I have come to terms with the truth: however hard I try, there are some things (and people) I will never understand.
Please let me present Marios Symeonidis. He decided to go on a trip to New Zealand. I can understand that. New Zealand is pretty. It doesn't have many inhabitants. And some of the locals like to perform blissfully threatening dances before rugby matches.
According to a Monday report by Reuters, Symeonidis decided to wander up Mount Ruapehu with a friend. I understand this too. There is some great skiing up on Ruapehu.
Our intrepid tourist then encountered difficulty. He became separated from his friend. I can understand that. Friends are pesky beings at times. They can be so self-centered. They can do things that annoy you--like wandering off into the woods.
Still, the problem now was that Symeonidis wasn't really dressed for a night on the mountain. He was a little lost too. Perfectly understandable.
So what did he do? Well, he texted his family in Greece to tell them that he was lost. This is where I turn around and discover that my good friend understanding has wandered off into the woods. I fear that he may never return.
We should all cheer that Symeonidis' family in Greece reportedly contacted Greek emergency services, who contacted the authorities in New Zealand, who went in search of Symeonidis. They found him (and a new friend he had encountered up the mountain) hungry but unharmed.
Perhaps you, too, are asking yourself this small question: if his cell phone was working, why didn't he just call the local emergency services in New Zealand? I believe that its code is 111, not 911.
Perhaps he was not confident in his English. Perhaps he didn't know the number. Perhaps he always called his family when difficulty confronted him. But perhaps, too, he might have been saved a little more quickly if he'd at least tried a New Zealand number or two.
Then again, perhaps he was worried about the roaming charges.
New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii in action.
(Credit: Nintendo)Nintendo doesn't take kindly to people who put one of its major releases onto the Web before it hits store shelves.
According to a report Tuesday in Australia's Sydney Morning Herald, a man has agreed to pay Nintendo 1.5 million Australian dollars (or $1.3 million) for loss of sales revenue after he allegedly illegally copied and uploaded to the Web the New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii prior to the game's Australian release last year.
Australia's Copyright Act outlaws copying and distributing video games without prior approval. Nintendo cited the Copyright Act when it took James Burt to court over the alleged incident. After being granted a search order by Australia's Federal Court, Nintendo was able to access Burt's hard drives, e-mail, and any sites for which he had password, according to the Herald.
As part of an out-of-court settlement, Burt, who is 24, agreed to pay the $1.3 million. He will also reimburse the video game company $87,000 for legal costs, the newspaper reported.
"Nintendo will pursue those who attempt to jeopardize our industry by using all means available to it under the law," the company said in a statement.
The video game industry's fight against piracy has been a long and hard battle. Numerous games are available online illegally. And with a single download, people can play them without paying a dime. Still, I'm not convinced that a $1.3 million settlement is fair.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Despite job layoffs and other cost cuts, Electronic Arts is still struggling to dig out of its current financial hole.
The game maker reported Monday that its fiscal third-quarter net loss narrowed to $82 million, down from a loss of $641 million in the year-ago quarter. Its quarter ended December 31.
EA was on a tear last year to slash expenses--laying off staff, closing down studios, and trimming its product line. But sluggish game sales, especially in Europe, took their toll on fiscal third-quarter revenue, which fell 25 percent to $1.24 billion from $1.65 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Revenue was also affected by a smaller number of titles released for the 2009 holiday-shopping season compared with 2008, the company said. Sales were driven mostly by a few new games, such as Dragon Age: Origins, Left 4 Dead 2, and NBA Live. But older standbys FIFA 10, Madden NFL 10, and The Sims 3 helped too.
The poor results didn't surprise analysts as Electronic Arts had already announced in January that its fiscal-third quarter would be weaker than expected. But the company also warned Monday that the current quarter's revenue will likely be lower--between $925 million and $1 billion--than had been anticipated. The news sent its stock down around 9 percent in Tuesday morning trading.
Despite the weak outlook, EA is pinning some hope on less-traditional business markets and a couple of new game titles.
"EA is growing share in our packaged goods business, and our digital businesses continue to grow rapidly," Chief Executive Officer John Riccitiello said in a statement. "Mass Effect 2 is the first blockbuster of 2010 and we are looking forward to the launch of Dante's Inferno and Battlefield Bad Company 2."
In particular, the company is eyeing the online game market as a potential source of more revenue. In its third quarter, EA's online game subscribers reached 1.9 million. As players buy fewer CDs in stores and increasingly hop onto the Internet for their game fix, Electronic Arts is trying to capitalize on that trend.
The company noted that its Playfish social gaming unit, which it bought in November, scored two of the top 10 Facebook games for the quarter. Reports have also surfaced that EA will launch a Facebook version of its popular Madden NFL franchise.
Still, many analysts remain pessimistic about Electronic Arts' near-term future, noting that the cost cuts aren't doing enough to turn the company around.
