The PS3: Wiis and Xboxs poke fun

Lets talk about the PStriple, the ill fated third generation of Sony's popular, and before now, quite excellent consoles. I'm afraid that the PS3 makes me pity Sony a bit, and makes me wonder where they are going to go from here.

For those not in the know, Sony's console is not doing well. Lets look at the numbers. Nintendo's new Wii has been one of the fastest selling consoles of all time, doing exceptionally well with 8.61m sales to date. Microsoft's popular Xbox 360 console is doing very well, with just over 12 million consoles sold. But the Playstation 3 isn't doing so hot. Sony has moved 3.67m consoles. Whats more, they lose $250 dollars per console sold. Ouch.

Ive always been a bit of a Nintendo kid. Raised on Mario, Pokemon, and Metroid. But I love my PS2, and play it to death. I would like nothing more than for there to be an affordable PS3. But, as it stands, I have a Wii, and intend to buy an Xbox 360 soon enough, but the PS3 has zero appeal. Yes, they have some nice franchises. It is unfortunate that the Metal Gear Solid, Ninja Gaiden, and Final Fantasy empires are stuck with the PS3. But, they aren't really enough to convince me to drop $600 dollars on one. The Wii holds a lot of appeal, with its low price, solid franchises, and excellence for parties. The Xbox is more of a traditional gaming machine, popular for its shooters and widely used online multi-player, which is why I intend to get one. But the PS3 just can't do anything that those two can't, and I'm not really willing to set my wallet on fire for sharper graphics or more texture in my characters' unrealistic animu hair. Not worth it.

So, the situation is an interesting one. What can Sony do? I know they plan to knock the price down a few bucks around Christmas this year, but that can't be much help. They will just increase their loss per console, and I doubt anyone will really go for it anyway. They could release a PS3 Lite or something, dumb down the processors, chips, or whatever else is costing them 850 dollars, but I bet that would screw the hell out of the companies who are producing games for the console.

So, its a dead end. I dont know, perhaps PS3 sales will pick up. It's a good thing that PSP sales arent that bad, although the Nintendo DS beats them into a bloody pulp in the dark city alley that is sales numbers.

Perhaps Sony can find the weapon they need to win the Console War, but it looks like Nintendo and Microsoft beat them to the punch.

Once again, I find myself writing things on the internet.

Yep, its time for a post. I'm gonna talk about those idiots waiting in line for the iPhone.


"Idiots you say?! How could anyone doubt the ferocious power of the lowercase i! How can you not want to buy one?!" I hear the applefans scream. Well, let me tell you.

The iPhone is nothing new. Its 2 year old technology with an annoying touch screen interface, a shiny box, and a lower case i. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of my iPod. Love the thing to death.

But it took them 5 generations to get it right. The current gen video iPod is a thing of beauty, but it didn't start that way. Way back in the day, iPods were glitchy, with awful battery life and little memory, and they were shaped like attractive plastic and chrome bricks. These days they are purtyful slim art objects, with 80 gigs of memory and video support, but the first gen product wasn't nice.

So, on to my point. The iPhone is only purchasable with a 49.99 dollar per month contract with Cingular (I refuse to call them AT and T, that was a shameless attempt to escape their reputation), a famously crappy phone company. The contract is 2 years, and I'm gonna take a guess that it is non voidable. The phone itself is 600 dollars, because Apple didn't allow them to give a discount with contract signing.

So, lets do the math folks. 600 + 50 * 24.. Thats 1800 dollars, before applicable fees and taxes. Woo! That iPhone is costing you a cool 2000 bucks! Hope you enjoy it for the 4 months before someone else rolls something better with Verizon or some REASONABLE phone company.

Now, listen. There are some things I just cant understand. What can the iPhone do that a two year old Smartphone can't? I cant understand the appeal. Is it the touchscreen? The advertising campaign? The Apple name? The ever potent lowercase i?

The world may never know.

And I could be wrong! The iPhone could revolutionize telecommunications, just like its big brother did with mobility in music and media.

But from where I sit, it just looks like a pretty phone. If I'm wrong, do tell. Leave me a comment.

That is, if anyone has even read this. Heh. Blogging. On the Internets.




Yeehaw! Grab the camp chairs and beer coolers, its time to go camp for forty hours to get an overpriced piece of rehashed technology.

Why a blog? What the hell, son?

I'm not one of them meta 2.0ers. I like my internets nice and simple, like ye olden days, with news nets and email addresses made up of random numbers. Unfortunately, I was born a bit late for the hay day of 20 hour downloads for an animated .gif of a dancing banana. I grew into maturity in the day of super speed connections, where everyone and anyone can post anything and everything that pops into their heads at any given second. So, why am I doing this? Well, I figured I better get in on this web 2.0 nonsense before all the good names are taken by the time I decide I want to rant and rave about donut shop prices and the iPhone. I will not have a blog with numbers at the end of the name, just because I was too lazy to do this a few years earlier.

I figure Ill also use it as a convenient (Jesus, I misspelled convenient so bad the spellchecker couldn't even figure out what I was talking about. Thanks for being a useful tool and a self-esteem killer at the same time, Firefox wordchecker thing. I love and hate you.) place to practice creative writing, because I would just love to write a 400 page fantasy novel and be set for life like that lucky fellow with those Eragon books. Won't happen till I do it, but thats a story for another meaningless anecdotal post no one will ever read.

Can't really be helped, eh? Time to try to customize the layouts in this here blog, just to see if I can. Screw sleep, who needs it.