Xbox 360 Coverage!
Well, due to popular demand, here is some more Xbox 360 coverage to sate your appetite! Here is the best of Engadget, Joystiq, Kotaku, Xbox 360 Fanboy, Slashdot, and 1Up!
Engadget
Xbox 360 brings out the worst in people
Users report Xbox 360 “crashing like mad”
Unpacking the Xbox 360
Xbox 360 gutted!
Engadget Podcast 053 - 11.22.2005
Xbox 360 backward-compatibility list (1.0) released
Joystiq
Microsoft to sell 3 million 360’s by year’s end?
Joystiq Review: Kameo: Elements of Power
Xbox 360 launch day blues
Xbox 360 launch — Midtown style
The Setup
Unpacking the Xbox 360; hot unboxing action
Our sweet test setup
Our sweet speaker setup
Our sweet screen setup
Fuel for a 48-hour gaming fiesta
Blockbuster & Hollywood Video: 350 what?
The Hardware
Joystiq, PGR3 and faceplate. PGR3 and faceplate, Joystiq
Invasion of the Xbox 360 faceplates
Xbox 360 controller range: Can you hear me now?
Side-by-side of Xbox 360 remotes
Titlefight: 480p v. 720p for the championship!
Parasitic Play-and-Charge controllers get juice from Windows, but Windows gets nothing in return
Xbox 360 heat concerns are no concern
Xbox 360 fan noise ranked
The Services
Visualize this: Xbox 360’s visualizer taken for a spin
Game trailers available on Xbox Live
Live: best way to download game trailers
Best and worst trailers from Xbox Live Marketplace
Gaming trailers are insulting to gamers
360 plays videos, but controls are lacking
MP3s streamed to Xbox 360 via laptop
Xbox Live arcade titles added: free to try, $5 to $15 to buy
Our first Xbox Live friend: you like us, you really like us
Joystiq Guide: iPod on the Xbox 360
The Games
3 copies of Kameo = MS wants us to play it
2K on the 360: NBA 2K6, Amped 3, & NHL 2K6
Joyswag caption contest: win a copy of Kameo
Joystiq review: Geometry Wars demo
Joystiq review: Bankshot Billiards 2 demo
Joystiq review: Gauntlet demo
Joystiq review: Hexic HD
Are we perverse? There’s nothing retro about this experience!
Joystiq review: Joust demo, thy game is over
Joystiq review: Bejeweled 2 Deluxe demo
Kameo’s in the house, er… 360 tray
Super-frustrating boss fight in Kameo
Joystiq is better than GameSpot
And the best Xbox 360 launch title is…
Xbox 360 Fanboy
Nintendo and Sony line up in support of Xbox 360 launch
Quake IV struggles on the 360
PDZ upgrades planned through Xbox Live Marketplace
Some games not backwards compatible?
MetaReview: Perfect Dark Zero
It’s here!
Xbox’s corporate celebrities
Line up to meet Bill Gates (he’s dreamy)
Ebay catches the 360 fever
Xbox 360 as Long Tail video platform
HDTV Buying Guide: Xbox 360 Edition
Get podcasts on your 360
Microsoft’s hype machine is still rolling
What’s TSOP doc? Is the 360 hackable?
Square Enix responds: No FF and DQ on 360
All “aboard”: touring the Xbox 360’s motherboard
Make your own Xbox 360 VGA adaptor
Microsoft Game Studios GM Shane Kim Speaks!
Xbox 360 Loves Halo 2
Kotaku
360 Crashes and Crime
Didn’t Get a 360? Here’s Five Things to do
Xbox 360 Premium Set Going for $100,000?
Yet Another Guess on Cost to Make 360
Mossberg Misses the Mark on 360 Review
Xbox Live’s Free Videos
Microsoft Eats $126 of Every Xbox 360
Hours Old and PGR3 Crashing Like Mad
Xbox 360 Gets Executed
Best Buy Sold-Out Shenanigans?
Slashdot
MS Responds To 360 Glitches
How The 360 Works
Microsoft Loses $126 Per Unit on XBox 360
Xbox 360 Launches In U.S.
1Up
Xbox 360 Officially Launches in North America
Lining Up for Xbox 360
Microsoft Loses Money With Each Console - Again
Perfect Dark Zero Tops Most Anticipated Xbox 360 Game List
Challenge J Allard on Xbox 360
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xBox 360 Prone to Crash?
ITHACA - Unconfirmed rumours have been flying around the blogosphere that Microsoft’s new gaming console, the xBox 360, is prone to crashing. Sources suggest the cause of the problems is overheating, such as is the case with some project gotham III disks. Another cause could be faulty media or code, and a recall of games would have to be issued. Some of the 360’s are crashing at boot, refusing to load past the Microsoft (MS) Logo!
The symptoms are completely erratic. Some crash playing games, some crash booting up, and other crash randomly! From the xbox-scene forums, a few random complaints:
I am getting “E 74″ error code on my 360 and the top right light on the circle is flashing red, cannot get through to tech support as they are overloaded right now.
I got to play PDZ for under five minutes before my 360 froze. When/if I turn it back on with or without game inserted I get red lights in sectors 1,3, and 4. I called MS and was told this indicated a hardware failure. After the brilliant tech support told me I should just restart it and call back if it happened again, I was afraid we would get nowhere fast. I then explained that my 360 would not turn back on and was now only a $400 piece of plastic that blinked red lights at me.
It seems that Microsoft might not have been limiting supply because they wanted to create a market shortage, but because they can’t get enough units past quality control! Personally, I think this is awful for everyone involved. When you bring hardware to market–especially something as anticipated as the xBox 2: 360–it needs to work out of the box, in all configurations. There’s no room for error in consumer electronics.
