~ {warcadia} ~ War is Peace

There’ve been rumors on top of rumors regarding the new lower-end PS3 SKU that Sony’s undoubtedly working on for a holiday release. At this point it’s safe enough to assume it to be true.

One Microsoft blogger, Ozymandias, predicted the following a couple months ago:

My prediction is that you’re going to see the creation of a new, low-end SKU this holiday. It’ll likely remove integrated WiFi, memory card reader, and most controversially, all backward compatibility. (Remember, there’s still some back-compat hardware in even the new “software only” back compat SKUs; removing the remaining CPU is a significant cost savings.) You’ll see a new WiFi dongle made available. And finally, this low-end SKU will likely come with a smaller 40 GB hard drive. The low-end price will be set at $399, with the higher-end 80 GB SKU dropping to $499.

Will this give Sony the foothold they need to finally stand up the Microsoft’s installed base? It’s hard to tell from this angle, but i think it will make a huge difference considering the Premium 360 comes up short (from a current-gen standpoint) even against this wifi-less, back-compat-less 40gb PS3, which has twice the gigs as a 360 Pro.

Frisby, you’re cry for help may be answered very soon.

Oh you next gen’ers. How proud you are of your PS360’s and your HD and your third party support.

Being a Wii owner out early seemed like a uniqe and special thing, but now feels like a cliché “I’m a tool” kind of system to own as an only system. While I would like to deny being a tool, I get the feeling constantly I am missing out. Early on I would stroll past the little Blu-Ray containers and mass quantity of 360 games to my little comfy nook with games for 6 year olds and one or two 1st party games worth owning.

That was then. Now I stop.

I notice that 360 has some games I straight up want. PS3 has the online I BEG for Nintendo to pick up (And now hate hate them for some reason). I made it trough the drought on the Wii while wanting to play Gears like a “mutha fuka” and wondering WTF Bioshock is really about.

My very occasional movie franchise needs I attempt to meet with the Wii makes you want to hang yourself with the nunchuck wire while decent (That’s all I want sometimes) gameplay and few(er) bugs are on the “Next-Gen” consoles.
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I began skating at about age 11 or 12.

Mostly i’d ride around; i got pretty good at that. Never really got to be a great tricker. I stopped skating in general at maybe 16 years old. Hardly touched a skateboard until a couple months ago, when i bought a new one because a friend recently got into the skate culture that i had left so long ago. Chances are i would’ve been pretty good had i kept it up, but it’s not really my thing anyway. However, i do maintain a subdued appreciation for the manipulation of the board.

Whether or not that had any bearing on the following opinion is hard to figure, but skate. is a terrific game.

So terrific in fact that it’s a shame the online portion is so terrible. The voice chat is always on and travels much faster than in Warhawk, but that’s only when the voice stream isn’t stuttering, which is everywhere but the level loading screen. During a game, hardly will you hear what your buddies are saying because the levels are so huge and taxing on EA’s online network. Neither will you ever have an online session where one of your trick lines isn’t interrupted by the game’s choppiness from either rendering a level or fitting more players into your game. Not that the career mode is exactly stutter free, but EA Nation is hardly a well-implemented infrastructure for online games. Though keep in mind that EA hates Sony and my playtime has been spent on the 30fps PS3 version – the 360 game may be more well composed.

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As of yesterday, actually, in case you haven’t heard. What do you think of it? Should you have it, of course. Or plan to have it. Or don’t. Just discuss the damn thing. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s amazing the world we live in. The reasons outpace my ability to state them all, but in this post i’m referring to this Dual Shock 3 thing. Sony finally announced their rumbling PS3 pad at TGS. The incredible part is that this was something left on the cutting room floor because they couldn’t get it in their controller in time for launch, and all of a sudden it’s news that it’s here again. Not that i don’t want one or am saying anything neg, but it’s just ironic how there’s a fuss over a late arrival.

Anyway, enough pondering. The Dual Shock 3 will arrive in Japan during the month of November, and the western world will receive it next spring for some ungodly reason. Importers stay cool, the rest of you can bitch and moan as soon as you’d like. However, it seems like Sony just stuck regular rumble motors inside a Sixaxis as a placeholder for the real thing, even though the top of the controller is rebranded as “Dual Shock 3″. Hopefully, by the time the new pads mosey on down to my side of the globe they’ll have that fancy touchsense crap everybody speculated on.

I’m fine with a Sixaxis, but i’d prefer a DualShock 3.

Update- Damn.

Resident Evil 5 enjoyed(?) some atypically bad press when people started pointing racism fingers at the trailer, which showed Chris Redfield taking out some black village folk. Dude spent 10 straight years in the gym after his last gig, only to return and be called a racist? That’s a damn shame.

But apparently, the game takes place in Haiti, the cradle of zombie culture. Since i am 47% Dominican, i have a vested interest in Haiti, and therefore RE5 now. If it wasn’t for my limited Haitian knowledge and awareness, i’d be surprised that i didn’t catch on sooner (my guess was Brazil). Hope it means the story will be up to snuff enough to make me forgive Leon and Ashley’s mac and cheese dialogue in 4.

Not sure if this completely puts the overly defensive race chasers at ease, however. Wonder how the blogs are handling this one.