Is "poke" the new Konami Code? Maybe not literally, but one Electronic Arts executive has hinted that at least one of the gaming behemoth's titles is headed to Facebook, further blurring the line between social-networking applications and the game industry.
In a Bloomberg TV interview, EA Sports President Peter Moore obliquely said, "you'll see us on Facebook, going forward," with regard to its storied "Madden NFL" franchise.
Blogger Nick O'Neill of Social Times quotes someone anonymous saying this does, indeed, mean that there will be a Facebook version of "Madden NFL" (rather than, say, Facebook Connect notifications from the console) and that it will be a "simpler experience" of the original game.
No further information is available thus far, but it's easy to imagine that perhaps more of EA's titles could get a Facebook presence.
EA acquired Playfish, one of the predominant manufacturers of social games on the Facebook platform, for about $300 million late last year. In doing so, it became the first of the gaming industry's titans to really acknowledge the muscle of social games, and now it has a stellar Facebook game development team in its ranks.
But so far, social games have proven to be of a separate vein than their console and PC siblings--unless you count the obvious influence of the "Sim City" franchise on the likes of Zynga's Farmville. Free to play and reliant primarily on the sale of virtual goods, these games have roped in demographics completely different from the young males who propelled "Madden" to success.
Facebook has been the big hub for the rise of these games. But at the same time, social-game manufacturers are pushing to get their titles onto the Web at large--outside of Facebook's confines.
SAN FRANCISCO--The "gospel according to Goldberg." Turns out it can't be found in a local synagogue, Jewish deli, or Rube Goldberg device, though a couple of us puzzling through treasure hunt clues Saturday night were stubbornly stuck on those ideas.
If you're thinking more along the lines of churches and singing nuns, we want you on our team next year.
A card in the window of Noe Valley store Just for Fun, which sells tsotchkes including President Obama religious candles, indicates that sleuths have found the right answer to clue No. 6: "Home of St. Barack."
(Credit: Rafe Needleman/CNET)The Goldberg gospel was just one hint in the Tech Search Party, a semi-geeky scavenger hunt set in San Francisco's Noe Valley and organized to benefit the neighborhood's Alvarado Elementary School, which needs a technology boost. One-third of the classrooms there don't have working computers; many that do work are held together with duct tape, according to Tim Smith, the event's creator.
About 250 people descended on the normally quiet little Noe with flashlights (or flashlight apps) to solve as many clues as possible in two hours and score prizes like Geeknet gift certificates, Electronic Arts games, a date with Kara Swisher of AllThingsD (PR teams only), and, of course, bragging rights.
Smartphones were essential to the endeavor, as Web searches were needed to decipher clues like "cost $45,499 in year of Beverly Cleary's birth" (answer: the San Francisco Library in Noe, which was built in 1916), or 1:3.226 (answer: the grade of the steepest street in San Francisco: 22nd between Church Street and Vicksburg).
My team, the "Noe-it-Alls" (a runner-up for best team name, I might brag), joined 50 other teams with names like "Several Sassy Sleuths," "Is Our Children Learning?" and "Indominable Immersion Mamas" (Alvarado offers language immersion programs).
On hand were family and friends of Alvarado students; random geeks who learned of the event via Twitter or were recruited from lines for the Google and Apple commuter buses that swing through Noe Valley to take employees to work; candidates for San Francisco supervisor; and even Tyler Hinman, winner of the 2009 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. The "Scribble Monkeys" team included CNET's Rafe Needleman of Webware fame and former CNET.com Editor in Chief Steve Fox.
My team consisted of Tom and Rayna, parents of Alvarado students and owners of a Palm Treo and Motorola Q, respectively; Jonathan, who brought along his semi-functional Motorola Razr from 1913; and me, with my little ol' Samsung Alias 2. Needless to say, Rayna and Tom did the Web searching.
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When Microsoft announced last week that it would stop supporting original Xbox games on Xbox Live, some called it an end of an era.
Bungie, the developer behind the Halo series, agrees. And it wants to ensure that Halo 2 doesn't go down without a fight--or at least a proper farewell.
Writing on the Bungie blog, the company expressed regret that Microsoft has decided to discontinue support for Xbox games on its online-gaming platform.
Bungie pointed out that Halo 2, which was originally designed for the first Xbox, "has been at or near the top of the Xbox Live charts for original games since it launched over five years ago."
At the same time, Bungie is planning "one last hoorah," encouraging Halo 2 players to gather online and take on one other during a "final farewell" on April 14.
Although it plans to release more details about how gamers can play Halo 2 via Xbox Live for the last time, it seems that several folks are ready to roll. The post's comments are filled with hundreds of responses from gamers pledging their time to Bungie's event.
Look for more details on Halo 2's sendoff soon. I, for one, will be there.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
The PS3: Still losing money for Sony.
