Damo Awards 2006*
- đ
- đ 806 words
- đ 4 minutes
- đŚ Entertainment, Hardware
- đˇď¸ PC, Xbox, PlayStation
- đŹ 8 responses
Hardware: Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 enjoyed its second year and titles continue to impress although the count is still a little on the weak side. The addition of 1080p output was a great bonus but one many people (myself included) canât take advantage of without a HDMI cable and nobody seems entirely sure if the 360 can pump out a digital video signal (I doubt it).
On-line support is blooming although can get very expensive if you want all the extras for games youâve already paid for â come on guys we put ÂŁ40 down gives a few freebies!
The PlayStation 3 on the other hand is vapor ware here still in Europe and was notably absent from Japanâs premier Sony Building in Tokyo. Online the only people raving about it are those that were raving about it before it came outâŚ
Nintendoâs Wii has been getting a lot of press for being fun (if tiring and occasionally dangerous to your environment) but with the console itself is effectively a re-boxed GameCube which didnât impress 5 years ago and the graphics look very dated on the couple of titles Iâve been able to see. With rumors of a more powerful unit doing the rounds and nothing stopping anyone producing a similar controller for the 360 or PS3 can Nintendo stay a contender or will they go the way of Sega?
With consoles traditionally being loss-leaders for the first few years perhaps Nintendo would have been better off producing controllers and software for the 360 and PS3.
Game: Oblivion
People often rave about how open-ended Grand Theft Auto is but lets be honest here â it isnât a patch on Oblivion.
Like the aforementioned title you can follow the story or run off and do what you like. The difference here is that Oblivion is truly massive and is filled with interesting people, their stories and ultimately their sub-quests.
The graphics look absolutely gorgeous and show off the Xbox 360 very well â demands on the PC side are beyond what my desktop can deliver.
Surprise: Microsoft Office 2007
Microsoft took a brave step in reinventing the menu/tool bar that has been established for the last 10 years. Sure, the result isnât a giant leap in terms of innovation but it is a joy to use and a big improvement over the older technology.
Importantly it shows a beacon of hope that there are people at Microsoft prepared to fundamentally change how people use their software for the better and not just deliver to developers (.NET, XML-HTTP).
Web site: YouTube
We were told repeatedly that this would be the year of high-definition yet despite large sales of HD ready equipment the content is still a bit thin on the ground (Sky HD, Xbox 360 and a smattering of HD titles). Sony hit another strike this year as another of their proprietary formats bombed â UMD video for the PSP â although sales of TV shows on Appleâs iTunes seem to indicate there is a market for tiny distinctly non-HD video.
The real winner on the video front has to be YouTube which goes on to show that whilst content is king thereâs no reason you need to pay for it to be successful. Grainy, out of focus and copyright infringement seem the orders of the day but nobody cared â at least until a company worth suing brought them out (Google).
Communications: HTC
HTC phones and their branded variants have been popping up all over the web and in techies hands everywhere. Reviews are generally positive although Iâm finding my TyTn sluggish in a couple of areas â something I hope the latest firmware will address.
Motorola meantime has been getting bad press over itâs Rokr variants.
Appleâs vaporware mobile phone continues to get insane coverage despite nobody having anything but speculation and rumors to go on. Cisco/LinkSys released an iPhone to which they own the trademark so I guess iChat Mobile is an option.
Web application: Google Reader
Google finally put itâs arse in gear and upgraded Google Reader to something not only usable but actually enjoyable to use. Now if only they could stream out the next 20 articles BEFORE I hit them so I donât have to waitâŚ
Rojo on the other hand deployed a screwed update and continually failed to pick up feeds complaining they were invalid or couldnât be contacted despite other on-line tools were working just great. Bye.
With RSS becoming increasingly more popular something has to give and itâs news aggregation sites such as Slashdot and Digg which often reveal to you news you read several days ago and have already commented about at the original source.
[)amien
* Yeah okay, not a proper award ceremony but a useful ploy to group otherwise unrelated content into a single post.
8 responses to Damo Awards 2006*
OuchâŚ
Calm down you two⌠I donât want to break up a fight!
Sorry, it wasnât meant to sound personal, it was meant to be toungue-in-cheek but I guess I was in too much of a hurry to refine it enough :/
When I finally get my Wii you can judge for yourself anyway. Happy new year!
Wow, go for the personal attacks!
Happy 2007.
Youâre obviously a shallow gamer ;) Which is precisely the market MS & Sony are looking for â the typical equivalent of the Hollywood blockbuster moviegoers. Thatâs fine and all, itâs just rather superficial.
As you saw from my blog, I thoroughly enjoyed played a game with 8-year old graphics last night. It made my eyes hurt to begin with, but soon enough I didnât notice anymore. The same goes for great graphics â at first Iâll be impressed, but very soon Iâll become blase about them and itâll be all about the gameplay. With the need to up the ante on graphics all the time sucking down millions of dollars and therefore seriously reducing the amount of risk-taking in the industry, I personally think itâs gone too far.
