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Great Company, Dumb Comment

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The Chief Executive Officer of Square-Enix made the comments below the other day. For me, these are really dumb comments made by the CEO of a really great company:

“The Wii is the antithesis of the Xbox 360,” he adds. “Xbox 360 is strictly for hardcore gamers. The attachment rate for the Xbox 360 is much higher than for the Wii. People who buy the 360 really like games.”

Regarding Sony, Wada believes they need to position the PS3 explicitly as a game machine instead of a supercomputer that also plays Blu-ray movies.

For those FF fans out there, this has got to be concerning. Sure, the CEO’s comments about Sony and the PlayStation 3 are pretty dead-on, but doesn’t reality prove his Wii and XBox comments to be false? Aren’t Wii owners completely infatuated with the younger, less-powerful system because it is strictly “fun to play?” Further, aren’t many XBox owners aggravated that they are paying a great deal of money for nothing more than a PC in console’s clothing and the always-feared “red ring of death?”

I’m not sure if my younger brother gets on to my blog too much any more, but he purchased an XBox 360 a few months ago and it has since had a bunch of technical problems. I brought the Wii home for Thanksgiving and I thought it was a hit. I think the CEO of Square-Enix may need to re-evaluate his definition of people who “really like games.”

And bring Final Fantasy back to Nintendo already, damn it!

NYTimes: New Merger Evidence of Gaming Change

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The New York Times online is just packed with good articles today! As I was flipping around I noticed this one about the video game industry. I try to stay abreast of what’s going on in the video game industry since I really believe that their cutting edge technology will change the future. The devices and mechanisms used in the United States military were developed by video games and I’m confident that this industry will continue to bring new and innovative technologies to the mass market into the future. Did you know that some doctors are studying actual online role-playing games to watch public reactions to new diseases? I read an article about that somewhere – try Googling it if you’re interested.

I should also say that I’m very interested in investing in some of these companies, hence one of the reasons why I keep an eye on them.

The Times posted an article talking about the merger between Activision and Vivendi Universal’s game unit last Sunday. I found the following bit of text very poignant:

Until recently, it seemed that the only way the game industry knew how to grow was to keep drilling deeper into its core demographic of tech-savvy young men who had few interests beyond cleavage, explosions and touchdowns. And that vein was just about tapped out: over the last few years, the growth of industry bellwethers like Electronic Arts has slowed to a crawl.

But then, over three successive autumns, true visionaries demonstrated a new way to conceive of video games — not merely as a niche pastime for geeks but as the next mainstream entertainment medium, one that could appeal to women, families, older people and all the other demographic groups the industry had forgotten about.

In terms of profits, Nintendo has dominated the competition. Microsoft is dead-set on creating a quasi-computer that runs video games and calling it an XBox and Sony is very concerned about being the center of your home entertainment world. Nintendo focuses on video games and fun; this is why they are so successful.

Anyway, interesting article that I thought some of you may enjoy.

Enough with the Commercials, Stern!

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A few weeks ago I read an article that decried the satellite radio business as not living up to its promise. No, not the promise of commercial-free content because that’s not what they are promising (except with music – Sirius XM promises commercial-free music and boy do they deliver). What I am referring to is the theoretical promise of satellite radio.

That promise is a marketplace where YOU can pay for services that are to your liking and receive them on a limited interruption basis. For the purposes of this entry, I absolutely believe that Howard Stern is delivering on the promise of specific content tailored to a certain demographic. His channels are not only the most listened to on all of satellite radio (including the higher subscribed to XM), but they actually have a variety of topics and personalities that appeal to a broad audience (you’d be surprised). I’ve personally become a big fan of Bubba the Love Sponge since I first heard him on Howard 101, but that’s a different story.

However, Howard Stern and his crew are NOT delivering on the promise of limited interruptions for this PAY service. I understand that the talk channels do have some degree of commercial interruption and that’s fine by me. Gotta pay the bills, right? But the commercial breaks on Howard 100 and Howard 101 are – at this point – out of control. And I stress “at this point” because this was not always the way it was on these channels. When Howard started on Sirius XM, he had such limited interruptions that they amounted to some 20 minutes or so on his first show and even that was just a musical break or two.

But today, not only are we (the paying subscribers) subjected to 10 minutes or more of straight non-original, commercial content, but we are subjected to this crap on an increasing basis. I should take this opportunity, though, to point out that my definition of commercial and their definition of commercial is almost certainly different. I define anything that is not original, live content as a commercial. And please, don’t try to use 3rd grade logic with me about how by my limited definition then all of the replays are commercials. That’s BS and anyone with an education higher than grade school should understand that concept.

When Howard goes to commercial and you hear some lead out garbage phone call or sound clip, that doesn’t count as original, live content for me. When it flips to Howard 100 news for 5 or 6 minutes, that is also part of my definition of “commercial” – as is the downright insulting “lead-in” when they are back from commercial break. Why is the lead-in insulting? Well, they generally play some song during the lead-in. That’s what I want from the talk channel…a song. A fucking song?!?! Are you kidding me? I have dozens and dozens of commercial-free channels and one of the few talk channels that I listen to is going to play a fucking song? What bullshit.

On a related note, I can’t tell you how amazingly arrogant and aggravating it is to hear him say with such concern that he and the gang, “have GOT to take a commercial break!” Alright, we understand that Stern has contracts with advertisers and he must live up to his end of the contract. But we’re not dipshits! We’re not stupid! He has these contracts in place NOT because management is forcing him to have a ton of advertisers; rather he has those contracts in place because he’s trying to maximize his profit potential. Any business student understands that and they, like me, are probably fine with it. The problem is that Stern is not living up to the theoretical promise of satellite radio.

