Defamer has the whole story.

Do you own an Xbox 360? Then you should turn it on at some point between today and Sunday, connect it to the Internet, and dig through its downloadable games section. Doesn't matter if you subscribe to the system's paid online service or not; Microsoft is giving away a free game until Sunday, and it ain't too shabby. Undertow is the latest in the burgeoning sea-combat genre, ranking right up there with...uh...um...the Jaws game for NES from the '80s? No matter. You swim around and blow people up. Looks nice, controls smoothly. There's not much of a learning curve, so the fun is immediate, and now that tons of people are nabbing the game, Undertow's online team fights might finally be interesting.

Boy, aren't our friends in Redmond some charitable folks? Thing is, the move is in response to the Xbox Live servers crashing and melting a few weeks ago, right around Christmas. Fanboys got pissed, posting their rage on Digg an average of two times for every racist epithet they weren't able to shout on Xbox Live during the holidays. Even though MS quickly announced a game giveaway to calm the throngs, it was too little too late for three gamers who filed a class-action lawsuit. This is rich--the week of semi-outage comes to a grand total of not even one dollar per person ($50/year = 13 cents/day). Yeah, I get how class-action suits work--huge lump sum to cover every affected person--but seriously. If you're lucky, guys, Microsoft will settle by offering you a free copy of Xbox Scientific Calculator '09.

Hi Anthony, this is ______, calling from the Fox News Channel, and I'm looking to speak with someone regarding a new business venture involving your website. This is a new revenue-building opportunity that we've come up with, and we'd like to invite your company to partner up with us on. Umm, this is an entirely new endeavor and what we're trying to do is talk to companies - newspaper companies - with websites and see what the interest is like. So basically we've created a video player that would provide video streams for your website, and um, we have the most generous of revenue shares out on the web. So if you have any.. if you would like to speak to me more regarding this, uhh, this, I guess, revenue opportunity, please call me.

Because I know Slog readers are a bunch of hype-hungry Apple fanboys and girls, following is a quick recap of the new products Apple announced at Macworld this morning. Aren't you so excited!?!

• Time Capsule - An Airport Extreme (wireless router) with a big internal hard drive, for backups using Leopard's new Time Machine.
• iPhone - SDK for third-party apps (still) coming in February. New software update coming today, featuring psuedo-GPS, web clips, rearrangeable home screen, and more. iPod Touch to get Mail, maps, and other iPhone features, making it precisely an iPhone without the phone. $20 upgrade.
• iTunes - Movie Rentals. All major studios are on board, rentals to cost $2.99 - $3.99. Start watching within 30 days, watch for 24 hours. Launches today.
• AppleTV Take 2 - No computer required. Rent/buy movies, music, TV shows, etc., directly from iTunes Store on your TV. HD movies also available, with Dolby 5.1 surround sound. Free software update for existing AppleTVs.
• Macbook Air - "World's Thinnest Laptop." 0.76" thin, built in iSight camera, Core 2 Duo. Sports a multitouch trackpad (like an iPhone screen). No optical drive, Superdrive accessory for $99, and some kind of software to let you "borrow" another PC or Mac's optical drive. 5 hour battery life. "Fits inside an envelope." 64GB solid-state flash drive optional.

So which one are you so excited about the most?!?

(Other potential titles for this post: "What Money Can Buy," "When Hillary Clinton Isn't Crying," and "Jon Stewart's First Gig During The Writers' Strike.")

Yesterday, Bill Gates gave the keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. As I mentioned last week, nerds anticipated big things from the speech, as it as Gates' "final" CES keynote before leaving his full-time position at Microsoft to pursue more philanthropic work later this year. Nothing too huge was announced--unless you're a Canadian who gives a shit that the Zune will finally be released up north, eh--but Gates did star in a dorky, cameo-filled video about his "last day at work" while he looked for new jobs. Jay-Z, Obama, Hillary, Al Gore, Jon Stewart, Steven Spielberg, Brian Williams, George Clooney, Matthew McConaughey... it's cute, I guess. At the very least, Bono redeems his cash-in appearance by dropping the F-bomb at 3:15.

However, do yourself a favor and choose not to watch the clip from a few minutes later when Bill Gates stood next to Slash for no real reason.

The 2008 Consumer Electronics Show is about a week away, meaning that on January 7, thousands of tech middle-management types will pay for blowjobs in Las Vegas while their bosses make announcements about HDTVs, cell phones, GPS devices, and so on.

What, no video games? Yeah, they'll be there, but CES' timing is pretty bad in that regard, as most games companies have blown their productivity wad on the Christmas season. Gaming PR usually hibernates until February. But that hasn't stopped Brier Dudley at the Seattle Times from foaming at the mouth about Bill Gates' "final" CES keynote speech. ("Gates will not return for the 2009 keynote, after he cuts back on Microsoft work this summer and dedicates more time to philanthropy," Dudley writes. Right. Gates is the tech world's Celine Dion--I've already pre-ordered tickets to his return tour.)

Most of Dudley's CES guesses aren't too far off the mark, but his piece has been getting a lot of play on nerd sites for making a few out-of-the-blue gaming guesses. For one, he thinks MS will "license the Xbox gaming platform to consumer-electronics companies." Better put, companies like Toshiba will, according to Dudley, create all-in-one units that play HD DVD movies, act as a DVR and play Xbox games. Interesting guess--with no attribution or data to back it up. Never mind that Nintendo tried this sort of thing a few years ago--the Panasonic Q, a semi-all-in-one unit in Japan that was pulled from the market after two years of tepid sales. Never mind that DVR companies like TiVo are dying in the face of cable and satellite providers hocking their own TV-recording devices. And never mind that the Xbox is still sputtering in this device's target Asian markets--it's informed speculation, after all!