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Blogging Ethics: Plagiarism
Although I fall victim to incessantly quoting and paraphrasing top-blogs for my posts on this site, I have never simply made a “cut/paste” post per se. The justification of my mentality for this sort of blogging is that I’m putting a spin on the articles, and bringing something new to the ostensibly dry sources I use. Regardless of the number of sources I draw upon, I always cite my sources. I occasionally post a fresh review, bringing my interpretation and opinions to your RSS feeder. You can probably tell that one of my pet-peeves is uncited sources. If you don’t cite a source, it’s plagarism. That being said, I was shocked to find my first plagarizer: www.surferdiary.com/games/. They have been ripping off my posts, as well as those of IGNiq.com, Games.net, and Gamepro.net, without permission or citation. I was delighted on one hand, ecstatic that a blog deemed me worthy enough to plagarize, but enraged on the other hand that I was the victim of that which I consider to be an intellectual crime. Heck, I’d take a Black-Hatter over plagiarism any day. But the point of this post is to expose his misconduct.
The next obvious step was contact. So I searched the website, dismayed to find no readily-available method of contact–not even a commentable post. Then I employed a WHOIS excavation program, which yielded some interesting tidbits about the perpetrator in question:
Registrant:
International Web Design Consortium, LLC
6170 W. Lake Mead Blvd
#251
Las Vegas, Nevada 89108
United StatesRegistered through: GoDaddy.com
Domain Name: SURFERDIARY.COM
Created on: 24-Jan-05
Expires on: 24-Jan-06
Last Updated on: 24-Jan-05Administrative Contact:
Darling, Cary cary@internationalwdc.com
International Web Design Consortium, LLC
6170 W. Lake Mead Blvd
#251
Las Vegas, Nevada 89108
United States
(702) 452-4150 Fax —
Technical Contact:
Darling, Cary cary@internationalwdc.com
International Web Design Consortium, LLC
6170 W. Lake Mead Blvd
#251
Las Vegas, Nevada 89108
United States
(702) 452-4150 Fax —Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.PHATSERVERS.COM
NS2.PHATSERVERS.COMCurrent Registrar: GO DADDY SOFTWARE, INC.
IP Address: 216.17.104.20 (ARIN & RIPE IP search)
IP Location: US(UNITED STATES)-CALIFORNIA-SAN DIEGO
Record Type: Domain Name
Server Type: Apache 1
Lock Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
Web Site Status: Active
DMOZ no listings
Y! Directory: see listings
Secure: No
E-commerce: No
Traffic Ranking: Not available
Data as of: 21-Oct-2005
So his name is Cary Darling, and he works at the International Web Design Consortium, LLC in Las Vegas, Nevada. It looks like a small business if the technical contact and the admininstrative contact are the same person, but that’s all the better–less loops to jump through. A quick google of “Cary Darling” and “International Web Design Consortium, LLC ” yielded another overly juvenile website that he’s in charge of: www.muckyou.com. With all this in mind, I whipped up an email:
Dear Cary Darling,
The site that you have registered through GoDaddy.com, created on Jan. 24, 2005, namely SurferDiary.com has come to my attention today, being one of a select few websites to stir my ire. Not only have you made it impossible for the general public (myself included) to give feedback on your site via comments, but you have also surreptitiously concealed your email address. If you don’t already realize the grievous error you have committed, it is called plagarism, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as when someone “take[s] and use[s] (the thoughts, writings, inventions, etc. of another person) as one’s own”. Did you see what I just did? I quoted the Oxford English dictionary. Emphasis on quoted. If you can’t detect the sarcasm exuding from this email, perhaps you should see your doctor (assuming you have one) and make sure your head hasn’t caved in. The site that you have blatantly plagarized is www.video-games.elliottback.com, of which I am the primary writer and contributor. I demand that you remove all from your site that I have written, including, but not limited to, the following:
> www.surferdiary.com/games/?p=707
> www.surferdiary.com/games/?p=688
> www.surferdiary.com/games/?p=684
> www.surferdiary.com/games/?p=685
> www.surferdiary.com/games/?p=687
> www.surferdiary.com/games/?p=686
> www.surferdiary.com/games/?p=683These posts mark an egregious violation of copyright law and an adulteration of intellectual property. I can hope nothing more than your compliance.
Yours Truly,
Andrew Back
I’ll admit in retrospect that I overreacted; I was rather pedantic, overusing the ad hominem card. The sad thing is that this post will probably end on his blog.
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Dead Or Alive Adaptation
Just when you thought you’d seen the last one, Corey Yuen jumped on the bandwagon to produce another adaption: Dead or Alive. To be released in the fall of 2006 to North American theatres, DoA follows a growing trend of videogame-to-film adaptations to be released next year, including Mortal Kombat: Devastation , starring Robin Shou as Liu Kang (who also stars in the Dead or Alive adaptation as a “Pirate Leader”), and Tekken (which will star Jet Li). Next year is the definately going to be a good year for fans of martial-arts.
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Nescover: 16 Nes-ified Hits
Something Awful forums is now hosting something quite nice! The offering is 16 remakes of popular songs of today and yesterday, synthesized with the PSG audio system of the NES. The remakes are:
1) REM - Losing My Religion
2) Europe - Final Countdown
3) Radiohead - Karma Police
4) Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
5) Survivor - Eye of the Tiger
6) Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven
7) Lynyrd Skynyrd - Sweet Home Alabama
Led Zeppelin - Kashmir
9) Slayer - Angel of Death
10) David Pomeranz - Nothing’s Gonna Stop Me Now
11) Coldplay - Yellow
12) Rick James - Superfreak
13) Semisonic - Closing Time
14) (Silence)
15) Hidden NESmix Intro
16) Zero Wing (Opening Theme) (4×4 Remix)
The downloads are avaiable either here or here.
