Power Outage
August 23rd, 2007, 6:14pm by JeffNo, that’s not just a clever title. My power is actually out after a crazy storm just swept through Chicago. It only lasted about 5-10 minutes, but the 65-70MPH wind that accompanied it was enough to knock my power out, a first for me in Chicago.
The good news? My UPS has amazingly been functioning for over 2.5 hours already, letting me continue to access the internet (and continue working). It’s a pretty old UPS and not even a really good one, but somehow it has enough juice to power my router and cable modem for apparently hours. I think this is the first time that I’ve actually had to use the UPS for it’s original intent of providing power during a power outtage, and the investment is definitely paying off now.
The bad news? I may miss out on my Bioshock tonight… ugh.
Posted in Jeff, Non-Gaming |
August 23rd, 2007 at 7:48 pm
“The bad news? I may miss out on my Bioshock tonight”
. . . And then the world ends. . . .
August 23rd, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Thats great. Seems like everytime I need a UPS, the battery in the thing is near dead and i need to replace it.
On a more positive note, have you all seen NPD numbers just out? Holy shit that little white box is a rocket ship.
August 23rd, 2007 at 9:50 pm
425k - man. They don’t even need to advertise anymore.
Re: the 360/PS3 numbers… another reason not to trust the analysts, eh?
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Man, both the 360 and PS3 are selling like crap basically. I suppose the PS3 is a bit of an improvement from what it was, but it’s really kind of pathetic that the Wii sold more than the 360 and PS3 COMBINED. Unbelievable.
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Yeah…. It’s too bad nintendo has abandoned the gamers that stood with them for so long.
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Oh, and my power came back a few hours ago… My UPS worked for the entire duration of the outtage… about 3 hours.
August 24th, 2007 at 7:22 am
“Yeah…. It’s too bad nintendo has abandoned the gamers that stood with them for so long.”
Oh no! Not this again.
I’ve been a Nintendo fan since I got my NES in ‘86 at age 12 and I am having a ball with the Wii. I won’t get into an argument but suffice it to say, we don’t all feel the same.
August 24th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
No Nintendo fan has left them, trust me on this one.
Why do you even bring those stupid comments, Laspy? I don’t know how many times I’ve had to correct ignorant pieces of crap like you on this issue. The whole “Nintendo abandoned hardcore and is ruining everything with stupid casuals” mindset is a product of Xbot and BSPSfanboy discontent with Wii and DS domination and misinterpretations by the mainstream press (though admittedly stupid third party devs probably have something to do with it also}. It’s too bad Wii’s reputation had to be killed by ignorant reporters and journalists eager to make themselves look good with an article on this “hot selling product” without even knowing and “Nintendo’s drastic new strategy” without even knowing what the strategy was, not bothering to research anything beyond asking your stereotypical hardcore XBot and looking up three year old quotes, and probably without even knowing what the word Nintendo means. >:| I’ll stop myself before this post gets any longer.
August 24th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
FX-1:
I’ll be honest and say the jury is still out on this one. I wouldn’t go as far as Laesperanzapaz is, but there are certainly worrying trends. Nintendo has a solid lineup of “Hardcore” games coming in the next 6-8 months (if Mario Kart actually makes an early 08′ release that will be 4 “big” titles). But after that we’ve heard virtually nothing.
A big indication of where they are going might be E3, where they spent a lot of time touting the titles for their new market (Wii Fit) and extremely little time with anything else. They barely even showed off Metroid Prime 3 (only behind closed doors) and SSB, despite the fact that Kojima said it looked “finished” has still never been playable to the press. Hell, Project Hammer was recently canceled so that the team could go work on their other new casual franchises.
Considering the massive “mainstream” success of the Wii, it would not at all be surprising to see Nintendo dramatically cut down on the number of “hardcore” titles that they develop. At least we have the 4 big titles to look forward to.
August 24th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Please support NO more heroes. And zack and wiki. THat’s all i ask.
August 24th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
I know Zack and Wiki has been getting some good buzz from some of the sites, but the videos honestly look slow and boring to me. I’m hoping it’s more fun than it looks to me in the videos.
No More Heroes I’m definitely going to wait and see on… It definitely has the potential to go the whole “style over substance” route.
