As I searched for something to talk about today, I came across this article from Joystiq featuring a discussion by Will Wright about Spore and the gaming industry.
For those of you who don't know Will Wright, he's not only the creator of Spore, but he's also the creator of the Sims franchise, and arguably one of the greatest game developers of all time.
And yet, I'd venture to say that at least some of you reading this have never heard of Will Wright before. I'll bet you've played the Sims and may even know about Spore, but you had no idea who Will Wright is.
If that's true, the blame shouldn't be placed on you and you certainly shouldn't be expected to perform research just to find out who develops a specific game. Instead, the blame should be placed squarely on the video game industry, and more specifically, major companies like Take-Two and Electronic Arts, for creating an environment where anonymity is not only accepted, but expected as well.
And if you ask me, that's just wrong.
... Read MoreDon 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.
When I was a kid, I usually found myself doing one of two things: playing video games at home or trying as best as I could to attract every girl I saw. Was I a video game addict? Probably. Was a socialite? Yep. And you know what? I wasn't alone.
According to a report from Reuters, Daniel Loton, an Australian graduate student found that "15 percent of 621 adult respondents to an online survey were identified as "problem gamers" who spend more than 50 hours a week playing games."
But only 1 percent of those respondents had poor social skills and shyness, suggesting the cheerleaders in school were wrong: video game addicts are cool too.
Sweet, sweet justice.
The beauty of this new study isn't that it tells us something we didn't already know--I was known as the cool dude on campus for a reason, you know--but it helps us combat the fools who insist that video games are bad for children and hinder their ability to interact in the real world.
... Read MoreDon 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.
An interesting article from Kotaku today, discusses Ubisoft's intention to get into the film business and try to expand its offerings beyond video games.
"Our goal is to create a studio that will be very high quality, our goal is to try to get to the level of quality of Peter Jackson's Weta studio," Ubisoft's CEO Yves Guillemot said in an interview. "We have been working to train people, to recruit highly talented people and we are in test mode at the moment. We are going to make sure that we get to the level of Weta. We have a long way to go but in getting to that level will help us to actually be one of the studios where everybody has to go."
Peter Jackson, best known for The Lord of the Rings trilogy and as director of King Kong, is currently working in collaboration with Bungie to create a new game set in the Halo universe. The game is currently titled Halo: Chronicles, but no release date has been given.
Guillemot sounds ambitious and I applaud him for trying to do more with his business, I can't help but wonder if video game developers have any place in other forms of entertainment. Can they really create a stellar sitcom or a blockbuster hit at the theaters? Are they capable of publishing sci-fi novels?
With the way things are going in all of those industries, I don't think it's too far-fetched at all.
... Read MoreDon 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 MP3 player market is one where logic is thrown out the window and as long as the player is manufactured by Apple, it'll perform quite well. Although there have been a number of solid alternatives, none have gained ground. And by the look of things, the Zune is up next on the chopping block.
According to GameStop, it will stop selling the Zune in its stores due to insufficient demand from customers. And although it may not matter to, oh, 99 percent of you, the fact that GameStop is ditching the Zune tells you that Microsoft's media player is on its way out.
"We have decided to exit the Zune category because it just did not have the appeal we had anticipated," said a GameStop spokesperson. "It (also) did not fit with our product mix."
GameStop's decision to remove the Zune from its store shelves reflects an increasingly prominent notion among retailers that suggests that only the iPod is a viable product regardless of the fact that Microsoft has sold more than 2 million Zunes and its other competitors have fought valiantly.
So what's the deal? Is it really true that iPods are the only MP3 players that matter? You better believe it.
... Read MoreDon 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.
Some people want us to believe that Apple doesn't do anything wrong. In fact, those same people usually believe that each and every product Apple has ever created has easily surpassed the quality and beauty of all of its competitors. Surely they would like you to forget the Apple Newton and the '90s, and invariably they'll forget that the company's Apple TV is hardly a success.
But alas, this is not meant to be an indictment of Apple or its cult-like following. Instead, it's an indictment on how ludicrous some of the claims flying around Apple truly are. How many times are we forced to endure the inexcusable lack of common sense as it pertains to Apple's future before someone stands up and says that enough is enough?
And while I may expect that sort of reaction from some of the Mac faithful, I certainly wouldn't expect it from a reputable firm. But after reading through the Forrester Research speculation piece, I can't help but wonder what the analysts were thinking. Do they honestly believe that a company that has gone out of its way to develop elite products will really release a picture frame?
Steve Jobs may be good, but he's not that good.
... Read MoreDon 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.
