For the second time now, Hulu has admitted that they are blocking third party applications from accessing the service because the content holders told them too. Previously it was Boxee, this time it’s the PS3.

There’s a lot of backlash from various people on the internet. Many of them with some really well thought out comments on the subject like “Hulu should grow a pair”.  Now I do understand the point they’re trying to make, however ineloquently, but I can’t completely agree with it.

On the one hand, Boxee and the PS3 aren’t doing anything wrong. They’re just making the Hulu experience better for users. The same users who made Hulu so popular in the first place. These users win because they get more convenient access to an already great service. Even, Hulu seem to benefit because it gets to serve more ads to more people, making them more money.

Of course, even a great service like Hulu isn’t going to be very useful if it hasn’t got any content. Sure, right now, Hulu is my go to source for watching television. (Except for LOST on ABC, which should be rectified before this coming season.) But, if the people who own all those TV shows that make Hulu so popular disappear then they’re losing the users, including me. Basically, Hulu is forced to say “How high?” when the content owners say jump. Hulu can’t survive without them and while it’s in the best interest of the content owners to support Hulu they can get by without them.

That’s what happened to Joost. I signed up for the beta checked it out, realized it was a sweet piece of software and had tons of potential. Then never used it again because there weren’t enough shows worth watching. I don’t care how well the technology works if they don’t have anything worth watching I’m not going to use it.

So sure, the user complaints are justified but Hulu really doesn’t have a choice in the matter. Who knows maybe all the complaining will convince the content holders that people actually want to watch their shows. The they’ll change their evil ways and everyone, on any system, can have their brains turned into goo.

Ahh, mis-information galore, updates below.

Last night Nintendo had its fall press conference in Japan. It was obviously for Japan but most of the announcements will make  their way stateside eventually so of course I was eager to see what was announced. Of course it was a Japanese press only event meaning the only way to “see” it was to follow blogs that were actively translating Japanese “live” blogs written by people at the event. Meaning there’s at least 3 layers of interpretation between everything I read and what was actually said. But enough about the amazing accuracy of the blogosphere (is that a word now?) and on with the good stuff.

Nintendo’s first order of business was to unveiled their newest license to print money which they call the DSi. As the name implies the DSi is a new version of the DS, with the “i” apparently representing its connection with the Wii. Nintendo is calling it their third platform which is a nice way of saying they’re not retiring the DS Lite quite yet. Although I they said the same thing about the GBA when the original DS was released.

Introducing the DSi

Overall it looks pretty much the same. It’s slightly thinner and no longer has a GBA slot.  It now sports Dual touch screens both of which are The dreams of a dual touch screen device have been dashed as there is only a single touch screen on the DSi but they have had their size increased to 3.25 inches which is a whopping 17% bigger. There are two built-in cameras. One appears to be on the on the cover and the other is located on the hinge in between the screens. One of the cameras, presumably the outside one is 3 mega pixels with VGA resolution (640×480). An SD card slot has been added for storage as well as more internal memory how much exactly wasn’t said. I’m somewhat surprised there’s not an accelerometer in there too.

Along with the hardware updates are several new multimedia features. The DSi can now play back music and supports the ACC format. although I’m unsure what formats are supported. It also allows the adjustment of pitch and playback speed which will help for language study but is only likely to be used to make everyone’s songs sound like they’re being sung by Alvin and the Chipmunks. Similar to the Wii the DS will also support channels.

Along with the DSi, Nintendo will also be launching the DSi Shop which will allow users to buy DS Ware (games and other content) via a Wi-Fi connection.  DS Ware is bought with Nintendo Points which are the new Wii Points and will cost 0, 200, 500 or 800 points. Anyone who buys a DSi before March 2010 will also get 1000 points for free. Nintendo Zone hotspots which are the successor to the DS Download stations, will allow for free Wi-Fi connections at Japanese McDonald’s. Part of the DS Ware content is a free web browser application. The browser will be Opera based and supposedly runs faster than the previously released DS Browser. The first two DS Shop games will be revamped version of Brain Age 1 and 2.

The DSi will be available November 1st in Japan for $178 in either Black or White and is will be available sometime in 2009 for everyone else.

Also announced was the ability to download games directly to SD cards on the Wii starting in Spring of 2009. (Hooray!) After the american conference I’m still not sure if you’ll be required to copy games over to the Wii’s system memory in order to play them. It was mentioned that copying speeds between the SD card and Wii System memory has been dramtically increased. A new Wi-Fi adapter that was previously announced was re-announced. Also WiiSpeak and presumably Animal Crossing City Folk will be released November 20th in Japan for $79 and support both Miis and the swapping of data from the DS version of the game.