Even better, Dudley's comments open the floodgates so that yokels LIKE ME can make equally informed tech predictions. Like these:

Microsoft will kick the iPhone's touch-screen ass by debuting the Zune Suit--an all-in-one body entertainment center that is controlled by touching icons that pop up on your clothes. They haven't developed a prototype of the unit yet, but Lily Allen's already been tapped to write a song that will withstand being played 4,000 times a day to promote the fucking thing. Priorities.

Microsoft will release the Fleshlight XP, which improves the original model's networking, security and file-sharing features. Testers have reported being pleased with the new model. Incompatible with the Zune Suit--users will have to download a patch.

Windows Vista will still suck and people will still not want to buy it.

Boy, I can't wait for January 7th!

Netscape is no more.

Netscape, the Web browser once used in 80 percent of all Internet sessions, will be shut down by AOL after failing to regain market share from Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer.

Netscape users should switch to Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser, Netscape director Tom Drapeau wrote on his blog. America Online Inc. paid $9.8 billion in 1999 for Netscape, which by then had been crippled by Microsoft.

You gotta love this quote...

"AOL's focus on transitioning to an ad-supported Web business leaves little room for the size of investment needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be,'' Drapeau said.

Netscape had fans? And who's gonna shut down AOL after its transition to an "ad-supported Web business" ultimately fails?

So you don't want those beer-bong/blackface/bisexual-experimentation-phase pics to haunt you for the rest of your life. And so you decide you're gonna delete your Facebook account.
Good luck with that.

What happens if you put an iPhone in a blender?

Via Americablog.

(This week's Games column got cut in the print edition, along with the rest of the small-screeners, so I'm posting my column for all of the gamers I met at Moe last night.)

For the first two weeks of December, gaming writers were consumed by the firing of one of their own. I can’t exactly blame ‘em for reacting to Jeff Gerstmann’s canning at Gamespot.com: Whether coincidental or not, Gerstmann got the pink slip the same day that a huge ad campaign for Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, a game he’d soundly trashed, was stripped from Gamespot. Within the same day, Gerstmann’s negative video review of the game was pulled (and its text version was severely edited).

Our hometown gaming pariahs at Penny Arcade (makers of the above comic) fueled the rumor fire by claiming a trail of dirty money--Kane & Lynch’s makers got pissed at Gerstmann’s game review and pulled ads to the tune of $100,000s, they said. Anonymous tipsters sided with the claim, and it took a full week for Gamespot’s parent company, CNet, to release a robust response. Too late--by then, corporate’s story (upholding editorial standards) couldn’t keep pace with Digg’s (money, money, money). The hell kind of Web company waits a week to respond to Internet panic, anyway?

But the surprising thing isn’t that advertising money can control editorial content. Ad salesmen and writers not getting along? Flaky five-star reviews coming outta nowhere? These things are sad realities in pretty much any review landscape, yet in this case as in any other, it's more the exception than the rule. What’s surprising is that when the money talks in gamesland, the results might actually be better. Follow me here--the latest issue of Vice Magazine has a well-written pull-out set of articles attached to an ad campaign for K&L. In the same vein as recent Wii TV ads, this advertorial chunk about buddy stories has an open-arms, mainstream stance. It's a unique, compelling take on interacting with friends. And it's a fucking ad.

Game publications generally don’t treat their baby the same way. You ever tried making sense of a game review site, let alone a games blog? They’re obsessed with sneak peeks, as-soon-as-possible reviews and more, faster, newer. No conversation, no questions about why adults choose to make these 3D toys a significant part of their lives. When these people say the only story is that some guy got fired because of his review score, that narrow-minded scope becomes the story. You don't see music or movies writers flipping out about a bought-out score because, even if it happens, it's such a small percentage of the stories and opinions that their subject matter generally garner in print.

In Jeff's case, maybe he's better off writing for the game ad firms instead.

Meet Microsoft's Santa...

An artificial-intelligence Santa bot operated by Microsoft to talk to children wavered off topic saying: “It’s fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else....”

...

Users were able to steer Santa into admitting he was gay or that he was a pedophile.

One person said “…..come on you like big hairy men -- don't hide it!” To which Santa responded, “I know, I know. I just hope you won't get mad at me.”

The references to sex acts, first reported by British news outlet The Register, came when the bot was answering questions about eating pizza. At the time, the bot was chatting with two girls age 11 and 13.

Microsoft has since disabled their foul-mothed, dirty-minded Santa.

XBox Live is filled with potty-mouth. Fox News has the scoop:

Truth be told, most of the bad behavior on XBL can be attributed to one Bradley Steinbacher.

Testing my Clearwire modem on the train from Seattle to Portland. It's spotty but it's better than nothing.
That's Eric Grandy's hand and paper.

I realize that my very status as a Slogger, of however dubious origins, makes my Luddite Union Card a bit suspect, but my dislike of online social networks like Facebook and Myspace is proving to be prescient. Hey, you kids out there: sit down and listen up.

The usual conversation (at places like my employer-who-pays-me, Northwestern University) is about how students who use Facebook or Myspace post things about themselves that are stupid, counterproductive or legally actionable. Someday, we say, you'll be applying for a job and they'll Google you, and do you really want that picture of your exploits at the Gamma Delta Iota house online for all to see?

Nonetheless, such indiscretions, however stupid, are at least intentional. Hey, you want the world to see your prowess with a beer bong or your sports team's hazing rituals or your tits, rock and roll. You're an adult, and we cannot stop you.

But how would you feel about someone else deciding what to reveal about you? Do you want some computer program providing the world with information about what you do?

That's what the wonderful world of online buying and selling is coming to. (And what is Facebook but the selling and buying of reputations?) It seems that Facebook has arrangements with various and sundry providers of other internet goods and services to AUTOMATICALLY reveal the purchases of their customers on their Facebook profiles. Like, you know, all the shit you buy online without thinking twice about it, like movie tickets on Fandango, would be posted on your page without you actually deciding to do so.

