Even the best…

So news broke this week in the wake of Bill Gates’ final few days of an old internal email chain he started regarding trying to simply get ‘MovieMaker’ working in Windows XP

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/library/2003Jangatesmoviemaker.pdf

Link to email chain.

I found these internal emails so interesting as it highlights the problems of working in a large software team, its hard for one person to take responsibility or be able to seize the reins and change something. I’ve noticed in organisations of any significant size when something goes wrong for the consumer its generally not one persons ‘fault’. Most people are limited in power in a company and unclear as to how to act when a problem arises that is not specifically within their job description.

This scenario seems to be held true in this email chain as the recipients try to organise who is going to fix which part, but it is difficult. Do they cross into someone else’s territory? Do they ask the other person to fix their end? What if that person is of higher rank? , are they going to hold a grudge that could affect your job security.

I admit  I often get annoyed when one thing made by the Windows team does not work with another part flawlessly, “its the same team  I scream hopelessly at my screen”. Even though the reality is that the two teams of developers under the umbrella of ‘Windows’ have probably never even met.

Of course its so amusing in this case as the consumer is actually the boss of the entire company suffering at a system which he believed would be of a higher quality and co-ordination better than it actually is. Many people have many different views of Gates. I personally am going to miss him from having a figurehead role at Microsoft, especially if he is constantly calling out the developers internally like this as I do dream for that one day that everything in my house is beautifully compatible and synched with everything else. Sigh a boy can dream ..

Realism in games

 

Wandering around Weston -Super Mare last week my friends and I stumbled into the nearby arcade on the pie (surprise surprise). After the usual air hockey and shooting galleries  I spotted ‘Police 24/7′ in the corner and my mind raced back to an article  I read years ago of this arcade cabinet being realised in Japan. The special part of this game is that it uses sensors to actual map your movements onscreen. Admittedly this is basically just used to allow you to crouch or move left and right to take cover, but it really brought me into the game. A lot has been made of the Wii’s motion sensing but  I really think this sort of tracking has a lot more potential in it- or at least should be added as a part of other motion sensing concepts.

Unfortunately I only last around 5 minute before I was taken out by some cheating AI..seriously its the only plausible way i got shot…

COD5 - back to the past?

So yesterday I heard the Call of Duty (COD) series would be returning to the  time old WW2 era and  I cringed. Granted this is a random rant (then which of mine aren’t?) but I cannot be the only person who is disappointed with this decision. I’m usually not a big Call of Duty fan, but i did enjoy the 4th instalment mainly due to its modern setting.

While i have always been a history buff i find games based on WW2 simply lacklustre and repetitive. How many times can you make a game where everyone from about the age of  8 knows how the story goes. The Nazi’s were evil, we get it. If you played all the games in the past few years it would probably take you longer than WW2 actually  lasted and this just highlights the lack of creativity in the FPS genre recently. COD4 was a breath of fresh air in the regard, the story was fresh and clever and  I can’t see how moving to ‘the pacific’ battle on COD5 is going to deliver the same effect.

Short of being historically inaccurate (which so far COD has strayed from) the weapons are going to pretty much be the same as the first 3 games and  I can’t see there being much mission variety. Its not even like there has been that much of a hardware leap since the last WW2 version of the COD series, I just can’t see this games unique selling point..

But hey what does it matter its still going to sell tonnes regardless due to the franchise, I just hope the series doesn’t turn into a unimaginative cash grazer.

and the award for most random intro to a movie ever goes to…

Oh yes while i am mentioning Indiana Jones and the crystal skull that intro has got to be the most unexpected thing ever. That was not the impression i had got from Indian Jones films although i must admit I have never watched the others ‘properly’. Oh and what on earth was with the monkey scene? Seriously??

Only payed 3 quid though (love student discount) and it was definitely worth that - even for laughing at how it wasn’t taking itself seriously. Pleasantly surprised…stop talking liam go to bed…

My Prada is Awesome!