Both the Wii and the DS are the antithesis of the accepted norm, and the DS has done spectacularly well at it, despite being the performance underdog. Whilst I seriously doubt the Wii will give 360 and PS3 the same drubbing DS has given PSP, I think Nintendo are on to something. I personally donât give a rats arse if Wii is less powerful than 360 â thatâs really not the point of it at all (and people who complain that itâs less powerful have missed this point entirely). The point is that by getting rid of the tech arms race on the platform, therefore halting the budget bloat, and bundling interesting control options right in there in every console, it makes making it much, much easier to experiment with new ideas. And by God the games industry needs new ideas.
I donât have a Wii yet but Lee does, and itâs a lot of fun. If youâre too attached to your graphics preconceptions youâll probably hate it though ;)
Yeah I know what you guys are saying about the Wii and Iâm sure itâs fun â I just donât know if it has the longevity or those people who arenât normally gamers but enjoy playing on it (mum, gran) would actually enjoy it enough to go out and buy one and the titles.
With the limited availability at the moment itâs hard to tell.
I still stand by the fact that graphics form an important part of the experience. Many games I used to play in my youth for hours on end just donât hold the attraction these days â they need to look great as well as play great to form an atmospheric experience for me.
I think itâs easier/more likely for Microsoft or a third party to bring out a Wii style control system for the 360 than it is for Nintendo to produce a more powerful Wii.
If you want to invite me round to show me just how fun the Wii is youâve got my number ;-)
Oh, Viva Pinata looks interesting too just because of the fact that itâs doing something no-one else is on 360. Other than that itâs wall-to-wall guns, sport or soft porn (DOA). Hmm, wonder which audience thatâs after? :)
To be honest Iâd rather have fun with the Wii now while I wait and see what PS3 does. I regretted not having a PS2 late in its life when the likes of We Love Katmari, Guitar Hero and Okami were about so who knows.
Iâm very much in the Wii camp as well.
While it is very true that the graphics of the Wii cannot compare to the 360 or PS3, Nintendo have dared to do something a little different and to be frank, this is just the sort of change the the market needs.
Over the last few years, gaming has started to become more and more a niche market. Most of the games on the 360 are geared towards a very hardcore audience, there are very few that have mass appeal. The likes of Gears of War and Halo only apply to a certain demographic and this will never change. The Wii on the otherhand, is designed to open up gaming to a larger audience and in my mind, this is a very good thing.
During Christmas, I took my Wii down to my parents. I donât think my Mum (who is in her late fifties) has ever enjoyed a game on a console before, but she loved Wii Sports (specifically tennis). She even managed to do reasonably well!
I think that in the next few years, we will see the 360 and PS3 fighting their own little battle whilst in the side wings, the Wii will be gaining greater support and an even larger audience.
P.S. The Wii also support the more traditional gamer⌠Zelda Rocks.
On the Wii side, Iâd just like to correct you â hardware is a loss-leader for everyone except Nintendo. Theyâve never sold a console at a loss, ever â so the 50,000 units that flet off the shelves just in the UK in 2 days all made them some element of profit, which is good news for them even ignoring the considerably higher tie ratio the Wii has had compared to both 360 and PS3.
On why Nintendo needs to be in the hardware game, Iâll just refer you to this article
And sure, someone could make a controller for 360 or PS3. Someone could make a touchscreen for PSP too, but they havenât even though PSP is utterly tanking compared to the DS (unless youâre a fan of shovelware or less impressive remakes of games youâve already played. LocoRoco being the one and only exception). Thereâs several reasons why neither Sony nor MS wonât be able to emulate the Wii with any huge success -
2) their target demographic is all wrong (traditional male 18â30 gamers). Theyâve painted themselves into that corner and are unlikely to get out of it any time soon
3) Actually using that kind of hardware well is pretty hard. Itâs not something you can just jump on as an afterthought, which is why for a while on Wii the first-party games are likely to be the only ones that use it properly. Others will come in time, but itâs a culture shift of sorts that you canât make late on in the game.
360 continues to interest me very little. The only thing that draws me to it is the HD output (now I have a TV to take advantage of it), and Iâve yet to see many âmust haveâ games even a year on. Dead Rising looks good, Gears of War looks interesting if a little uninventive and with a little too much âAmerican Machismo in a Canâ. No other games that I canât already play on the PC interest me. I donât have enough time to play to want to compare scores with people on Xbox Live. Itâs a nice machine, but I think MS has wasted the lead they had over PS3 â there just havenât been enough âbuy me, buy me!!â games in the time theyâve had and if theyâre not careful, PS3 will mop the floor with them in 2007. Wii is just playing itâs own game and for me, thatâs far more interesting.