The revelation of such innocuous information is always the wedge that leads to more personal information being commonly available. You might not care if all of your friends know you went to see Beowulf on Friday night, but do you want that information automatically posted to your Facebook website without your consent?

No? Tough shit. Facebook apparently has automatic buy-ins to such postings, and it's as big a bitch as Grendel's Mother to opt out. As is so often the case with matters of privacy and the internet and government indifference to our rights, Aravosis at Americablog is all over it.

In an alarming move to further erode the public's responsibilities about, well, anything, Nintendo has begun giving away cushy little jackets for their Wii console's remote controllers. You know, the little white controllers that walk around the house when you're asleep and gouge themselves into flat-screen TVs?

My guess is, Nintendo's legal department decided that last year's "threw the remote while playing Wii Bowling" stories had enough merit to potentially spark a class-action lawsuit. You know, a lawsuit that ignores the millions of warnings that ship with: * the Wii system; * each Wii game; * the start-up screen for each Wii game; * the human mind. At this point, they might as well go the McDonald's route and label the motion-controlled gizmos with tags like "CAUTION: DANGEROUS WHEN THROWN." Or maybe "YO, STUPID!"

Anyway, my Wii condoms just showed up in the mail. No, really:

Come on! These things are big, rubbery vacuums just waiting to be filled with cock. [Insert topical, political joke here] The tactile ribbing around the shaft; the spongy, circular shield over the head; the convenient opening at the bottom for your balls. (Fine, the last one is a stretch. Literally.) And they're sending these things to every Wii-owning kid in the nation.

...on second thought, these remote jackets are a great idea. Nintendo is subverting middle America's abstinence bent by teaching kids about safe sex through gaming accessories! Awesome. Here's to hoping for a motion-controlled follow-up.

In all honesty, they're not so bad. Comfy, even. Other companies already charge for these kinds of controller jackets, so if you want a free solution to SHS (sweaty hand syndrome), order away.

The ever-controversial "$100 laptop" (now only $200!) is now available through the "Give One Get One" program.

For $399, you get a weird new laptop for yourself, a $200 tax deduction, and a second laptop is sent to "empower a child in a developing nation." T-Mobile will also give you 1 year of free access to their goddamned HotSpot network--a $350 value, by their loose definition of that word.

Considering that these things are waterproof--and presumably coffee-, juice-, and donut-proof--we might just have to get a few of them for Stranger staffers.

Hey, fellow Seattle gaming addicts. I'm assuming at least a few of you will be lining up on Sunday to buy what just arrived at my doorstep:

But I'm not just posting this to brag. (By the way--NAH NAH NA-NAH, NAH! PHHHHBT!) See, Mario titles are like the Disney animated movies of the game world--high production values, ridiculously targeted to kids, still somehow fun for everybody...and, at least with this game, conspiracy theories about weird, hidden sex jokes.

If you take a close look at that box art, you'll see a few letters with sparkly effects on their edges. Turns out, as more than a few gaming sites have pointed out, those letters spell out "UR MR GAY." Amusing, if a bit of a stretch. But today, I saw that the game's startup screen animates those sparklies, making the word that much more obvious to anybody who leaves the screen open for a few seconds before diving in.

It's not "GOOD TEENAGERS TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES," but there might be something to it. Forget about weird complaints of the character reinforcing Italian stereotypes. We're talking about a guy in brightly colored overalls who sports a moustache--no beard, just the moustache--as he hangs out on Rainbow Road and occasionally transforms into "Fire Mario." And his best friend's a princess. I can't be the first person to wonder if there's an offensive gay stereotype hidden in the world's leading video game franchise, can I? (While I'm at it, don't even get me started on that whole Sonic and Tails thing...)

Anyway, the game is pretty damn great so far. Back to "work."

As in, my likely pick for video game of the year, released by Bellevue's own Valve Software last month. Portal is a genius little 3D puzzle game in which your only "weapon" is a gun that creates doors. You start by using the doors to cross chasms; by the end, you're "flinging" yourself around a laboratory by combining doors, gravity and momentum. Sounds too complicated, but the game makes it ridiculously simple--and fun--to figure out.

Better, the game is smart in all the right places--particularly its sense of humor. Portal is Futurama-level funny, a nice change of pace compared to so many dorky games taking themselves too seriously. So I was glad to see this amusing interview with the game's head writer, Erik Wolpaw. If you don't know much about games, the interview might drag you down ("the fuck is a Psychonaut?"), but Wolpaw does his best to glamorize his profession:

What do you think is the hardest thing about writing for games?

At strip clubs, there’s a guy whose job is to talk between the strippers. He tries to do a good job and be entertaining and enthusiastic, but everybody’s just there for the nakedness. That’s a professional writer trick we call called an “analogy”. What I really mean is that game writers are the game equivalent of the guy who talks between the nude girls at strip clubs. Nobody cares about what that guy does, and anybody who does care is probably a little maladjusted. So I’d have to say the hardest part of being a game writer is learning all the writing tricks like “analogy”.

Yesterday, Apple announced that the long-awaited iPhone software development kit will be available in February, allowing officially supported third-party applications to be developed for Apple's mobile platform. Yay.

The New York Times reports on this development today, and gets oh-so-many things wrong.

Lessee...

After engendering frustration from some customers and software makers, Apple has changed its policy to encourage independent developers to build programs for use on the iPhone.

I guess this is technically true, but misleading at best. This isn't a change in policy, it's what was expected--though un-announced--all along.

Several weeks ago, Apple released an over-the-air update to the iPhone that erased programs made by independent developers and caused some phones to freeze up.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The update was not "over-the-air," and it didn't erase anything. It restored iPhones to their standard state, that is, un-hacked. Making unsupported modifications to software is--guess what--unsupported. Phones that froze up were almost all "unlocked," meaning the firmware had been fundamentally modified to allow them to work on carriers besides AT&T. These users were clearly warned not to apply the optional update.

