Errata from the erotic (I makes da funny!)

Well, first off, after a long and soon to be deleted discussion on how to capture screenshots, I finally got a South Park character modeled after myself as well as one modeled after my wife, the illustrious Dido Doe!



Me


Wife

Huzzah for us!

Some thoughts on Christmas:

I always get pissy this time of year. Part of it is the music--did you know that Bob Seeger, Billy Idol and Jethro Tull all made Christmas songs? Well you do now, thanks to my podunk Montana classic rock station! I fail to see a need for EVER GODDAMNED BAND IN CREATION to make a Christmas album. I mean, there's something wrong when the same guy who taught me that sex and drugs are cool, that I should desperately avoid the holy sacrament of marriage, and that I should rebel against society starts singing about baby Jesus in a manger.
But even more annoying than the overt commercialism of mainstream pop music is the politically correct way that everyone so desperately tries to get into my wallet. Of all the Christmas commercials I was bombarded with this year, only one actually said "Merry Christmas," and that was for a beer commercial--they probably figured their key demographic would be too drunk to give a damn. Happy holidays? What 'holidays?' It's friggin CHRISTMAS!

Yeah, I know, not everyone believes in Jesus. Does that change the fact that its still CHRISTMAS? Is it just a bizarre coincidence that all of the banks and post offices happen to be closed on December 25th for a "winter holiday?" It's the name of the freakin holiday, and pretending it isn't so you don't offend some whiner just doesn't make sense.

And it isn't like the other winter holidays are anything to write home about. Let's review them briefly:

Channukah:
Channukah is the Jewish celebration of a miracle that happened about 2500 years ago. But it isn't like its a terribly important holiday; the event they're celebrating is only documented in Maccabees, a book they didn't consider important enough to put in their scriptures. And Purim, a celebration whose events ARE written about in the Jewish scriptures (its in the book of Esther, by the way), is so obscure that if you ask a Jew if he celebrates it, he'll respond "what the hell is purim?" In fact, I would go so far as to theorize that Channukah only became as big of a holiday as it is because of the attention Christmas was getting. Channukah is a protest holiday, and that don't jike with the Doester.

Ramadan:
Ramadan is the Islamic winter holiday. But instead of giving presents and spreading good will, they fast and pray for a month. Is it any small wonder that theirs is the fastest growing religion in the world?

Ramadan is actually a pretty decent holiday to celebrate tho--unless you're a business owner. You don't want people praying and fasting, you want them shopping. Since Muslims aren't going to be buying "holiday presents" anyhow, why bother being inclusive of them?

Kwanza:
Kwanza is the biggest freaking joke of a holiday out there. Christmas goes back about 2000 years. Channukah goes back 2500 years, Ramadan maybe 1500 years, and Passover over 3000 years. Kwanza, on the other hand, has a solid 39 years of strong, African-American history behind it!

People, get your heads out of your asses. You can't just make up a holiday because you don't like the other options! Anyone who panders to these guys is automatically on my shit list.

Saturnalia:
Well, you've got to give the ancient Roman pagans some credit--it was their holiday first. Pretty much everything about Christmas was stolen from the Romans, including the Christmas tree, the date, the lights, even the tradition of giving gifts!

But where the Roman pagans went wrong was dying out. See, the Christians are still around. The Romans aren't. So, its a Christian holiday now. Eat that, Antiochus IV!

Conclusion:
There are lots of different winter holidays, but that doesn't change the fact that December 25th is Christmas. Why be pussies about it? Why get all whiney and sue cities for hanging Christmas lights and putting up Christmas trees? Those things aren't even Christian!

This'd be alot better world if all the whiney-ass minorities got over themselves. Fuck you, mister Shlomo Mowanda Mohammed Bitchenstein! This is MY dojo (doejo?)! I just ate some CHRISTMAS candy, and in a few days I'm gonna rip open some CHRISTMAS presents! And maybe if I get my wife tipsy enough, I'll get me some CHRISTMAS sex!

Where's your messiah now?!

Harro werld!

JCD, in his infinite wisdom granted me the power to post on his blog! Expect very few posts, and any of the things I do post not to be funny! I am a valuable asset to the team!

Crappy picture of me using the
South Park Character Maker

A couple things

The war is over!

Our friend Adam over at vgpundit chose not to continue our debate here, wishing instead to participate in a board war. I declined. Here's why:

1) The people who post on message boards rarely bother reading what previous posters have said. It results in annoyingly redundant posts, which invariably begin with "I didn't bother reading the 18 pages of discussion here, I just wanted to say what I think."

2) I cannot win a board war. When I stopped the doejo comics, three things happened. First, Jesus stopped weeping tears of blood. Second, the Pope died (coincidence? I think so!). And third, I lost my knack for homosexual jokes. Adam, however, retains a mastery of calling people 'gay.' As is common knowledge on the internet, you need to call your opponent 'gay' as many times as is possible if you want to win a board war. I would lose.