In any event, the next time you are on a long trip in the car take out your watch and time how long it takes from Howard to say, “We’ll be right back,” to him actually talking on the air again. It’ll be ten minutes at least (if you can stick with it that long). This is not the promise of satellite radio. In some respects, all Howard has managed to do on satellite radio is re-create the terrestrial radio template. It’s sad. Is it enough to have me cancel my Sirius subscription? Well, I don’t think so – unless, of course, they don’t bring back Bubba the Love Sponge after his contract expires!

Random Thoughts from the Last Week

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Since I haven’t had time to put together a coherent post in the last few days, here are some random thoughts from the last 5 – 7 days. As you’ll see, this is about as disjointed as you can get for a blog entry, but hey – if millions of other blogs can do it daily, then why can’t I do it once in a blue moon?

  • You ever watch a football game and the wrong team wins? For those of you who have played football at any level – have you ever been in a game where you are obviously the better team, but you don’t win the game? I watched the Colts take on the Patriots last night and even though the Patriots had a 24 – 20 victory over the Colts, Manning and his teammates are obviously the better football team. At least in my view, that is. And I take nothing away from the Patriots (who are amazing), but after watching yesterday’s game it just seemed clear that the Colts are a better team. I could be wrong, though…
  • On the subject of sports, I’m still baffled that the baseball season is over. You know when the football season is over because there is this massive Super Bowl where over 100 million people watch. It just seems like baseball ended this year and no one took notice. How many people even know that the Red Sox won the Series? How many people even care?
  • You may recall that I went out over the summer and bought myself a Nintendo Wii. I have a lot of fun playing it, though I certainly don’t play it as much as I used to play video games when I was a little kid. But still, a quick game or two of bowling before I go to bed at night is fun. Anyway, part of the excitement of owning a cutting edge video game system is getting the new game as soon as it’s released. I really don’t have the time for that any more, but I figured what the hell and bought Guitar Hero III the other night. Wow. Talk about a fun game! You get to use this guitar controller to play all of these rock songs. It’s a lot of fun! Though I do take issue with the “Legends of Rock” subtitle…some of the folks in that game are brand new to the music industry and are by no means legends yet. Hell, some aren’t even footnotes yet!
  • Last weekend I went up to Roxbury and while I was there I tried to play his XBox 360. Lucky for me, the machine was just having all types of problems. Think about it in terms of how your computer gets all goofy on you when Windows doesn’t work correctly. We eventually got the problem handled and I played a little Halo 3 (which lasted all of 20 minutes because the guy on the screen was hard to control). I just found it funny that Microsoft has managed to not only bring a high-tech gaming system to the masses, but they brought along the bugs and bs with it!
  • I don’t know if you heard, but the Hollywood writers went on strike. I’m heartbroken…
  • There were a lot of reports this weekend of King Tut being on display to the public for the first time ever. I really don’t like this move. Besides the fact that Tut’s body is petrified at 3000+ years old, putting him on display is just inappropriate (in my view). How many of us would want our petrified, blackened bodies put out on display in the year 5007? I don’t think this is the right thing to do at all.
  • Have you guys seen the female wrestler named Awesome Kong? She’s in TNA right now and she’s a beast! And she is easily one of the best aspects of the show right now.
  • Finally, I watched the Giants and Dolphins go at it in London last weekend. I understand the NFL’s desire to spread their market and to reward those NFL fans who ARE in other countries, but I wasn’t the biggest fan of the atmosphere. Besides the rain and crappy field, the fans weren’t the typical, rowdy American football fan. All you had to do was watch the extra point and instead of fans standing up and cheering so the kicker sees them going nuts behind the goal post, you had a group of a very nice, very proper Brits sitting there awaiting the result of the kick. Very proper, indeed!

I just wanted to share those random observations and thoughts with you. Have a good one!

Some Dummies for You: Comcast Cable

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Earlier today, CBS News posted a story on their website about the FCC lifting certain restrictions on apartment buildings with respect to cable services. They cite the ability for low-income folks who live in apartments or government-sponsored housing projects to have a choice in their cable provider. In other words, the ability to choose a lower cost provider (which is great!).

As someone who works in an industry closely related to these large-scale, low-income developments I can tell you that the folks who live in these places need all of the breaks that they can get. If that means they can save $5 per month on the cable bill, then so be it!

And isn’t this logical? That competition for services SHOULD lead to a net decrease in costs? Well, not if you’re Comcast Cable. A spokesperson for the company said:

“The net result is that many consumers are likely to wind up paying more for services if the FCC’s interference in the competitive marketplace stands,” Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice said in an e-mailed statement.

Huh? Isn’t the “interference in the competitive marketplace” the fact that there is NO competition in these apartment buildings? For those of you that don’t know, many of these apartment buildings sign contracts with cable providers for the entire building, which restricts tenants to using that provider.

I mean come on! This is a no-brainer. For Comcast to come out and make the dumb comment that lifting this restriction will have a net result of higher cable prices for consumers is all sorts of idiotic. First of all, you have the logic argument cited above. Second, you have the fact that a rate increase is decided by the cable companies! In other words, you have cable companies saying, “If you take this action, we will be forced to raise rates. If we raise rates, then prices go up for consumers.”

Here’s an idea, dummies – DON’T RAISE YOUR RATES!

Idiots…