Once again, Nintendo released a quarterly earnings report that not only solidifies the company as a major player going into the next generation, but shows that it's certainly onto something with both the Wii and the DS. But according to that same report, not everything is perfect with the company's handheld system.
According to Nintendo, it's only forecasting 9 percent growth going forward as sales of the DS continue to slide and expectations of higher sales continue to dwindle. Nintendo contends that DS sales could fall to 28 million units from 30.3 million units sold.
And while some market analysts are disappointed with the news of the DS slowing and the company itself not growing as fast as they would like, they fail to fully understand the nature of the beast they're trying to gauge.
If analysts were worried about the Wii, I would probably agree. But why would anyone be worried about Nintendo's plans for the DS? Will it sell fewer units this year? Maybe. But if nothing else, I think that we'll soon find that Nintendo has something up its sleeve that will jump-start sales and send those same, misguided analysts into a frenzy.
... Read MoreDon 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.
Every year, the technology industry tries to crown the one attribute that dominated the landscape all year. And while it may be early to decide what 2008 will be defined as when it's all said and done, I think gaming has taken the prize already.
Let's face it--what else could possibly take the cake? Will it be the year of mergers just because Microsoft and Yahoo may join up while Circuit City and Blockbuster do the same thing? Boring. Will 2008 be the year of computers? Try one decade ago. Will it be the year of Web 2.0? Who cares.
The fact of the matter is that in 2008, nothing will be nearly as important or groundbreaking in this industry as gaming. Whether it's the fact that the Playstation made a huge turnaround this year or that a new DS will hit store shelves or even the fact that this year's line up of games is simply better than any other year in recent memory, 2008 will be big and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens from here on out.
... Read MoreDon 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 Sharper Image may have been the favorite of geeks in the '90s, but it's now a shadow of its former self.
After being delisted from Nasdaq, filing for bankruptcy, and announcing that it will close 96 of its 184 stores, the end is near for the specialty electronics retailer.
Or is it?
In an interesting development, The Sharper Image announced on Thursday that its chairman, Jerry W. Levin, is stepping down to pursue the possibility of acquiring the company's stock and assets.
Neither Levin nor The Sharper Image were ready to speculate about what his plans are, but it begs a question: "What is going on at The Sharper Image?" It's a company that has flown under the radar for quite some time, and most have written it off as a relic of the past, but I think there's more to it than that. If nothing else, the soap opera over at The Sharper Image is extremely interesting to watch.
... Read MoreDon 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.
Is it just me or was Dell on top of the world a few years ago? Not only was it pummeling just about every other PC manufacturer in the industry, its online business was buzzing and its business integration was better than ever. And then it all came crashing down.
Last year, Dell announced that it was cutting 8,800 jobs from its payroll and Thursday the company said that it has already laid off 5,550 employees in an attempt to cut costs and make the company more financially sound.
"We are not satisfied with the current state of affairs and are on a mission to fix it," Reuters quoted Dell saying. "Every area of the company is being pursued" for cost cuts.
To make matters worse, last week Dell announced that it was closing one of its desktop manufacturing facilities as part of its layoff program and indicated that it wants to reduce expenses by as much as $3 billion per year over the next three years.
And while many would say that Dell is moving in the right direction, I'm not so quick to agree. How can a company that sat atop the entire computing industry for so long become a shadow of its former self in just two years? Is it that Dell has had a string of bad luck or did Hewlett-Packard, Acer and the rest finally find a way to take the company down?
Sadly, it looks like the latter.
... Read MoreDon 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.
In a recent column over at the The Times online, a guest contributor named Giles Whittell wrote one of the most ridiculous articles I have ever read on the subject of video games. And while he may be entitled to his opinion, his belief that video games are the root of all evil and on par with "heroin and teenage parents" is not only sickening, but ludicrous.
In his piece entitled, "Video games: I'll never buy one", Whittell outlines his hatred for video games and his utter lack of knowledge about what the form of entertainment really means to children and society.
"I hate video games, on or offline," he spewed. "I hate the way they suck real people into fake worlds and hold on to them for decades at a time. I hate being made to feel hateful for saying so, and I hate being told to immerse myself in them before passing judgment, because it feels like being told to immerse myself in smack and teenage pregnancy before passing judgment on them."
Whoa. Calm down, Giles. Smack and teenage pregnancy? That's a new one. Not too sure about you, but where I come from, smack usually involves a nose or a syringe. Oh and pregnancy, yeah, that usually involves something a bit more intimate than pressing buttons on a piece of plastic.
But I digress. What is wrong with this character? Obviously this is a man that's both misguided and misinformed about what's really going on in the world of video games.
... Read MoreDon 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.