3) This blog is the only place I can guarantee posts will not be deleted, and that is only because I'm in charge here. If Adam doesn't like what you have to say at vgpundit, he just deletes your comments. Most message board mods are worse, deleting posts that violate the 'terms of service' in ways that no one really knows (but are irrefutable because discussing acts of moderation is a violation of the terms of service!).

If Adam wants to continue arguing, he'll do it here. Because I'm not about to go to a message board.

And while this post isn't really a refutation in any way of anything Adam has said, I think it only fair to point out that the only people besides Adam who would know the sales numbers of the PSP for the first 18 weeks of its retail cycle would be these guys. If that's what it takes to be a 'real gamer,' then I'd rather not be one, thank you.

Microsoft ain't such a big hit in Japan!

Looks like the Japanese aren't terribly impressed with the XBox 360. As it turns out, Japanese gamers prefer Japanese games to first person shooters! Astounding!

Whether Microsoft's campaign to bring Japan on board through strategic partnerships with Japanese game maker will succeed or not is anyone's guess. But one thing is certain: launching the system with a football game, several first person shooters and an 8 hour long action game was destined for failure among our little friends across the sea.

Now if Microsoft had only allocated those units gathering dust in Japanese boutiques to American retail outlets, they might have actually moved em!

More Revolution Rumors?!?!

Hey, they may not be reputable, but they give me something to talk about! According to an article by nintendo-revolution, the Big N holds a patent on a method of displacement mapping. Displacement mapping is basically an advanced form of bump mapping, allowing programmers to map textures to a polygonal object in such a way that it appears to contain a far higher poly count than it does. Ya, read the article if you want to know all about displacement mapping, along with pictures for people like Mark Kwon Doe.

Is it likely? Well, Nintendo holds a patent on a method of displacement mapping, but Nintendo also holds patents on lots of things that never turned out (like a hard drive/ modem add-on for the N64. And it's also important to note that displacement mapping is a CPU intensive process (as noted by the original article). Could a 750 Mhz-1.5 Ghz CPU actually handle it? We'll see.

Ah the handheld wars!

It seems our friend Adam of vgpundit doesn't like me commenting on his blog. I guess that means I'll just have to comment on my own blog, where he can't delete dissention! Baha! (uh, yeah)

With the introduction of the Nintendo DS and the PSP, the handheld market has really heated up. There is a strong sense of competition once again, which is a good thing: competition drives innovation up and pricing down.

Before I begin discussing Adam's article on the handheld market, let's just list the specs of the three handheld juggernauts, just for shits and giggles:

PSP
CPU: 333 Mhz
RAM: 8 MB
VRAM: 2 MB
Media: 1.8 GB optical disc
Screen: 4.3" widescreen, 480x272 resolution
Color depth: 16.77 million colors

DS
CPU: 67 Mhz
RAM: 4 MB
VRAM: 656 KB
Media: cartridge
Screen: 2 X 3", 256x192 resolution
Color depth: 260,000 colors

GBA
CPU: 16.78 Mhz
RAM: 256 KB
VRAM: 96 KB
Media: cartridge
Screen: 2.9", 240x160 resolution
Color depth: 32,768 colors

Let's also get sales numbers. According to gameshout, the PSP has sold 4.26 million units, as compared with the DS which has sold 4.73 million units and the GBA which has sold an astonishing 6.25 million units. These numbers seem to mirror the preliminary NPD numbers listed at ign for the month of November, which show the PSP selling 360,000 systems, the DS selling 380,000 systems, and the GBA selling 900,000 systems.

Now, down to business.

In his article, Adam claims

without any real high profile titles of it's own, the DS was left behind in Default Second place, since really the best titles for each came in the launch pack, with PSP easily trumping the DS' offerings.

He goes on to say "the PSP still had better games, and was still leading, leaving the DS in it's wake" until the August release of Advance Wars: Dual Strike and Nintendogs.

The fact is, however, that the number simply do not, nor have they ever, borne this claim. The DS did not gain its 500,000 unit marketplace advantage since August. They only gained on the psp by 20,000 units in the month of November; it is highly dubious, if not downright unlikely, that the DS outsold the PSP by 480,000+ units in a 3 month period of time.

In spite of the numbers, Adam insists that even after August's heavy hitter releases, there was "still no clear winner" until the release of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (released in November). Apparantly he believes NPD's numbers are wrong; cleraly there was a gap of 500,000+ units in November! I'm sure Nintendo would like to hear that news!

Let's recap:
Adam: The PSP and the DS were tied for market share until November.
Fact: The DS's market superiority dated much farther back than even August, possibly stretching back to the release period of the systems.
The fact here is that in spite of the PSP's technological superiority, the DS has always beaten the PSP in the handheld market.

In response to my deleted post, Adam contended that the PSP "is by all measures 10+ times more powerful than the DS," concluding that "it's superior regardless of sales."

