A View from the Edge: September 2006

Arrrr!!

Since it be talk like a pirate day, I'm gonna share with ya land lubbers me pirate name.

My pirate name is:

Dirty Tom Rackham

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

I don't really understand why they be callin' me dirty Pete, but there it be.

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!

So Nintendo has finally made their big announcement. The Wii will be coming to America the 19th of November for two-hundred and fifty dollars. It'll ship with one controller (sans nun-chuck attachment) and Wii Sports. There's a lot to love in this announcement, and a lot to hate.

First off, why the $50 dollar increase with no nun-chuck attachment? I realize the Wii is still the best priced console and the inclusion of a game at launch harks back to the days of the original Nintendo, but it still feels like we got hit with a $50 increase simply because Sony mis-stepped so badly with the price of the PS3, and Nintendo knew they could get away with it. Also knowing Nintendo they have probably realized that they can easily sell all 4 million of their initial launch units and then some at $250. It wouldn't surprise me if they dropped the price to $200 after the first six months, especially since that's when most people predict an Xbox 360 price drop as well.

The November 19th launch is also a bit strange. Most people, myself included, where hoping for a launch much sooner. Launching right after Sony seems like a big mistake as well, unless you take into account the fact that Sony is only going to have 400,000 units in this country until after Christmas. Contrast that to Nintendo's 4 million, and its obvious they intend to swoop in after the debacle that will be the PS3 release and collect as many pissed off and disenfranchised Sony fans as possible. While this is obviously the right thing to do from a business standpoint, those of us who've been at Nintendo's side since they first announced the Revolution had hoped for a bit of fan service.

With the negative out of the way, I'd like to just say I'm really looking forward to this system. Everything about it, and not just the chance to have a lightsaber fight across the internet, screams that this is the console for me. As long as Nintendo continues to play a solid game, and doesn't drop the ball as Sony did with the PSP, I expect the system to at least live up to my expectations if not surpass them.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind....

Things have gotten a bit better. I still work in a dump, but at least the managers have more or less gotten off my back. They still come over and rail on me about PC repair sales (not that I can really effect those much), but at least there aren't any more meetings in the back behind closed doors.

The G4 Mac I ordered has finally arrived, and after some brief tweaking I've got it all set up to do video editing. Problem is, I've forgotten a ton about Final Cut. I've been trying to locate a book for Final Cut Pro 3.0 to refresh my memory but considering they're up to 5.0 now it has been a bit difficult. If I can't find an e-book online somewhere, I'll probably just see if I can pull something off of Ebay or Amazon.

I really miss everyone who is away at college. Things have gotten a bit lonely around here without so many people hanging around. We still try to meet a few times a week, but nothing like it was this summer. I'm trying not to fill the down time with WoW like I did last year so I can actually get a few things accomplished with my life. It's not that easy though, people keep trying to drag me back in.