As for Wii games there were a few different. Certain Gamecube games including Pikmin are going to be re-released for the Wii as a sort of best seller series. Hopefully they won’t just be direct port and include at least wide screen and 480p support. A few new games were also announced for the Wii including Punch Out, Sengoku Musou 3, Sin and Punishment 2, Taiko no Tatsujin, and Another Code. The only one that interests me is a fully motion controlled Punch Out which has the potential to be amazing. After seeing a short video of the game it looks like it might have a chance of living up to my expectations. Miyamoto also demoed Wii Music (again) and it still sucks. They sure are putting a lot of effort into promoting a game that nobody really seems interested in.

As for the US release day it’s “well into” 2009. There’s also a picture editor included.

Some news from the American Press conference.

The Conduit which I had a chance to demo at PAX is now a first party Wii game. *Update* Turns out The Conduit isn’t going to be a first-party game. The presenter simply confused the terms first-party and first person shooter. It was recently announced that the Conduit is actually going to be published by Sega.*/Update* I’m seriously excited about this game. After playing it and talking with some of the developers I’m positive it’ll be huge. A Halo 3 for the Wii if you will.

There is going to be a WiiSpeak channel that will allow up to 4 people to chat with each other and can be downloaded off of the Shopping Channel. A coupon to download the channel will be included with the WiiSpeak Mic, hopefully this also means non-WiiSpeak microphones can also be used with the channel.

Most of this information was shamelessly stolen from the following sites:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/02/nintendo-announces-the-dsi/
http://www.destructoid.com/sort-of-but-not-really-a-liveblog-nintendo-announces-a-new-ds-model-the-dsi-105937.phtml
http://kotaku.com/5057867/liveblogging-the-nintendo-press-conference-liveblog

Alright this took a bit longer than expected but I’ve now gone through all the previous posts, separated them out and made them slightly less crappy. Ok so, technically, I did all that
sometime last week but at the time I wrote this I had just finished it all.

Penny Arcade Expo 2008

PAX 08: Day Zero
PAX 08: Day One
PAX 08: Day Two
PAX 08: Day Three
PAX 08: Left 4 Dead
PAX 08: Rock Band 2 & Guitar Hero: World Tour
PAX 08: Media Meltdown
PAX 08: The Conduit

Overall I had a blast at PAX. The biggest problem I had was there was way too much to do. Spending time in the exhibit hall meant missing the panels. Going to one panel meant you missed 2 or 3 other equally interesting panels and the exhibit hall. There were a least a dozen times when I ended up missing a panel or demo that I wanted to see because I was enjoying what I was already doing. Sometimes it worked out for the best. If I hadn’t ended up watching all of Nerdcore for Life I wouldn’t have gotten to see MC Frontalot. Other times I was too engrossed playing TF2, a game I already own, in the PC Free play room. I should have taken some time to look at the schedule ahead of time and figure out what I wanted to see and then setup some calendar appointments on my phone to remind myself.

Of course there were some issues with PAX. There were 58,000 people there over 3 days so it was pretty crowded at times. Some of the panels I would have liked to have seen filled up before I even considered getting in line for them. I didn’t have trouble getting to see any of the big events like the keynote provided I lined up early enough. It would have been nice if instead of making everyone sit in line for an hour and a half they gave out wristbands to the first 3000 people to show up and said come back in an hour. Of course then there would likely just be a line to get a wristband that would be almost as long.

Pictochat was epic. It was a great way to pass the time while waiting in line although I’ve never seen so many digital renditions of the male genitalia as I did that weekend. Occasionally the connection was spotty probably due to the sheer number of people using not only DS pictochat but wireless devices in general. I think at least 2/3 of the attendees had some sort of wireless device usually an iphone/ipod touch. Speaking of wireless the wireless connection at the expo hall didn’t work the one time I tried it my phone’s crappy WAP browser came in handy more than a few times. Mostly for Twitter which I used for keeping track of everything so I could write all this up.

One of the most annoying issues was the sounds quality. Throughout the entire Harmonix panel there was some pretty noticeable feedback whenever someone spoke. Freezepop had three or four nasty bouts of feedback while they were playing. Most notably MC Frontalot had to do a sound check after their first song because none of their monitors were setup correctly. I don’t know who was doing the sounds but it was not great. Most to all of the PAX Enforcers are volunteers but next year I’d really suggest getting some professional sounds guys in there at the very least for the concerts.

