XNA Community Distribution Platform: Will anyone notice?

Last week at GDC '08 Microsoft announced that they're going to create a new distribution platform to distribute games developed on their XNA platform. This move should be more exciting to XNA (at least part time) developers like myself. Don't get me wrong the idea of being able to distribute a game a created over Xbox Live Marketplace would normally be something that you'd do a song and dance number. However, the quality of such games will need to be high in order for the gaming community to notice.

It won't be enough to have a couple of break away games, odds are they would have made it to the Xbox Live Arcade market place on there own. The community will need to sustain itself in order to be relevant which doesn't seem to be a part of Microsoft's strategy (yet). Now this can easily be fix by doing random promotions that constantly challenges to community to produce better games but only time will tell if that's in the books.

Though this should be big news for homebrew developers, this community platform has the potential to be huge for Microsoft gaming division. With integration with the Zune Microsoft has just sneeked itself into the mobile gaming market. The only problem with that is that Zune isn't exactly flying off the shelves and there by reduces the overall impact that this announcement could mean. In theory (this is coming from the my butt source) Microsoft could grow the Zune platform into a gaming platform that could compete with the Sony PSP and ideally Nintendo's DS hand helds. Right now the Zune won't win over the MP3 Player market since it seems that Apple's iPod line up appears to be a few step a head of them. However, it could be a good mobile gaming platform particularly for the casual gaming crowd. That's only one crazy theory; the real question is will anyone notice if it does?

Format War: Random Thoughts

In the last few weeks the HD Format wars has been won and the victor is Bluray. However, after looking back on the format wars its been a bit stranger than what I would have expected. In general I can't remember the last time a format war was decided by pretty much everything but the consumers. Based on average sales of HD DVD versus Bluray discs it was pretty obvious that most people were put off by the initial high cost and really don't care much about high definition content (yet). So instead of keeping this hype war going, the Bluray group felt it necessary to kill off the most direct competition and hope the market falls in line. Which would be a brilliant decision 10 years ago when DVD's didn't own the market and there are no other forms of media competing for the space. Now Bluray faces stiff competition from digital distribution and an incumbent format that still seems very adequate for the time being. So it's possible to make a case that Bluray has ended one format war to enter a new one with much more formidable competitors. Maybe Bluray's victory over HD DVD is one of many it will have to continue to win in order to stay relevant. We live in an age where an entire generation is downloading to entertain themselves. Where the older generation is heavily invested in an older disc format that isn't obsolete yet. Just a thought but to me this war isn't over yet.

Zero Punctuation: GDC Edition

This past week the first major event in the gaming world went by with some pretty big news. It seems even Yahtzee was asked to part in this years Game Developers Conference, I wonder if they knew what they're getting into.

Zero Punctuation: Sim City Societies

This weeks Zero Punctuation is one of first that was teased on the G4 television network.

First Impressions: MacBook Air

This past weekend I finally got a chance to try out the MacBook Air at my not so local Apple Store. For the most part the Air feels like it should be more. I think my whole problem with the MacBook Air isn't the fact that it's a very expensive computer (this a reality that all Apple fans must deal with) its that it isn't really that innovative. Aside from the visual aesthetics the MacBook Air is really just an underpowered notebook that doesn't bring anything new to the table.

Now it's easy to say that the Air is a useless notebook but in reality it isn't. The problem is that its only innovation is its look and not its feature set. The additional gestures on the track pad don't count due to the fact that very little software really supports this new functionality and is currently a novelty rather than a full blown feature. The Air could have really taken off (I'm sorry for that puns are never the right answer) if it had an amazing battery life, power house processor, or be a truly wireless device.

Since its very likely that my last statement can be taken quite a few ways I'll try to elaborate on them more to make my point.

1. If the Air really did have a battery life of 5 hours with normal use (current average is about 2-2.5 hours) it would still only be a good ultra portable. However, the Air could have innovated more if it had a battery life of 7-10 hours. Think of it this way if the Air could retain its form factor, still run a pretty solid OS X experience and last a whole 7+ hours on a charge; this laptop would be on this wish lists of a lot more road warriors.

2. Currently ultra portables are some of the weakest machines available on the market (for good reason). However, the Air would have given Apple an opportunity to shift that perception by creating an ultra portable that could at least perform on or close to the level of its MacBook brother. A 1.8 GHz processor is not a great speed for a brand new notebook line that needs to build its own user base. The Air's battery performance isn't anything to brag about so why not at least go for a faster processor to give the new audience more of an incentive to buy. Many people by notebooks expecting them to last a few years and perform reasonably well. In its current form I don't believe the MacBook Air can meet this expectation.

3. The true wireless device, that doesn't mean it shouldn't have attachments for a power cable though wireless power charging would be pretty sweet. What I mean by a true wireless device is one that supports interfacing with other devices wirelessly i.e. wireless USB. I know it's not quite there an doesn't have much traction yet but this seems like a sure fire way to innovate where other competitors haven't and really start setting the standards. The idea of doing something like this wouldn't be totally outrageous for Apple and would allow them to start pushing for support for wireless enabled peripherals. They could release a wireless Super Drive that uses the wireless USB standard and go from there.

However, currently the MacBook Air is an elegantly designed notebook that has sub standard performance. Though its hard to say where Apple will go with this new family of notebooks, it is definitely not one computing device that I can recommend for most users (Even of the Apple kind).

I'd like to note that my experience with the Air wasn't bad it just wasn't the machine it should be for the price. Like most Apple fans I don't mind having to pay the Apple Tax as long as I'm getting a great product for it. Unfortunately the MacBook Air is only a decent product and I can't really justify the price tag. For the price range you'd at least expect the inclusion of the USB super drive or in the very least the USB Ethernet adapter, come on Steve enough with the Nickel and Diming.

Random Music Video of the Day: Cover "The General"

A few weeks back I put up a video of the song General by the band Dispatch, this week is a cover by a pair of youtubers. I'm pretty sure that's not a word but hey welcome to the Internets. In any case the cover is probably one of the best I've heard so check out the embedded video above.

Zero Punctuation: Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare

This week Yahtzee does his favorite thing in the world does a requested review of a game. Oh wait I mean he does the one thing that he hates the most. All in all CoD 4 stood up pretty on the chop block that is Zero Punctuation.

Zero Punctuation: Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles

Is it me or does Yahtzee have a thing for Resident Evil? Well this week he's got his sights on the Umbrella Chronicles for the Wii.