaps doing something about the annoying lack of games for hardcore gamers would help drive sales.

 

When GameStop announced that it made $2 billion in revenue from used games, despite the terrible economy, people took notice. It came as no real surprise when both Toys R Us and Amazon.com declared their intentions to move into the used game business. Both retailers plan to accept trade-ins for used games in exchange for credit, or in Amazon's case a gift card. As a result of Amazon's announcement GameStop stock dropped roughly 13 percent. It looks like if anyone can give GameStop a run for its money Amazon can. And if this rumor about the Xbox 360 Elite turns out to be true I wonder what the trade-in values of the console will ultimately be, (if Amazon accepts console trade-ins). Just don't mention that it makes more financial sense to actually sell games and consoles through Amazon's Marketplace to some gamers.

Many gamers may associate Newsweek with N'Gai Croal and for good reason, he's a very well-known games journalist. He announced that he would be leaving his post at Newsweek for a career as a creative consultant to game developers. For the time being Newsweek became just a little less interesting for gamers. Other mainstream media publications are finally embracing some parts of geek culture. The New York Times has actually added manga to its best-sellers lists. Naruto would naturally make the list, being so insanely popular and all.

While we're on the subject of journalism and more importantly blogging, the Pentagon has joined the blogosphere. I wouldn't be surprised if the government and the military set up Facebook and Twitter accounts next-- if they already haven't done so. I'm not sure if I should be glad the government has become tech savvy or afraid. Considering President Obama's pro-net neutrality choice for the head of the FCC a tech savvy government may be actually be beneficial.

Last week the Dow Jones industrial average hit an 11-year low and the unemployment rate hit its highest levels in 25 years. 2008, 2009 and perhaps even 2010 will be years to remember when the economy finally does recover.

It seems like everyone is going bankrupt these days. If it wasn't bad enough with the banks, the Big Three automakers are also in need of a bailout from the government. But who's looking out for the video game industry? GameDaily reported that Midway Games is close to filling for bankruptcy and needs $150 million in the next 50 days. Unfortunately, it looks like the game publisher can't blame this one on the entirely on the economy.

Amazon.com became target of pirates when a Firefox browser add-on installed a "Download 4 Free" link on the retailer's merchandise pages. The link took users to the site The Pirate Bay, where they could download torrents of the pirated merchandise. Amazon.com immediately targeted the creators of the add-on, Pirates of the Amazon, forcing them to take the site down. Later the Netherlands based creators revealed that the add-on was a parody, and part of a experiment for the Media Design course at the Piet Zwart Institute. If only more college class experiments could be so interesting.

A college experiment parody is one thing when it fools many people, but how about the suckers who fall for advertising puffery? Such was the case in San Diego, where 70-year-old William Gillis filed a lawsuit against Apple, claiming that the company lied about the performance of its newest iPhone model. Apple responded by stating, "...no reasonable person in Plaintiff's position could have reasonably relied on or misunderstood Apple's statements as claims of fact." In short, don't believe the hype spewed out by Apple commercials. Oddly enough, no one seems to be holding AT&T responsible for its 3G network performance where much of the problem seems to lie.

You might be familiar with Michael Vick and certainly O.J. Simpson. For both are football players caught, charged and convicted of doing very illegal acts to others (including animals). But you might not be familiar with New York Giants wide receiver, Plaxico Burress. He accidentally shot himself with a handgun in a New York nightclub, and in adding insult to injury has been charged with possession of a loaded handgun without a permit. Leaving that gun at home (or at least getting a permit for it) may have saved him from a mandatory three-and-a-half jail term under New York law, and possibly the loss of his career with the NFL. Talk about a glaringly stupid way to end up on the wrong side of the law.

And who needs science fiction in TV drama when you can have science fact? According to Wired.com factually accurate science is boosting ratings for some of network TV's hottest drama shows. In short, who needs Star Trek and Stargate SG-1, when you can have CSI and Numb3rs?




Image Courtesy of Gamespot.