Sony blocks content on Xbox 360 - The fallout of HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray persists

Posted at November 19, 2008 @ 7:58 am by Ighuaran in Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, Microsoft, Netflix, Xbox 360, video games

I have now mentioned in two posts that the exclusive arrangement between Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Netflix which affords the viewer realtime HD video on demand streaming of over ten thousand titles, would pose a real threat to Sony and overpriced Blu-Ray.  Well Sony has demonstrated this to be true by blocking its (Columbia) catalog from streaming via Netflix as Xbox 360’s New Xbox Experience goes live this morning.

As reported at Xbox 360 Fanboy:

“According to Joystiq (and confirmed by MTV Multiplayer) Netflix has pulled all Columbia Pictures content from the Xbox 360 instant view library due to “licensing problems.” But, wouldn’t you know, all the blocked content can still be viewed online and through all other Netflix enabled TV devices except for the 360.

Netflix hopes to license all the currently blocked content to the Xbox 360 in the near future.”

Sony is known for its less-than-scrupulous turf wars, often upsetting consumers by viture of its insistence upon proprietary hardware and codecs.

 

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How to set up a classic standup arcade at home. Free.

Posted at September 23, 2008 @ 11:42 pm by Ighuaran in Netflix, arcade classics, video games

Lucky Wander Boy

Lucky Wander Boy

A few years back I was at Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles and on a whim, picked up a book called Lucky Wander Boy by D.B. Weiss.  Upon reading it, it reminded me of Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 in its post-modern sleight-of-hand mind-fuckness where the line between protagonist as anti-hero, my id and reality were blurred as it referred to a piece of software called MAME that allowed me to run original standup arcade ROMs on my home computer.  One of these games was called Lucky Wander Boy and as the author of the book would tell it - to play the actual game led one down a very mysterious, even dangerous path.

Mame32 GUI

Mame32 GUI

With some healthy skepticism in place, I searched for the game online.  Imagine my astonishment when it showed up as a download!  Marketing tactic?  Nope.  It was the real deal.

Here’s the thing.  A lot of us have game consoles and spend way too much time reading bullshit threads about how PS3 and Blu-Ray trump Xbox 360s and back and forth ad nauseum.  But there is a thing about the old standup games wherein the farther you go back the more pure the gameplay is.  You boil down to the perfect game, ie., Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Pong or Donkey Kong and you realize there really is no way to boil it down further from there.

Well, imagine the joy for us dying Generation Xers when by simply pressing the number 5 on your laptop keyboard you can have as many quarters as you want.  Pressing the number 1 or 2 for number of players sets you loose into Arcade nirvana.  And yeah, if you actually figured out how to move out of moms basement by now you can even smoke cigarettes in your home arcade as you suck back that Orange Julius - just like the old days!

Even better, you can play versions of these games that you never even knew existed - bootlegs, demos,  revisions, and international versions!  Total.  Heaven.

So, how do you get your hand on these pretties?  Too easy.  Run a search for MAME32 and MAME32 ROMS.  Used to be heavily protected, even considered piracy, and I am not certain what the actual hard laws concerning this sort of use is these days, (so I hereby absolve myself of any liability by stating that if you download and or use these ROMS you do so at your own riskj) but since almost every old school arcade is going out of business, you are effectively participating in an examination of our cultural history and identity and paying respects to the soon to be forgotten art form that was tabletop/standup arcade gaming.

Here’s an example of a site for ROMs and emulators.

There are many others.  Enjoy, padawan.


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Xbox and Netflix Team Up - Still Waving that Blu-Ray Banner SONY?

Posted at July 16, 2008 @ 4:04 am by Ighuaran in Blu-Ray, HDTV, Netflix, XBLA, Xbox 360

From xbox.com:

“At E3, Microsoft and Netflix, the world’s largest online movie rental service, today unveiled an exclusive partnership to offer the ability to instantly stream movies and TV episodes from Netflix to your television via Xbox 360®.”

Netflix recently introduced its Watch Instantly program that allows subscribers to view selected (that is, the titles already converted) titles instantly on their PC. A plan costing as little as $8.99/month allows unlimited viewing during that month.

Well here is the trump card Microsoft was holding as it took egg in the face over the loss of the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war. This is not another Xbox vs. Playstation post nor is it an HD-DVD vs. Blue-Ray treatise - it is a celebration of the fact that at long last a massive high-definition video-on-demand solution exists backed by two of the respectively largest players in the world.

Yeah it’s too bad it’s an exclusive grab for Microsoft because it means not everyone will be happy; investors in Playstation will punch all sorts of holes in it, and lots of finger pointing will happen. But every time I go to NAB show and see the big TV players scrambling for what is going to happen next and we all wonder when Broadband random-access, full resolution, full-length programming video will be available (yes Vimeo.com is cool and looks nice but really, do you want to watch 3 minute programs for the rest of your life?) well its now. Actually, it is technically this holiday season (2008).

I was already radically changing my movie-viewing habits by staying home to purchase whatever might already be up on the respectively meager offerings from XBOX LIVE Marketplace - it was worth it for instant on-demand on my 46″ HDTV. But with the introduction of Netflix and an $8.99 a month subscription to Netflix (with a $7.99 monthly Xbox Live Gold membership) - thus a total of under US$20 - I have access to tens of thousands of titles for unlimited use directly through my Xbox 360 with HDMI out to my HDTV.

But hundreds of questions arise as we contemplate the implications of this announcement. With Sony launching its video-on-demand (VOD) service on the Playstation 3, with portability to the PSP, are we caught once again in a format war - this time between Sony Playstation 3 and Microsoft’s XBox 360?

What will the new console-based VOD universe mean for distributors?

How will actors, producers, film composers/musicians and the rest collect royalties?

What will differentiate legitimate films from indie YouTUbe fare? Surely studio releases will qualify as “legitimate” films and television, but what differentiates them? As a film studio, Sony and all of its subsidiaries has a direct interest in the films in makes available, whereas Microsoft simply wants to push as much traffic through so that it can participate in the home entertainment lexicon.

One may argue that the audience that doesn;t yet own an Xbox, may not be so excited about having to commit to the platform just to take advantage of the exclusive Netflix opportunity. But look at the inverse - with the Xboxers super happy with this seemingly limitless and convenient option, the advertisers and studios should be asking - how will they get the Xbox/Netflix viewers if they aren’t in that catalog?
Bravo.