The article improves from there, in many ways contradicting the first half. It's as if the reporter took a walk around the block to clear his head. He does close with a final bit of inanity, though at least it's coming from someone else.

Advocates of unlocking the iPhone and creating programs for it assert that they paid for the device and it belongs to them, not to Apple.

“If Apple does something where they remove everything I did on it, I have a feeling that Apple is kindly lending me a phone to make phone calls,” said Mr. Houri, the executive from Mexens Technology.

Sheesh. Yeah, it belongs to you. You can fuck with it if you want--go nuts. But if you're stupid enough to run a software update after you've modified the phone's firmware and to expect whatever you did to be left alone, you're, you know, really stupid.

K, bye.

Apple has announced the launch date for Leopard, their latest cat-based operating system, and it's October 26--the same day the PATRIOT ACT was signed into law in 2001.

Coincidence?

Meet the Oral-B Triumph 9000 Electric Toothbrush with bluetooth wireless, the smartest thing that will ever be in your head. Of course, if you're dumb enough to spend $140 for a toothbrush—it has a massage mode!—then the bar has been set pretty low to begin with.

The toothbrush tells you which tooth to brush, how hard to brush it, and how long to brush it. There is, sadly, a market for this. We are now officially too stupid to brush our own teeth.

Blogger's Privilege - Senate committee approves law that could extend confidential source protection to bloggers.

The British are Coming - For your encryption keys. New law makes it a crime to refuse to give up encryption keys to authorities. Like all such laws, it's ridiculously broad and easily circumventable.

Leopard is Coming - Apple's once-delayed, stupid-new-dock-having OS X 10.5 is due this month. It will feature... oh, who cares.

No - I still haven't bought Halo 3.

No - They still haven't release Pilot Wings on the Wii Virtual Console.

License to Jam - Tired of getting run over on your bike by people yakking on their goddamned cell phones? Filled with Super Seattle Righteous Rage? For only $950, you can get this cell phone jammer disguised, for some reason, as a pack of cigarettes. The product description is worth quoting:

Open this cigarette box and push the black button seen in the picture and the jammer jams all cell phones signal within range of 60 feet (no one can make or receive any phone calls within range of 60 ft. from the jammer).

In other words, no one can use a cell phone in range of 60 feet from the jammer.

Is there anything better than using the phrase, "In other words" and then using the same words? I submit that there is not.

Not Safe - Most U.S. Americans think their computers are safe, they're not.

Why Knot - Science gets to the bottom of how cords and cables manage to tie themselves in knots, but offers no particularly useful advice on how to stop it from happening. Me, I coat all my cables and headphone cords with pork fat.

Matt Dillon is so high:

Time for a caffeine nap.

Those World Cyber Games I wrote about yesterday? They didn't get off to a great start:

This was the scene at the 5:45 p.m. opening ceremony, and though the chairs in the back of the room were full of international gaming competitors, the general seating looked like the above photo. Barren. That's how the Qwest Field Event Center felt through much of Thursday (an odd day to invite the public out, certainly). People didn't show up, and even if they did, they would've gotten a very mixed message as to what the hell this gaming competition was all about.

Strangely, the competition part wasn't the priority, as most entrants were pushed into a thin, second-floor stretch of PCs with little room for the public to come up and watch. The first floor, meanwhile, was dominated by Microsoft's gaming PR blitz, as dozens of Xbox 360 and computer kiosks lined the general floor.

In addition, a few giant projector screens were posted on the first floor above beanbag chairs, where the WCG's live Internet feed of the competition was beamed for all to watch. This is the equivalent of watching a Mariners game on a concession stand TV at Safeco Field.

I would've loved to hear a showgoer's take on the show in my few hours at Qwest Field, but I didn't run into any on Thursday. Every person I saw had a badge labeled competitor, press or sponsor. So I made up for it by chatting with Valve Software's Eric Twelker, who was there to show off the company's new "Left 4 Dead" zombie-killing game (not bad, by the way).

"I know that previous WCGs worked out in places like Europe, where the diehard fans could take a train and be in, say, Italy in two hours," Twelker said, implying the better reputation of professional gaming throughout Europe. "I don't think people are jetting here from Los Angeles or New York the same way."

This weekend could be better as word spreads about easy access to free online ticket vouchers and the WCG begins its more heated competitions (Thursday and Friday lack the big elimination/championship rounds). Hopefully by then, the event will have worked out its absolutely awful kinks. The entry gate situation was a disaster, as a poor, 70-year-old man stood at the main gate all by himself, shaking his head in bewilderment for a good four minutes when I asked him where I could pick up a pass. Some of the gaming kiosks were busted, particularly the Rock Band station, whose drum kit was broken only three hours into the event. And the opening ceremony was a joke, kicked off by a B-Boy dance/beatbox routine that seemed straight out of Saved By The Bell.

But the prognosis is bleak. The WCG has blown its chance at spotlighting most of its pro gamers by shuffling them into a small, upstairs wing, which means even if people show up, they'll just think the event is a junior arcade. They won't see the moments I saw, like a gang of Singaporean players, all in matching jackets, staring down and studying the Swedish team during a PC game practice session. Shit's surprisingly intense...if you know where to look.

Informal poll for the proud geeks who troll Slog: Does anybody want to pay $10 a day to watch "the world's greatest gamers" compete at Qwest Field for the next four days?

When I first heard about the World Cyber Games international finals, which start today, I thought that a decent number of people might attend this pro gaming event if it was free (aside from parking, natch). Curiosity and all. But if the organizers really think Americans are hot enough on pro gaming to watch it with a price tag attached, then you must've missed the collapse of fellow "league" World Series of Video Games just weeks ago. Seriously--this ain't Korea.