August 24th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
There will undoubtedly be more attention paid to the casual gamer as it continually grows more profitable, there’s a DUH moment. However, that doesn’t necessarilly translate to less “hardcore” focus. Thr games market is growing and we are at a major turning point in gaming’s journey to becoming a culturally acceptable form of entertainment. There’s a greater distinguishment of “hardcore” games than ever before. As the games market eventually becomes the general public, major games developers, like major movie studios, will expand their audience as much as possible in an attempt to effectively appeal to the masses. Since the current standard game is somewhere in the medium-hardcore area, this expansion will most likely be mostly “downward” toward the casual gamers. I believe that to be a good explanation of what’s going on here. The main N franchises will remain in that mid-hardcore area. New games, as they already have, will pop up in the casual domain. This is not hard to understand. Nintendo says specifically that the “new” strategy is to appeal to all gamers with intuitive controls, to hardcore with Big N franchises that still manage tp dazzle the player because of their innovative edge, and to the casuals and non-gamers with new ideas to maybe get them more into it than they were before(as the conventional game obviously doesn’t cut it for that group. In what way is that bad? They want to keep our sorry lot entertained while giving us more gaming “friends”. I think every gamer wants the market to get bigger. It would mean more demand forcing an increase in titles of all kinds, a bigger presence of games maybe leading to a Games-A-Million ob every corner instead of half an aisle in Wal-Mart or closet-sized game shops in the mall, and eventually it would mean a cooling down and later cease of the “debate” on the political side of “gaming ethics”.
that should’ve been several seperate paragraphs but I think you get my point.
August 24th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
@FX-1,
You may want to retype your post, I think there are a couple of gaming related people/groups you forgot to disparage.
August 24th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Hmmm…. Wii limits the amount of characters per post.
Anyway, the reason we probably haven’t heard about much after Mario Kart is probably because it’s a while off and there’s a lot going on right now. After SSBB and likely sooner we’ll start hearing about the big stuff for mid-late 2008.
August 24th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
What do you mean? If you’re talking about the hardcore vs casuals, I realize there’s a lot in between but those are the 2 main groups I’m talking about. And in many cases I shove the mediums into one category or that other so there’s less to type.
August 24th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
What do I mean?
How about these gems for starters…..
“ignorant pieces of crap like you”
“Xbot and BSPSfanboy”
“misinterpretations by the mainstream press”
“stupid third party devs”
“ignorant reporters and journalists”
“stereotypical hardcore XBot”
I’m not trying to be harsh, but your post pretty much slaps every single group in the face, besides Nintendo.
I’m a big nintendo fan but they are far from perfect and in many cases the criticism of them by the groups you mention is actually valid.
Now, back to the power outage……
August 24th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
No, I haven’t slaped every group. An Xbot and a BSPSfanboy should have no right to speak. The crap that comes out of them is si unbelievaby ridiculous and warped that they almost seem insane the only time their “critiques” make sense is if the random negative words coming out their mouths happen to make a meaningful sentance. Much of the press is also very ignorant when it comes to Wii. It’s like they have no comprehension of the subject at all.
A neutral gamer or multiconsole gamer or Nintendo fan is well suited criticize Nintendo. They aren’t always right but at least they have some room to talk.
I’ll agree that Nintendo is not perfect by any means (though it’s been my experience that they’re closser than the other two). That’s not what I’m saying though.
August 24th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Oh jesus cocking christ, i love FX-1. His posts are just a joyous, energetic start to every one of my morning.
August 24th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
FX-1:
Which press is ignorant about the Wii? The gaming press that actually follows gaming very closely, and thus would be quite knowledgeable about Nintendo and the Wii, or the mainstream press that has been fawning over the Wii since its release in November? Do you want to explain what you mean by a “very ignorant” press?
August 24th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Shut up, Laspy. Beyond simple name callings like “ignorant” I don’t personally assault you so can you just drop those silly posts you’re so fond of. If you think I’m wrong explain why, if you can’t, then don’t bother commenting.
August 24th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
I’d like to point out how awesome it is that this non-gaming related post has reached 20 comments. You guys rock. =)
August 24th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Knowledgeable to a certain extent, Jeff. They may know things like system specs, new releases, etc. I’m talking about the straegy of Ninteno with Wii more than anything, I probably should have clarified. That strategy is frequently misquoted by mainstream press and some gaming websites. The more reliable websites don’t seem to mess up AS often. The inability of certain sites to take anything Nintendo does seriously annoys me too, but that’s not the real problem here.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Of course we do, Jeff. Of course we do.
’sides, if you backtrack a bit, it was all cisco’s fault.
Oh and FX….I still love you. Very deeply.
August 25th, 2007 at 7:54 am
Thread hijacker, comin thru! WOO WOO!
Seriously though, I didn’t mean to do it!