First, when we again consider the facts, we see that the PSP is hardly 10 times more powerful than the DS. It is a more powerful gaming machine, no doubt about it. But 10 times? It's CPU is about 5 times faster, and it has about doubled the RAM of the DS. Considering the difference in the size of their screens, the actual difference in output power is presumably even smaller.

Adam: The PSP is 10+ times more powerful than the DS.
Fact: The PSP, while clearly more powerful than the DS, hardly outpowers the Nintendo handheld by a factor of 10.

Finally, let's address Adam's contention that the PSP is "superior regardless of sales." This is perhaps the most telling comment of his entire diatribe.

"Superior" is defined by dictionary.com as "Of a higher nature or kind." Fair enough definition.

But what superiority are we talking about? In terms of hardware, the PSP is in fact superior to its competitors. Clearly. No contest. But is hardware the purpose of the PSP? Does the PSP exist simply to prove that the hardware can be put together? Clearly not; the purpose is fun.

It would seem, then, that the true test of "superiority" in this debate is not centered on hardware but rather on fun. How do you measure fun? The only tool we have are sales numbers; if more people buy the DS than the PSP, then clearly the consumer base, as a whole, finds the DS to be more fun than the PSP.

Going off these premises, however, we would have to conclude that the GBA is in fact "superior" to both the DS and the PSP. And you know something? I would have to agree!

This is where Adam has a disconnect with the average gamer. Graphics do not a great title make. Numbers and specs are meaningless when it comes to gaming systems. It's all about gameplay! And when it comes to gameplay, the GBA is the clear victor in the handheld war. It's library consists of thousands of titles stretching back to the original gameboy, its simple two button + d pad layout is both intuitive and functional, and its low price tag leaves me with more money to buy the things I love: games!

If I could roll back time and change one thing about the video game industry, it would be the advent of 3d gaming. Not that I don't enjoy 3d games; my favorite game is Xenogears, which is entirely in 3d. But in the wake of 3d gaming, we've seen such an emphasis placed on graphics--more polygons, higher res textures, more toys like anti-aliasing and shaders--that gameplay has taken a back seat. Sidescrollers are still fun! Overhead 'Zelda' type games are still fun! Turn based strategy and rpg games are still fun!

So that's where we have to leave it. In a previous article, Adam himself claimed that he likes "more of the same, so long as it's new and enjoyable." You don't need a $300 handheld to experience that. The end users have realized this. The numbers prove it.

Lots of interesting leaks about the revolution

Well, it seems our industry insider who leaked the early revolution specs was wrong. Very wrong (hey, I warned you that it was just an unverified and very premature rumor, k?). According to ign, developer leaks have a far less flattering set of specs to share:

CPU: 1.5 to 2.5 times more powerful than the gamecube's (approx. 750 MHz-1.5 Ghz--probably on the lower end as some devs have compared it to the XBox which clocks at 733 Mhz)
GPU: Unknown
RAM: 88 MB 1T Ram, 16 MB DRam
GPU RAM: 3 MB (?)
Media: Dual layer DVD (8.5 GB)

This is, of course, a FAR cry from the impressive specs of the PS3 (3.2 GHz Cell processor with 7 concurrent threads) and the XBox 360 (3 X 3.2 GHz dual threaded cores). It is absolutely clear now that the Revolution will never be able to output HDTV, as it lacks the RAM to handle higher definition textures. Simply comparing apples to apples, it almost looks like Nintendo is intentionally taking a dive this time around. So what's their game?

Well, first off they have their controller. Now, it is a damned cool little toy. But can you really build a system around a controller?

Second, they have the virtual console. Backward compatibility with all previous consoles certainly won't hurt; that's one of the things Sony has brilliantly leveraged with each incarnation of the playstation.

Third, they will have pricing working in their favor. It doesn't take a genius to tell that it'll cost less to buy a 750 Mhz, 104 MB ram system than it will to buy a 3.2 GHz, tripled core 512 MB system--alot less. Like, several hundred dollars less.

But all of this being said, will the Revolution be able to hold its own? Will the graphics at the least be comparable to their competitors in standard definition? Will people actually want a Revolution?

And that brings us to the ultimate conclusion: no one really knows. On the one hand, it's hard to imagine a 750 MHz machine competing with a triple cored 3.2 Ghz system. But on the other hand, its certainly no overstatement to say that computing power has reached a point of diminishing returns; my 2.4 Ghz pc with a GeForce FX 5700 is capable of running WoW in 1024 x 768 (similar to 720p, BTW), firefox, and windows, all with reasonably good performance. A console should be able to handle a game at least as complex as WoW with quite a bit less processing power (no need to run a bloated OS, no background apps, etc). But even still, could a system with a 750 Mhz CPU pull off a title like WoW?

When all is said and done, I just don't know if the Revolution can hold its own, and I certainly don't know if its going to be a success. But if I had to take a guess, I'd wager that Nintendo just plain didn't put enough under the hood to compete.