(Credit: Sony)Although PlayStation 3 sales have been on the rise and Sony has a rosy outlook for the console's future, it turns out that the company is still losing money on every PlayStation 3 unit it sells.
According to The Wall Street Journal, which examined Sony's fiscal third-quarter financial performance, the company loses 6 cents on "every dollar of PS3 hardware sales." Considering the PlayStation 3 current retails for $300, we can safely assume then, that the company loses about $18 per unit.
Admittedly, losing money on console sales is typical in the gaming industry. But Sony's losses have been slightly out of the ordinary. Not only has it been going on since launch, but when the console was released, iSuppli estimated that it cost Sony a whopping $805 to build the PS3.
For its part, Sony isn't focusing on the past. Sony Chief Financial Officer Nobuyuki Oneda told the Journal that it plans to cut PS3 production costs by "15 percent in the fiscal year ending March 2011." He said that alone would help the company generate "tens of billions of yen."
At least Sony is moving in the right direction. In December, iSuppli, a company that guesses at the cost of building game consoles and other products, said that Sony was losing about $37 per PS3 unit in production costs. If it's losing $18 now, the company seems to be on track to making the PS3 profitable in the near future.
Regardless, Sony's console has enjoyed a resurgence of sorts over the past few months as the device's more affordable price tag has prompted some to pick one up. But once each of those sales turns a profit for Sony, you can bet the company will finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Microsoft said on Friday that it plans to discontinue support for playing original Xbox games on its online service.
In a blog posting, Microsoft's Marc Whitten said that after April 15, users of the Xbox Live service will no longer be able to play titles like Halo 2 that were created for the first Xbox console.
"This isn't a decision we made lightly, but after careful consideration, it is clear this will provide the greatest benefit to the Xbox Live community," Whitten said. "And as we look down the road, we'll continue to evolve the service with features and experiences that harness the full power of Xbox 360. To reach our aspiration, we need to make changes to the service that are incompatible with our original Xbox v1 games."
Whitten said Microsoft will be reaching out directly to those affected by the change.
In the note, Whitten referenced the company's work to support the upcoming Project Natal add-on that will bring gesture and voice recognition to the Xbox 360 when it makes its debut later this year.
"We'll share more details soon, but in the meantime I want to assure you that the best is yet to come for Xbox Live," he said. "I believe we'll look back on 2010 as a landmark year in gaming and home entertainment, and I couldn't be more excited about what we have in store."
Are you the sort of person for whom "American Idol" just doesn't do it any more?
Do you crave the days when "Ally McBeal" at least brought a smile to your lips with its unisex toilet? Is your DVR merely populated by countless repeats of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" (which doesn't seem all that hard, frankly), put there by your louche, pot-smoking lover?
Well, then, please allow me to save your life.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, game company Oberon Media has somehow found something in common with both the Tetris Company and the Dish Network. The three of them have formed a digital barbershop ensemble to bring you the pleasure of playing Tetris on your TV.
Tetris is truly a game that enjoys much enthusiasm amongst certain humans.
(Credit: CC K Steudel/Flickr)For a mere $2.99 a month--yes, less than you'd pay for a decent ice cream--you can try to control little bricks that are dropping down your plasma at increasing speeds. You can spend whole evenings finally believing that Tetris is, indeed, larger than life; larger, even, than Jay Leno's head.
And let us not forget that scientists are firm in their belief that Tetris improves the functions of your brain, not merely your finger ligaments.
Because I can already feel a certain moisture gathering around your face, may I tell you that there will be two different Tetrises available: the 15-level Marathon and, for those who really feel they have much to prove to society, 40 Lines, a version in which you have to get rid of 40 lines before your louche lover realizes just how low her man's life has sunk.
Given that this monthly subscription costs a mere fraction of what it would cost to view just one pornographic movie, I feel sure that this can only be the beginning of a vast, new and much-needed frontier for television.
Last year, Sega announced that it was working on Project Needlemouse, its code name for a reinvention of the popular Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. After a long wait, Sega has finally unveiled that Project Needlemouse is in fact, Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1. (See embedded video.)
Unlike Sonic's more recent 3D (mis)adventures, Sega's next Sonic game is a direct follow-up to Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which launched on the Sega Genesis back in 1994.
According to Sega associate brand manager Ken Balough, who recently sat down with GameSpot to talk about the game, Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 will pick up after Sonic & Knuckles. Like its predecessors, the game will be in 2D.
The Wii and PlayStation 3 versions of the game will support motion, thanks to the Wii Remote and Sixaxis controller, respectively. The Wii version will run in 480p, while the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions will run in full 1080p.
Sonic 4 will stay true to its roots, Balough assured. He said spin dash and power sneakers will be available in the game. The title's music will be "very familiar tempos and styles of music that resonates with 16-bit games but also has a modern appeal."
Now, before you run to Gamestop to preorder Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1, Sega has revealed that it will be available by download only on all three major consoles this summer. It has yet to announce a price or exact launch date.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