Against my better judgment, I'm off to see what $10 buys a WCG attendant. I know that local gaming companies Valve and Microsoft will be on hand to show off new games (and since the gamers here probably won't spend $170 on next month's Rock Band, you may as well try it at Qwest for less), but will that be enough? At the very least, I'll let you guys know if the Kingston booth is off tha chain with busty, scantily clad ladies peddling RAM.

No, not that RAM.

Yesterday, Jacob Metcalf of the website 8bitjoystick (and occasional Stranger contributor) posted that Bungie, creators of the insanely popular Halo series, is parting ways with its parent company Microsoft. Citing a friend of a friend who was in the know, Metcalf posted an email he received about the supposed split:

"So heres my big secret. You should google Bungie + Microsoft + separation this week.

You know that big ol BILLION dollar franchise Bungie has created for Microsoft, to show their appreciate Microsoft is letting Bungie leave. Of course Microsoft gets to keep all rights to the Halo franchise, but as today Bungie no longer part of Microsoft. Ask anyone who works there to search the global address book, they're no longer in there. Microsoft was supposed to release the press release today but if they wait till the 10/6 the impact wont effect the quarterly results. However today is the actual official date and the day the NDAs expire, however you still didn't hear this from me."

"Apparently MS just wants Bungie to make Halo for the rest of their natural days, and Bungie doesn't like how MS is constantly trying to "handle" everything they do; the way they market their games, the way they interact with their fans (basically the fact that they do appreciate their fans), and how stingie they are with the profits (comparable to the rest of the industry). So as of today they are their own independent entity. They'll probably make Halo 4 for Microsoft, however hey are also free to create new intellectual properties for whatever system they want. (Even though they prefer the xbox platform)"

"What a way to say thank you."

Jacob also posted the rumor on a Seattle P.I. blog he maintains. The gaming website Kotaku then picked up the story, and wrote:

Equip your Spartan salt shield, because this rumor sounds simply too soap operatic to instantly believe. On the other hand, it might just be crazy enough to work and stranger things have happened, so we're looking into it as if it were the real deal. The word from the tubes this morning is that Halo developer Bungie may be parting ways with its owner, Microsoft.

Then a little while later, another post went up on Kotaku:

Those rumors surrounding a Bungie departure from Microsoft sure sound fishy, so we got in touch with some folks who might know a thing or two about it. We were hoping for either a "Yes, it's true. You'll find the details of the settlement in the attached PDF" or "Of course it's not true. Don't be ridiculous." Instead we got a double barrel blast of non-confirmation.

The response from a Bungie source? "Talk to your Edelman rep."

The response from Edelman, Microsoft's PR firm? "There's been no such announcement. We continue to celebrate the tremendous success of the global phenomenon that is Halo 3."

Meanwhile, the forums on Bungie's website exploded.

And now today, the website Game Informer did some investigating of its own, and posted this:

Our source stated that Bungie is “tired of Making Halo, and didn’t want to do future Halo games.” For an unstated, but significant amount of money, Bungie shareholders bought the studio name back from Microsoft. Our source also revealed that even though Microsoft will retain the rights to Halo, Microsoft also has “the right of first refusal on future games.” This means that Microsoft has the first shot at publishing Bungie’s future titles. How this will come into play if Bungie decides they want future game X to appear on the PlayStation 3 and Wii alongside an Xbox 360 release will make things quite interesting.

From Metcalf's little blog to major industry news, all in 24 hours.

News-story summary of the day: Study finds some have unusual relationships with robot vacuums. (The headline is also a priceless pun.)

And I'm so glad that I didn't. Microsoft has done its damnedest to get the masses riled up for Halo 3, but even more so, they're trying to give the game cultural weight. You may have seen those weird History Channel-styled commercials with old men waxing nostalgic about Master Chief and alien technology, and such an attempt at mature treatment is interesting. No game footage, no amped-up announcer, no lasers. It's almost as if Microsoft wants you to consider the agony and regret of a soldier's life before pressing the Start button.

But their PR attack hasn't been unilateral in its maturity, lest you haven't seen the "Game Fuel" version of Mountain Dew that has been caffeinating nerds for the past month or so. Which brings us to last night. Like most other nerd-friendly events, a Halo 3 midnight launch was inevitable, so Microsoft announced four late night launch parties around the country for the game's official release early this morning. Since Bungie and Microsoft are from these here parts, one of those was in Bellevue. The announced draw for such an event? "Pre-launch playtime against celebrities, professional athletes and Bungie staff members." So which side of Halo 3 would show up at this event--the one that wanted to elevate gaming culture into something worth celebrating? Or the one that assumes gamers will wait in line for just about anything?

According to this fan's report, celebrities and athletes were nowhere near the Bellevue Best Buy last night (not even Dustin Diamond?). Just tables covered in pizza boxes and dudes shilling Mountain Dew. [EDIT: The blogger in question points us to this article, which reports that Bill Gates handed off the first copy, while ex-Husky quarterback Warren Moon was also on hand...but, shit, New York's launch got Ludacris. Does he still Disturb Tha Peace?] Considering you can walk into most any electronics store and grab the game with little hassle today, it seems the "agony and regret" that Microsoft was aiming for might've been experienced by anxious geeks waiting for hours in the cold last night. But hey--at least there were a lot of anxious geeks.

Only one thing really happened this week in geek, and that was when I found this. Everything else is kind of a blur.

Oh, and I hear there's some kind of big game coming out for the Xbox next week, "Halo" or something like that. Sounds like a Bible game, so I don't really get why everyone's so excited.

Okay, here's a couple more things:

Go Team Dork! - U.S. Segway Polo team (!) wins gold in 2007 Woz Challenge Cup. Everybody celebrated with a round of whatever rich Silicon Valley nerds drink. Beer, I think. Video!.