As I write this fully aware I will not remember it in the morning, I would just like to commend LG on one hell of a job. Rushing to meet a friend for the new Indiana Jones movie and realising that the cinema I only visited twice last year was actually a lot further away from my new house than I though, i dropped my phone twice, smack front touch screen first onto the pavement.

How twice? well that’s embarrassing as  it feel out of jacket pocket so i moves it to my jeans before forgetting and putting it back in my jacket after checking the time again.

But the POINT of this post is that both times  i slowly picked up my beloved phone expecting the screen to be cracked to complete my hideous day and both times  i was amazed to find not even a single (new) scratch on the phone. If anything the bangs seemed to have made the touch screen more responsive, course I’m not really going to test this theory further….

So well done LG and  the morale is i still love my Prada

Zune… not quite the ipod killer

With the news today of the zune being discontinued from gamestop stores I  thought this would set me up for a quick mindless rant whilst my exams continue to contribute to the currently increasing infrequent use of my blog.

Now when the zune was pre released a lot of people were talking about how it going to change the mp3 player genre instantly- “the ipod killer”… I laughed. My good friend even said “  I thought you of all people would love this?” and this comment  had a good basis in logic as  I am not really a fan of the current market leader. Take the fantastic marketing out of the way and what has the ipod really done differently compared to every cheaper and equally as functional example on the market? Short of forcing you to use itunes (which i will admit has turned into a great music download service) there was nothing, but the point is the Zune was never going to take the crown - not in the first round anyway.

Pre release the Zune sounded great but it was hit by some last minute feature drops  and confusion and we saw it flop. Alas spawned the jokes of “omg that guy has totally got the only Zune in the world” (the fact that this joke was done by at least 100 different people on their one friend who owned a Zune didn’t seem to diminish the humor). The point however was clear; the Microsoft MP3 player took a mere modest chunk out of the apple (groan) and many would see that as the end of it.

I think these people are forgetting something. This is MICROSOFT! They are but one of few companies who have the luxury of getting a launch wrong and doing it again with more money. The Xbox was practically rammed down consumers throats until it became a household name (/item) and now the 360 has continued the growth and  I would be shocked if the next generation of Zune didn’t continue this trend. Will they outsell the ipod in the near future ? no chance! Will they outsell the ipod ever? possibly..  but don’t count the little device out yet at least not while its backed by its big OS selling daddy.

PS. Although hopefully this generation we won’t have more ” coming zune….” adverts.  Meh back to language engineering

Kojima’s Comments on MGS4

 

I must admit Hideo Kojima recent comments on Metal Gear Solid 4 confused me a little. For those who don’t know Hideo Kojima is the creator of Metal Gear and in a recent interview with Edge magazine he displayed his disappointment with the most recent game in the series. Now of course one could take this to be modesty; a bit of a perfectionist who feels he could have done better. In fact I think is definitely true to some extent.

  However what puzzled me was how he refereed to the PS3. He stated that when the game was first displayed at TGS the PS3 was a ‘dream machine’ but as time went on his implication seemed to be that he and his team had overestimated the power of the PS3 resulting in a game below his original expectations. He also claimed his team were pushing the Cell Processor to its limit, which I just cannot believe considering how powerful and future proof  Sony claim this multi -core little beauty to be. I suppose this could just be a throw away interview and I should wait till the game is released before passing any serious judgement but just… why on earth would someone say this before release? Unless your trying to make a point?

Meh, I need more coffee…

http://kotaku.com/381412/kojima-disappointed-with-metal-gear-solid-4

Innovation vs Reinvention

Ok so the title is probably a little too dramatic for what I’m going to talk about but here goes.  In recent weeks there has been debate on the net regarding developer comments made towards the Xbox 360’s Live Arcade platform.

  These comments suggest that the platform that was originally supposed to allow small time publishers to release titles on the 360 has been taken over by the  big cooperate companies and as such arcade has turned into a platform for rehashes of old games.  Further criticisms were aimed that the majority of remakes were in fact just ports and nowhere near the level of Ubisoft’s Prince of Perisa remake.