I’m definitely going to try and go back next year, hopefully with a better game plan. I’d like to get more involved with the non-PAX community activities next year as well like the Tri-Wizard Drinking Tournament or the PAX Twitter Shitters Meet up. I really wanted to get involved with that stuff this year but it didn’t work out. PAX 2010 is in Boston so that pretty much guarantees I’ll be there, I might even be able to convince a few people to go with me.

Left 4 Dead is absolutely awesome. That’s really all that needs to be said but I suppose I should elaborate.

Left 4 Dead - Coop Zombie Survival Horror. nuff said.

They only had the 360 version setup so I wasn’t very good at it but I got the hang of it. The controls worked pretty similar to just about any other 360 FPS I’ve player with the addition of the left shoulder button making you do a quick 180 degree turn. The thing I really noticed was the team dynamics. This definitely isn’t a game where you can run off like a commando and kill everything without your team. At one point I attempted to rush into a room only to find myself overwhelmed with zombies. The neat thing is you can keep track of your teammates easily. Their outline lights up on your screen when they’re in a different room or behind object. White means they’re ok, and red means they’re under attack. Reading the previews I thought that might be a weird and hard to get use to it but in reality it’s just really useful.

Instead of just dying you fall to the ground and pull out your pistol. You can still shoot zombies but can no longer move. Assuming you and your team manage to kill off all the zombies, another player can come over and help you up. They can also optionally heal you if they’ve picked up a first aid kit and are feeling generous. Of course, if you don’t manage to kill the zombies, they’ll swarm you and rip you to shreds. That effect was pretty cool aside from the being dead part. Respawning works differently too. Once you die you go into a spectator view similar to how it works in CS. As your team moves forward they’ll eventually see your aura appear ahead of them. To get back in the game your team needs to find the room you’re in and rescue you. This basically boils down to getting one of your teammates to open the door and let you out.

I only remember 3 different types of enemies: zombies, an exploding fat zombie and a big muscle-y thing that showed up right before I got ripped into a million pieces by about 20 zombies. The random spawning system Valve created keeps things tense. Sometime you won’t see anything for a minute then you’ll run into a group of 4 or 5, or out of nowhere 20 zombies are swarming all around you and it’s all you can do to beat them off. One particular creepy instance came while rescuing one of the previously killed players. While my team was letting him out of the closet, I turned around to see a single zombie running towards. I started shooting at it but it jumped to the side and clung to the side of an information booth. Of course then the four of us blew it to bits. I don’t recall any of the Zombies randomly spawning behind us like they did in System Shock 2 which is nice in a I can catch my breath way. Another really neat thing I witnesses as a group of guy who were on a street, at first there was a group of like 4 or 5 zombies ahead of them. Then one of players somehow to set off a car alarm which caused a shit ton of zombies to come running in from all directions.

I think I can safely say this is will be the best co-op zombie game ever. In just 20 minutes of play time I had 2 or 3 “oh shit moments” and while watching other people play it was apparent they were having the same experience. My only concern is Valve’s recent announcement that the free updates for TF2 on the PC are going to be Pay DLC for the 360 version. I know both my laptop and PC aren’t capable of running L4D is a playable manner but I’m hesitant to get the 360 version only to miss out on extra content later on down the line. I may end up having to finally upgrade my PC to play this game.

Both Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World tour had a pretty big presence at PAX. I didn’t feel like waiting in line for either of them but I did find myself stopping to watch various nerds’ rock just about any time I was walking by them.

The showdown: Rock Band 2 vs. Guitar Hero: World Tour

Harmonix had a single setup on a large stage that gave a rock concert vibe aside from the occasionally terrible singing. There was almost always a crowd around the stage watching or waiting in line to play. Overall it looks like a nice update to the original. Same basic setup with some minor tweaks like better sorting options on the song selection screen. One feature that I’m excited about is the inclusion of a no fail mode which should make it easier to get amateur fake rockers into the game. The new drums seemed quite a bit quieter but of course there was loud music all over the hall so it’s tough to say for sure.

Activision on the other hand chose to have 4 or 5 smaller GH: WT setups. It wasn’t quite as cool to watch but it did allow for more hands on time for anyone who was interested. Really GH: WT looks almost exactly like Rock Band. There’s a slight difference in color and the notes are round but in general the layout is pretty much the same. Of course the drums are a bit different, there are 3 toms and 2 cymbals.

I’ll probably end up buying both RB2 and GH: WT eventually. I’m more excited about Rock Band 2 but since Guitar Hero: World Tour is compatible with my current RB setup I don’t see any harm in getting both.