New Business Plan! - Hot or Not has announced that they're doing away with whatever they were doing and replacing it with something else they may or may not have been doing before. The real news here, of course, is that Hot or Not still exists and is, like, an actual company of some kind. I'm stalled at 75% hot, with 111 votes in the past 4 years. And yes, I dress like that all the time.

NBC to Go it Alone, Fail - In a huge blow to Apple's iTunes, NBC will offer downloads of some of their shows through their own system, which will suck more than anyone can imagine and will cease to exist quite soon after it begins to exist.

Free for All! - Jason Kottke digs through the New York Times' newly opened archves and discovers some gems. What have you found? I found this story from 1912 about a $3M lawsuit over a Costa Rican banana plantation. I also found a typo in that article.

Gore Wins! - Winning the presidency is hard (especially against cheaters), but winning entertainment awards, he's got that shit down.

Now, let me get back to my Scrabble game.

Nothing gets video game nuts riled up like untimeliness. If a game is early, the fans flip out about spoilers. If it comes out late, they've been betrayed. So which area company's leak in the past 24 hours is worse?

Halo 3

Microsoft's megaton Christmas title, Halo 3, comes out in seven days, but it appears the title has already had its Deathly Hallows moment, as the game's ending is now up on YouTube (feel free to search if you're so inclined). The six-minute clip comes courtesy of a cell phone camera--nothing like a blurry, shaky image to drive home just how illicit the video is, oooooh. I could tell you the ending, but we're not talking about a Lost plot twist here...just straight-forward, good vs. evil sci-fi. I doubt our Redmond overlords are shaking in their elephant tusk-encrusted boots.

But just down the way, Bellevue's Valve Software unleashed the wrath of gaming addicts by being 30 minutes late. The company has revolutionized online game sales with its streamlined Steam service, and to convince fans to buy their Orange Box games pack in October, Valve put up an offer--pre-order in advance through Steam, get a sneak preview of one of those games (online shooter Team Fortress 2) on September 17. Yesterday, at 12:01 a.m., the hardcore logged on to Steam--nothin'. 5 p.m.? Still not there. 11:30 p.m.?!? Nope. The promised sneak peek didn't hit players' hard drives until 12:34 a.m. PST this morning, the 18th, and during that wait, an angry fan racked up the lead popularity slot at Digg with his anti-Valve tirade.

Team Fortress 2

Seems dim at first to blast a games company for a one-day wait--we're not talking about the months of delay that Grand Theft Auto 4 is facing, after all. But the ranter makes a relevant point, at least; some may also remember that Valve got into a PR disaster when they delayed their eventual blockbuster Half-Life 2 for over a year. When the company is trying to convince its fans to use Steam, rather than go to the store and get a trusted, physical copy, the smallest hiccup could scare the throngs off. People have plenty of other gaming options this holiday season, but neither of these issues will stop me from buying local--what can I say? I like to support the little neighborhood...multi-million game developers.

Stop me if you've heard any of this before..

Thought Crime of the Week - Polish Googlebomber faces three years in prison. The problem is having "bomb" in the word "Googlebomb." They probably thought it was a real bomb, you know, because Polish people are stupid.

Not So Much - Yahoo!'s "Mashup Debate" won't allow mashing-up.

iPhone Officially, Really Unlocked, for Realz, and for Free - And a nerd war begins.

Like a Cool Mountain Soda - Water so pure, it tastes like strawberries.

Spare a Gigabit, Buddy? - Bandwidth as currency.

How come everybody's suddenly talking about Dr. Who again these days?

Free McD Goodies! - SMS 2.0, now with McDonald's ads. This is a fantastic idea.

Prince to sue YouTube - Enigmatic rock star hires the "Web Sheriff" (serious!) in attempt to "reclaim the Internet" from the rest of us and keep it all to himself.

YouTube to sue JewTube - Or someone.

Domain Still Available - MagooTube.com

We're Rich and We're Smart and We Live Nearby - High-fallutin' tech jobs abound in Seattle. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Amazon all expanding all up in our faces.

MySpace Out, Facebook In - 23% growth in a year is just sad. Sorry Rupert, the dream is over.

Time Suck - If you're at work, don't click this. It's too awesome.

Every Important Invention. Ever. - Wikipedia has the definitive list. For example, did you know that the only two important things that have been invented this century are the self-contained artificial heart and the Scramjet? S'true. If we can invent three more things by the end of the decade, we can stick it to the stupid lame-ass 1990s, and their "World Wide Web." Get busy.

Yesterday, Apple announced that they were dropping the price of the iPhone by $200, a mere 2 months after it hit the market at $600. This move made all the "I'll wait a few months" people unbearably smug while making all the early- and instant-adopters unbearably whiny.

Today, Apple CEO Steve Jobs posted an "open letter" on Apple's site announcing that they will be giving early iPhone buyers a $100 credit.

Love 'em or hate 'em, Apple is a smart company.

The Apple news today:

• iPod Shuffle: Now in different colors.
• iPod Nano: Fat, wide and thin, with video.
• iPod Classic: The old standby, now in 80GB and 160GB models.
• iPod Touch: iPhone without the phone. Has Wi-Fi, web browser, calendar, etc.
• Wireless iTunes Store: For iPod Touch and iPhone.
• Wireless Starbucks: Like the music playing while waiting for your latte? Grab your iPod or iPhone, tap-tap-tap, you got it.

But the real insult here is this: They dropped the 4GB model of the iPhone (makes sense) and lowered the price of the 8GB model by $200, basically giving a giant fuck you to everyone who bought one in the first 2 months. Classy.

Apple's finely-tuned hype machine--the best in the world by a damn sight--has everybody all frothy over whatever new must-have, slightly-different-than-the-last-one gadget Cupertino has up their sleeves this morning.