  Of course the flip of the coin is that many fans of arcade are often screaming out for their favourite old titles to be brought back with slight improvements like multiplayer. And of course  Microsoft being the company that it is, is going to try and meet demand of its customers.

People aren’t really going to know the names of small arcade games before their released are they? My standpoint is why can’t we have both? Why can’t we have big publishers using licences to bring the games everyone wants to the platform while small time publishers make fresh new games good enough to be on the service. I mean if you just look at Microsoft as just a bloodthirsty  company their not going to turn down a potential big hit just because it came from a smaller developer are they? If anything that would mean they have potentially more leverage in negotiations. As a young programmer I feel if I created a game that was genuinely good and suited to the arcade platform I  would be confident of getting it on live arcade. Why would Microsoft turn away potential revenue that isn’t going to cost them anything?

I guess the point of this post is I don’t see the problem. So if you didn’t want to read the above just read this paragraph. :P 

PS3 DualShock Controllers..

The new rumble controllers for the PS3 will be arriving in the US within the next couple of weeks. Least anyone forget the saga it took to get ‘rumble’ on the PS3 following the lawsuit by Immersion in 2002 on grounds of patent infringement. While Microsoft shrewdly chose to settle out of court Sony’s decision to defend left them with $82 million to pay for the 7 years they had been using the rumble technology previous. In addition to this they were no longer allowed to sell any ‘rumble controllers’ for any of their 3 consoles despite an appeal attempt. Sony tried to play this off as a ‘we have outgrown rumble’ marketing ploy, before making a deal with Immersion to gain the rights to include that horribly ancient technology for their net-Gen console. Something their rivals had from the start.

   I will be curious to see sale figures for this controller assuming Sony do not offer to trade in old controllers for free (and I can’t imagine the loss for doing that) as will anyone really want to spend $50 on a new controller? I could make a there’s’ certainly no games buy’ joke here but I’m going to rise above it.

Creative Vista Drivers - a new issue..

An interesting situation is developing with the Creative soundcard community in response to Creative’s decision to stop a non Creative employee from distributing modified Creative drivers to enhance user’s Vista experience.

   A user on the Creative forums going by the handle Daniel_K has been modifying the standard Vista drivers provided for various Creative soundcard’s to ensure that features supplied in the driver build actually work on user’s Vista systems. Features such as Decoding of Dolby® Digital and DTS™ signals work fine when installed on a Windows XP machine but the vista driver counterparts do not.

Many Creative soundcard owners have taken up arms against Creative for this with declarations that they will never buy another Creative product again as a result of this decision. The official forum topic is laced with angry users who feel Creative deliberately fixed the Vista drives to not be completely compatible and thus ensure when new ‘Vista’ soundcards are released users will be forced to upgrade. The argument being how could one person make the drivers compatible when a whole Creative team could not?

Creative’s reasoning however becomes more clear when you consider that Daniel_K, whilst providing the fixes for free, has been requesting donations for his contributions. The implication written by a Creative representative in the forums might suggest that Creative was put under pressure by its partners to stop this actions due to fear over IP. After all it is Creative and its affiliate’s IP that is being used in the drivers and the modified drivers are still for the most part Creative software.  Any negative effects of these drivers could reflect poorly on Creative should they cause problems on hardware they were not intended for.

“By enabling our technology and IP to run on sound cards for which it was not originally offered or intended, you are in effect, stealing our goods.  When you solicit donations for providing packages like this, you are profiting from something that you do not own.”

This statement taken from the official statements sums up the Creative standpoint quite nicely.

Personally I’m not sure where  I stand on the matter. One the one hand it seems ridiculous that Creative would step in and shut someone down who is enhancing their product for free. Then again by asking for donations he is walking a very fine line of stealing and putting the Creative label at risk.

   Personally I’d just hire the guy and put him on driver support

http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=soundblaster&thread.id=116332&view=by_date_ascending&page=1

The official Thread