Three-Day Holiday

It's almost time to head home from my day of playing LOTR: Battle for Middle-Earth and prepare for a few days of cleaning, playing and resting. MLK day comes at a great time, as I'm still a teeny bit sick, but definitely on my road to full recovery.

GameSpot has a good article which talks about Nintendo's upcoming "Revolution" console, but I'm a bit concerned that the company is going to dig itself into a deeper hole. With the company losing around 50% market share each generation, trying to be different - just to be different - is no way to guarantee more success.



For example, the DS, while being a fun portable machine, still doesn't have enough titles that push its "innovative" design. As is, its touch screen is mostly being used for generic purposes such as menu navigation. In fact, if it weren't for Sega's Feel The Magic, the DS would sadly be lacking any real proof of its abilities. And, in the end, the system certainly isn't going to revolutionize the handheld market or cause a major change in how people develop games, anyway. That's why Nintendo really has to be careful of making their next console less of a gimmick and more of a "cool machine." Get away from your kiddy image and make a slick box that oozes style. You know that Sony and MS are certainly going to unveil some sexy console designs, so make sure that the "Revolution" looks more sports car and less toy car. There's no need to come up with some crazy innovative system... just focus on making a good multimedia machine that has online support built-in, wireless controllers and a large library of AAA launch titles.

Oh, and enough of this "we aren't competing directly with Sony" crap. You are, so face it. Living in denial is the worst place to be, especially when the possibility of losing 50% more of your market share is just around the corner.

OK, enough with my rant. I'm heading home now to eat some dinner and play some VF2. With some help from the newsgroups, I've figured out how to adjust the brightness settings, so I can finally switch from Projector to CRT mode and not have it all look washed out. Everything looks so perfect now, which means the sounds of SPoDs will definitely be in the air.

Under The Weather

I'm feeling a little under the weather these days, so I'm trying to take things a little easy. Hopefully, I won't become fully sick and spoil my weekend. Kudos goes to my wife for taking care of me and making some wonderful chicken soup. That alone should have me up and healthy quickly.

On an unrelated note, I've just put up three more pics of Miya, so definitely go and check them out in the pictures section. I've got plenty more to post, but need to go through and find all the really good ones.

For those of you waiting for Midway's NARC to come out, there's some good news for you. It looks like it's only going to put you back 20 clams instead of the expected 50. In fact, here's a clever ad announcing that fact. I'm going on a hunch here, but I'm starting to think that the $20 pricepoint has more to do with the quality of the game rather than any sort of market conditions. Here's hoping I'm proven wrong.

Lastly, I just wanted to share a link to Wat's personal blog. He and I used to have some great times, back when we were both on the editorial side. In fact, you can see a picture of us at one of Sony's E3 parties a few years back. Just go to the main page of my site and enjoy.