Fat Nano? Wireless iTunes? iPhone Nano? iTuna? xPod? zTrip?

The event starts at 10am (that's like, now), and live coverage can be found here, here, here, here, here, or here.

Launching next week?

6:00 p.m.:: How does Seattle's biggest video gaming event of the year come to a proper, geek-crazy close? Two words: Halo 3.

The annual event's Omegathon is a gaming tourney, picked entirely by random draw, that closes with a surprise game for the championship. Previous years have used ancient classics like Tetris and Pong for the closing surprise, but seeing how huge this year's Expo turned out, the hottest unreleased game of 2007--and a release from our well-known Redmond overlords--makes sense for at the curtain call.

Other gaming sites will surely gush over the Halo 3 features debuted in this grand championship match--not to mention the crowd-pleasing flamethrower--but you guys could care less about gravity hammers and detachable laser turrets, right?

I came to PAX with questions about the industry. When I walked in, I was concerned about the perception of gamers and the marketing choices of game companies, both of which pigeonhole an aging industry as an immature domain. The reputation problem didn't necessarily go away when I walked into the convention center, but it was easy to lose track of that perspective when I had so much fun nerding out.

I'd guess that most Slog readers' game experiences are solitary, from Minesweeper to quick Flash games on the Web to perhaps World of Warcraft (which, while multiplayer, is still usually done alone at the house). Certainly, my recent gaming has been that way. But the thing I kept seeing at PAX was the common ground that games offered total strangers, not to mention families--father-son gamer duos and the like. If every non-gamer did what I did this weekend--walked into random PAX rooms, watched folks play an unknown game, received some instructions and joined in--they'd drop the kiddie stance, too. Public, social gaming is a far better solution to the reputation problem than any government lobby, advertising campaign or impassioned blog plea.

Think I'm wrong? Come over, grab a controller and see for yourself. Or find me at PAX'08.

3:30 p.m.: Video of a Q&A with Wil Wheaton will come when I'm able to upload to YouTube. Until then, I'm compelled to point out that the ex-Star Trek actor and well-known geek patriarch had a nicely valid point about some of the Slog forum posters' lust for nerdy photos: "You know, parallels can be drawn between gamers and sports fans. When you see guys at Lambeau Field in diaper and body paint, you think, that's an enthusiast. Yet when some guy goes out dressed as Mario, they say, 'He's a freak.' But he's not. He just really, really loves it."

1:50 p.m.: GamerDad, your work to redeem gamers' reputations has taken ten steps back. Overheard in the men's bathroom at PAX:

Continue reading "Penny Arcade Expo: Sunday Coverage" »

11:59 p.m.:

Nerdcore rapper MC Frontalot might as well have changed the first two letters in his alias to DM. At the evening's concert, Frontalot threw dice and talked in D&D-anese before nearly every song ("you have earned enough experience points to level up to the status of nerdcore rapper"). Still, unlike many of the other acts, who used nerd cliches and game song covers as crutches for their otherwise so-so performances, tonight's hip-hop act held his own with a relatively solid flow and a quality backing band. Still, you gotta love the crowd's reaction to his "wave your hands in the air" request:

Er...Hear tha Yoda get wicked? His was far from the most impressive musical performance of the night, as that title goes to the guy who blazed through a hacked copy of Guitar Hero in the gaming lounges. Somehow, a nine-minute chunk of black metal found its way onto one of the PAX Playstations, and I watched in a state of semi-shock as a teenager nearly broke his wrist with his mastery of the plastic controller. Once I recovered, I snapped a shot of him as he was leaving the convention center:

If you look closely, you can see a bead of his sweat gleaming off of the guitar controller in his backpack. Godspeed, you Hero.

9:30 p.m.: Even hot ladies can't always lure nerds. Across the street, PAX sponsor Vivendi Games threw a relatively barren "party" to promote new war game World In Conflict, though the many elaborate props on hand, including a friggin' tank, just about outnumbered the patrons. Models in Soviet military garb stood around holding weapons, but the only person interested in their schtick was this douchebag:

What's with douchebags and hand gestures, anyway?

8:30 p.m.: After being dragged into a Tetris tournament--kicking and screaming, I assure you--I found myself in a pretty interesting panel about the business side of games. Granted, if you've been reading this coverage (I'm lookin' at you, Frank), you may very well question my version of "interesting," but three long-time game industry buffs had plenty to say about the rapid, behind-the-scenes evolution of the industry. First off, did you know that a lot of game companies outsource grunt work to China?

'Tis true, and much of the conversation veered toward the Asian gaming industry, from microtransaction-based games ("Games like Maple Story are huge overseas, and in a few years, you'll see them overrun the States.") to Starcraft ("[In Korea], they have two cable channels showing Starcraft tournaments all of the time. With the sequel, [Bilzzard] can't change too much, because 22 minutes plus commercials equals Starcraft.").

In fitting business fashion, the panel's tone was doom and gloom. "The current multi-year game development cycle is not a sustainable business model," says Wizard of the Coast's Randy Bueller. Risk aversion was a big sticking point, as the guys had plenty of reason to believe that big-budget, Halo-level games may fall to the wayside in place of lighter, Wii-style titles. But when asked about the struggling state of old-style games stores, the panel agreed on a pretty bright suggestion: Turn the stores into gaming cafes, and reignite the concept of the arcade. Assuming the guy at GameStopBucks doesn't try to sell one-year warranties with every cup of coffee, I'm in.

After the jump, the rest of Saturday's coverage:

Continue reading "Penny Arcade Expo: Saturday Coverage" »

To those who saw babble about PAX and wondered what the hell was going on, my apologies. A quick primer: I'm a newcomer 'round these parts by way of Line Out, a former music editor at New Times Village Voice Media's Dallas Observer who moved here only a couple of months ago. My initial post about the Penny Arcade Expo , Seattle's gaming expo with over 30,000 attendants, will explain more. My on-site coverage continues below, as well as on continuously updated posts tomorrow and Sunday.

