The Wii has been out just as long as the Playstation 3 and is a significantly less powerful machine yet Best Buy was abuzz with little kids and their parents delighted at coming across such a coveted item. It was curious to see the huge stack of Playstation 3s glaring jealously over at the Wiis as they were  snatched up by excited patrons.

I also picked up a copy of Zelda before heading to the checkout. My naive notion was that this would make for some fun relaxation for my wife (a long-time Zelda fan) as she recovers from chemo treatments. As it turns out all the swinging and twisting is more likely to make her throw up.

That’s not that far from reality though judging by some key announcements at CES this week and some information that’s been public for a while:

a) Live Everywhere – The XBox Live services will be accessible from non-XBox devices. You’ll be able to play XBox games on a PC and play them multi-player with others who’re on an XBox. Certain major titles will be playable from a PC, namely Halo. This is not surprising given both the PC and 360′s support for DirectX 10.

You’ll be able to access Live from your mobile device, including Java based devices. I’d also bet access from the Zune is in the works.

b) Not new but part of the strategy; Media Extenders let you stream content from your desktop PC to an xBox in your living room. Your PC becomes a capable DVR and the xBox provides the accessibility. (My prediction: Home Theatre PCs will die).

c) Office Integration – Sharepoint 2007 supports a wide range of collaboration scenarios and sort of bridges the gap now between desktop and web-site.

d) Tie the whole thing together with WS-* through CardSpace for high-assurance identity federation.

e) Microsoft’s vision of a home server. Many power-users already have this in a home-grown sort of way but Microsoft’s making it official [LINK].

So why is Sony done?
a) Well Microsoft owns the desktop and with the potential to integrate your PC with your game-console, and the console playing more of a role within the home-theatre, why would anyone buy a PS3? Clearly Sony was not seeing the big picture.

b) Sony had a terrible year in ’06 with LOTS of bad press. Namely root-kit distribution and numerous DRM cases against them.

c) Lack of inventory for the PS3, high sales cost and three firmware patches within 6 weeks since launch. Plus Wii kicking it’s *ss in terms of fun-factor.

d) Massive global recall in laptop batteries.

The HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray format wars continue but ultimately adoption will win out over superior technology. 50GB vs 30GB? How much crap do consumers WANT on a DVD? I reckon Sony has not learned from it’s prior failures (Betamax) and HD-DVD + ubiquitous Microsoft support will slowly score enough of a margin to turn the tide away from Blu-Ray.

GoW has quickly become the flagship game for the 360 and showcases many of its advanced features (1080i, detailed graphics, XBox Live and so on).  You might say GoW is the new Halo (until Halo 3[LINK] and Lost Planet [LINK] at least).

I won the 360 Core system which didn’t come with a hard drive or any kind of storage, as a result the 360 could not save any games. So my first task was a trip to Best Buy to pickup the incredibly expensive 360 20GB hard drive for $100.

The drive snapped in and I was up and running. Luckily the console sits next to my router so a wireless adapter was not required to get internet connectivity on the 360. After about 20mins I was hooked up, the console updated itself and I was signed in to XBox Live (my gamertag is supermonkeyman7).  I got a free month at Live Gold status but with free multi-player games on the PC there’s no way I’ll pay for access once it expires.

Gears is a great game and the team really nailed the immersive experience. It’s your typical third person shooter but with plenty to shoot at and gorgeous graphics.

You play Fenix, an army mallet-head and you fly along behind him. He’s incredibly thick. A context-sensitive A button is the main interface. If you’re near a pillar, press A and the dude hides up behind it. If you’re near a low wall, press A and he crouches behind the wall. Takes some getting used to but works well.

There’s also a crouch and run type thing which you can do from one hide-out point to another. This is quite cinematic, similar to a journalists report from Desert Storm.  The only gripe I have is the steering of the dude when you do this. He’s big and doesn’t exactly turn on a dime.

In related news, the 2nd generation 360 has just been leaked and boasts true 1080p HD output (as opposed to the 1080i of v1) along with a 120GB hard drive [LINK]. That’s more like it.

Well the winners have been announced and I can officially say that Baebo won an honorable mention despite it’s abismal graphic design.

That means an Xbox 360 will soon be winging it’s way to me. Nice.

I’m back on the Perricone tip these days, eating all sorts of weird stuff including Flax Seed Oil, Omega 3, Salmon, Beans, Lentils, Spinach and Sprouts. Enough to make a grown man cry but it’s actually not that bad. I’ve found myself craving Cantaloupe (no not Cantaloop: Flip Fantasia).

I don’t watch much TV but last night I caught the end of The Discovery Channel’s special on Daniel Tammet, a sauvant who can recall Pi to 22,500 places. He’s unique in the sense that unlike other sauvants, he can communicate normally and hence provide insight into how he perceives the world. Quite interesting to hear him describe prime numbers as “smooth and shiny” whereas non-primes have texture.

The theory is that the area of his brain devoted to math is cross-linked with the area normally devoted to spatial reasoning. Hence he experiences numbers as objects.

He doesn’t recall Pi, per sae, rather he thinks about it, then describes the shape(number) that he sees in his mind. Fascinating.

The Xbox 360 is coming, pics have been released and it looks quite nice both in form and function. 6 parallel threads executing in a PowerPC based chip. Maybe Apple and Microsoft aren’t that different after all.

Still ploughing through VStudio 2005 new features. This week I discovered Properties, the “Export Template” wizard, the Table Layout for WinForms and a bunch of other stuff. Really liking it although Beta 2 is still a little unstable. I found it choking on custom controls a bunch of times.

Feedback from the latest MSDN article has been good. It got posted to the Indonesia version of MSDN today and Karen’s SQL Blog from Pinnacle makes a nice mention. Cheers.

Last thing: I finished the DaVinci Code. It was not worth the read. I think the movie will be equally unimpressive, ‘specially with Tom Hanks playing Robert Langford. Oh dear.

Seems the problem was only if you left the xbox turned on for long periods of time when not in use. Not the smartest thing to do with anything electrical really.

Syd’ had great fun with her cake and thanks to all who sent presents. New pics are up of a very messy little girl.
-==== UPDATE: =====-
Your order for a Xbox Replacement Cord has shipped.
Please allow 2 – 3 weeks for delivery. While you are waiting for the new cord to arrive, turn off your console whenever it is unattended. Please install the new cord when you receive it.
Thank you,
The Xbox Team
-==== UPDATE: =====-
Another update, the cord has arrived within 2 days of this email. Total time it took was about 5 days.

Big games I’m looking forward to are Fable, now switched to an Autumn release date. Here’s the latest preview. Hopefully this is the last date slip for Big Blue Box.

Also much anticipated this year is Half Life 2 and Doom 3, both first person shooters. I wasn’t aware that Doom3 is being released on the xBox. I think I’ll get the PC version and a Radeon 9800 Pro. The Xbox will probably support the graphics effects but at the lower resolution. I dunno, we’ll see.

Lastly a new Zelda on the Gamecube was announced which is great to hear. The video looks a little choppy and the models are fairly low-res but who cares? It’s Link and he’s rockin’ in Hyrule. Release date is not set but it’s sometime 2005 which sucks but hopefully Fable will make up for it.