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November 16, 2006
Console Wars, New iPods and Podcasts
Should I grin and stay hopeful, when you're here with your eyes half-closed?
But that tired routine gets old...
Tomorrow we see the Sony PS3 hit the market, with Nintendo's Wii debuting on Sunday. With these two releases, we shall once again see these gaming giants battle for consumer supremacy... Or maybe we'll see a huge amount of hype lead to one very big dud.
The dud will be the PS3.
I must say first that I love my PS2. It was the only system I purchase from the last product cycle (with the N64 being the system prior to that). I love the controller, I love the game selection, I love the look. I was very excited about the prospect of the PS3 - the huge leap forward in technology, the distributed processing, the hard drive. Then I saw the price tag.
I'm sorry, but I am NOT paying $600 for a gaming system, even if it comes with a Blu-Ray DVD Player. It's a GAMING SYSTEM!!! The concept of the system is for it to replace many of the electronics currently sitting under your TV. But I already own a DVD Player and a stereo. There is no incentive for me to buy an overstuffed gaming system when there are others on the market.
The Xbox doesn't currently interest me, but that may change if GTA4 comes out and the PS3 hasn't dropped in price.
Then there's the Wii. At first, I was incrediably skeptical about the Wii - why is Nintendo not trying to make up some of the ground it lost? And this controller?
And then the beauty of the simplicity struck me - the Wii is purely a gaming machine. Sure it can connect to the internet, but that seems more like a "Well we have this ethernet port...may as well let people check their mail". The system's goal is interactive video entertainment - and it's not trying to do anything more than that.
But I was still skeptical about the controller. I'm very much a small controller in hand kind of guy, and my initial reaction was this controller looked like a cross between the Duck Hunt gun and that NES Running Pad that preceded DDR by 12 years. But after viewing the videos at Wii.com and conversations with several friends, I'm sold.
The ending determination? I will be acquiring a Wii at some point in the near future.
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So I recently got a new iPod as a combo Chankuah and Birthday Present (Thanks Parental Units!). Previously, I was using a third generation iPod (row of buttons right under screen). But I ran into a problem - I was using the firewire sync cable, and it broke down overtime. It would work fine for charging the iPod, but there seemed to be a break in one of the wires so syncing would depend on how the cable was positioned. I went into the Apple Store and asked if there was a solution for this, and the clerk told me (incorrectly) that the USB cable wouldn't work to sync with my model.
So a decision had to be made - I'd had my iPod for almost 3 years, and there were a lot of new ones on the market. My wonderful parents made the decision very easy. My mother observed how I use my iPod more than just about anything else I own, and when she heard me trying to sync my iPod while were on the phone she asked about the trouble - and I explained what was going on. Which brought the offer of "Well, that sounds like a great Chanukah and Birthday present!" Who am I to argue?
So we made our way over to Best Buy a week later, and we purchased one of the latest models - 30 Gigs. My trademark indecisiveness came out during the colour selection process. I finally settled on Black, only because the clerk mistakenly grabbed an open box for the white and I considered that a bad omen.
Once I got back to my apartment, I loaded up the new iPod and began the music transfer process. At this point, it dawned on me that:
1. Syncing is no longer a painful process
2. This iPod supports video.
Leading me to...
PODCASTS!!
Yes ladies and gentleman, I have finally joined 2004/2005. I am listening to Podcasts. And I am even enjoying Video podcasts! I love this whole fresh content concept. I recommend The Show with Ze Frank and Rocketboom. Plus there's all the various audio podcasts that are well worth listening to such as This American Life, The Onion Radio News, and Barack Obama's podcast.
Now that I've spoken of the infrastructure, I'm going to begin piecing together thoughts for my next music issue.
Posted by MikeSager at November 16, 2006 2:30 PM