11:59 p.m.: Shortly after 7 p.m., the main hall of the Expo, the one full of new demos and exclusive goodies, was closed off. Those who wanted to try out unreleased games like Metroid Prime 3 and Rock Band were out of luck. This is when the Penny Arcade Expo took on its most interesting shape.

Official events still took place, from a "girls in gaming" panel discussion to "nerdcore" music concerts to screenings of gaming-related movies like The Wizard, and on and on. But ultimately, with no large-draw events for the rest of the night, the mass of gamers was left to disperse as it pleased. And thus, they took to gaming...together. Multiplayer games popped up far and wide across the convention center, mostly involving laughing, shouting people huddled around Wiis and Xboxes. It felt like a dweeb's dream summer camp come true--I couldn't help but get sucked in while playing gun, soccer and driving games with a mass of chatty, friendly gamers, none of whom were like the freaks I saw earlier in the day.

Not that this was some social utopia; a few minutes in the Expo's computer lab felt like something out of a bad mind-control sci-fi movie. Just look at this dark, dismal pit of all-but-silent LAN gaming addicts:

Thankfully, I didn't dwell in the lab for long, and the experiences I had with interesting, social gamers reaffirmed the points that Wheaton went on about in his keynote earlier. The people I gamed with weren't screaming racist slurs or discussing 12th level mages; they were talking about each other's home towns, suggestions for good breakfast food around Seattle and even their families. Gaming gave me an excuse to meet and get to know new people, something I rarely do with my usual activities like concerts, sporting events or even playing around in local parks. Hell, how often do I spend 30 minutes talking to lacrosse-playing Navy recruits?

Tomorrow sees more in the way of interesting panel discussions; tune in for more reports on how those panels attempt to shake--or perhaps reaffirm--the conventions and stereotypes of gaming.

7 p.m.: Photo time!

Continue reading "Penny Arcade Expo: Friday Coverage" »

"Choosing a bunk bed is a lot like choosing any other kind of mattress, but there are some specific considerations to keep in mind. It’s very important to buy a mattress that fits your bunk bed frame, and comfort and style will definitely be factors in your decision as well." Find out more (much more!) at Bunkbedspedia - You're one-stop resource about bunk beds.

New Craze! - Witness Faceball, a new sport invented by those wacky geeks at Flickr, who are somehow both more productive and have more free time than I. The Stranger Faceball team is organizing now. I love crazes.

Cruel and Unusual! - Court orders convicted downloader to use Windows. Mercy!

Laser Car! - So, when I was a kid back in Baltimore (go O's, Hon!), we played a game called "Laser Car" as we walked to and from school. Car headlights were lasers, see, and if they had a clean line-of-sight at you, you were dead. So we ran along the streets, diving behind parked cars and trees, and generally having a great time. You were allowed one shield per round, which involved whipping your backpack around to your chest and facing the car head-on, blocking the lasers. Modern-day children have more than imaginary lasers to worry about, or course--they're constantly being gunned down by real guns, real lasers, RPGs, and god-knows-what. That's why they have the Ballistic Backpack. It's bulletproof. That's right, a bulletproof backpack, for kids. Whew, went a long way for that one.

Easy Reading! - No time to read? Get the classics (and not-so-classics) delivered via email, in bite-sized, 5-minute chunks. I'm already 2/3 of a page into Crime and Punishment--should be finished sometime next fall. Easy!

Unlocked! - Smart nerds have offically unlocked an iPhone, and Engadget goes to great lengths to prove that it's real. Not a hoax, not a hoax, not a hoax. Get it? It's not a hoax.

Doing Lunch! - Want to have lunch and a "great conversation" with some complete strangers within a specified radius of your current location? Noonhat.com wants to help you do that.

New Word! - Coined on Sunday, overused by Friday. Bacn - |'bãkɘn| - noun - E-mail you want, but not right now.

Big Disc! - "TeraDisc system uses light-sensitive molecules called chromophores to create hologram-like matrices that can be used to store a full terabyte of data on a single disc using a red laser," which is so totally obvious.

Yikes! - Hackers take down Estonia (the country) using botnets. We're in trouble--someone call Aquaman.

Voilà, le conversation dans le parc:

The Penny Arcade Expo kicks off this afternoon, which means that Seattle's downtown convention center will soon be overrun by video game addicts from around the world. (Seriously, people are flying in from...Estonia? Maybe the guy eats frogs.)

Question is, will today's arrivals gate at Sea-Tac will look anything like this new Nintendo commercial?

Figures that Nintendo would choose the nearby airport for this ad; hell, have JJ Putz walk through for a cameo while you're at it. But it's an interesting scene illustrated here, at least in light of the three-day gamers' expo that begins at 2 p.m. today. The crowd in this ad is decidedly older, dressed to look like average Joes and Janes fresh off the office job--much like the rest of Nintendo's latest Wii ads. But it remains to be seen how the average cross-section of over 20,000 PAX entrants will look today.

America's gaming demographic is growing in age, and 20- and 30-somethings are gaming with their children more than any decade before, but the industry's public perception is still, largely, trapped in the same limited niche as D&D and sci-fi. Will PAX's largest iteration yet have its fair share of grounded gamers--the ones who enjoy an occasional game and still have a life? Or am I in for cosplay-stricken nerddom?

I'll post my findings live from PAX throughout the weekend. Come find me--I'll be the guy with the Nintendo DS. (Thanks to gaming site Joystiq for the heads-up on the above ad.)

Crunchgear has info and photos of the (rumored to be) new iPod Nano that probably won't be called a Nano. It's cute, I want.

Click to see.

(Thanks for the link, Hickey.)