Won't step into GameStop. There's a Game Crazy down the street and I've gotten to know the guys really well up there. My used game money goes there.

And dear Lord did the Cowboys suck yesterday.

Dallas walked into a hornet's nest yesterday since Green Bay was embarrassed by a winless Tampa last week and their defense was in the hot seat. Not making excuses, but stating a point.

I still haven't heard a good reason for the 'unable to review the possession of a lost fumble' rule. What would be the reason the rule would be put in place? Isn't that what instant replay is for? Take that away and it's a two possession game. A call like that deflates whatever the team had left. Start feeling like the refs are against you too. Just saying...

I was really pumped about the new Tim Burton's AiW until I first saw that it was a Disney film, and then saw the trailer for it.

How disappointing. I was hoping Burton would have gone more towards the Scissorhands/American McGee's Alice direction as opposed to another Willy Wonka. Alice in Wonderland is packed with locals that to me should support the psychologically unbalanced creepiness than the typical fun-for-kiddies zaniness.

Yeah, it's a Disney film, but they already made a cutesy cartoon. We're all grown up now, bring on the dark stuff!

Getting to this late, my thoughts:
I was at one time a more 'hard-core' gamer, if the definition of a hard-core gamer is someone who pays for new games on release date and spend at least 20 hours a week playing games.

However, I'm now married, a homeowner and have a child so I've become a more casual gamer, if even that. True, I don't buy new games at release, I get maybe 5 - 10 hours to play per week and will buy games used before buying a game new. So I'm definitely not pumping money into the industry, however I don't think I'm the main reason either. Here's my reasons why:

1) when I was younger, there was pretty much Nintendo and the PC. Saturn and Dreamcast both failed and the PS1 was either not around or just starting up. Now there's the PC, the Wii with it's endless accessories, Xbox 360 and PS3 which seem to love their "exclusives" resulting in alienating three-fourths of the buying population. I own a Wii and PS3 so no Alan Wake for me, for example.

2) gamers are getting older. This is a generalization of course, but in it's initial "hayday", I was in college so my money went to the school and my hobbies which was playing games. Those days are long gone. Heck, my kid will probably play games, but not for a while as he's under a year old right now.

3) game prices. Before there were a handful of good developers to choose from, now there are developers whose names I've never heard of (many of them are based here in Austin!) making and releasing games at over $30 each. Too much competition equals money being spread around too much. Add the economy into the mix and you'll get even weaker sales.

4) and finally, with the popularity of blogging and social networking, anyone can be a writer and be their own game reviewer. This doesn't seem like it would cause too much harm, however with the overall negativity that most gaming site readers bring into the forums, enough "meh" opinions on games can drive people away from buying the game.

I would add piracy as a #5, but we hear enough excuses for poor sales from that so not going to bother using it as a scapegoat again.

Tried DJ Hero yesterday and I'm not surprised it is underperforming. I played one song, thought it was a pretty dumb concept and walked away.

Netflix on PS3. Awesome goodness.

Yep, mine came in the mail today too, though at first I thought they accidentally sent me a third disc when I'm only on contract for two. When I saw the "Do not return disc to Netflix" I remembered it was coming today.

The HD is very smooth with no stuttering, though I was really surprised how some of the newer movies aren't in HD yet, but some old movies are. Not complaining, just an observation...

First movie I tested HD with was The Big Lebowski.

This comment was edited on Nov 6, 2009, 20:42.

Looks like it will allow HD streaming which PlayOn does not and was exclusive to 360. Free with current subscription, I'm in.

$8.99 a month? Bought PlayOn for $30 and it plays Netflix just fine. And includes Hulu, CBS, ESPN and YouTube.

Hopefully the monthly fee is just for current unsubscribers or they won't make a dime.

Update - I ordered the disc and wasn't asked to increase my current subscription so it sounds like it's only for current unsubscribers. We'll see when I get my disc next month.

This comment was edited on Oct 26, 2009, 11:22.

Saw Transformers 2 for the first time tonight. I thought it was good, even though I heard so much hatred piled on it. Lot more action than the first one, the camera was zoomed out so you could see the robots fighting. Funny parts, especially the twin robots and Devastators... well... you know, and you could actually understand what Starscream and Megatron were saying. They basically fixed everything that they complained about in the first movie and they still find something to complain about. I guess that's why they're called 'critics.'

The "critics" on Rotten Tomatoes give it 19% because it had 2 1/2 hours of action... C'mon! It's an action movie, don't you remember what the cartoons were like? Little plot, little character development and a lot of robot fights. geez, lighten up...

Don't they mean LDS?

...would have saved them 20 mil because everyone would be banging down the door to get the game.

Yeah, maybe those who read online gaming websites and magazines. If they're spending $25M on advertising, they're looking beyond ads in gaming sites and more mainstream for a more mainstream audience. I'm sure Zombieland will be release on DVD around the time of L4D2 just in time for Christmas shopping.

Tough competition at that time of year so a $25M budget sounds about right to me.

I don't know Japanese so I guessed on their navigation:
http://www.capcom.co.jp/sf4/character.html

Bought PlayOn so I can watch Netflix on the PS3; works perfectly, can also listen to music, photos and videos stored on my PC. Doesn't inherently recognize dvr-ms files, but works if you convert them first.

Those were the most underwhelming explosions I've ever seen. The ships are supposed to be huge with a radioactive core on each and you get this puny explosion that's half the size of the ship itself. Phasers look pretty cool, but the way the ships were moving, they felt like they were same size and mass as a little shuttlecraft.

The update comes on the same day as the launch of the new 120GB slimmer PS3.

hmm... this must not be talking about the US as I've had my PS3 Slim for almost a week now.

Looks cool, but thought at first it was referring to "The Last Airbender" movie that M. Night is directing; which I think the cartoon is called "Avatar: The Last Airbender." When I saw all the spaceships and mechs I was confused there for a minute.

Unless I'm reading his results wrong, it never was a ATI vs Nvidia test but more of a Vista vs Win7. We never get a starting FPS for each test so even though there may be an increase of +5% the beginning (and possibly ending) FPS may still be lower than drivers that had 0% change which, to me, is worse. Honestly, I think a driver with least amount of change between two different OS's is the better, more solid driver.

I very well could be wrong, open to other suggestions if I misses/misread something.

Mine doesn't necessarily collect dust, but definitely don't play it everyday for x hours. I have a few pick-up-and-play games like Boom Blox, Mario Galaxy and pinball, but most of my time is spent working and chasing around a kid all day.

Doing a quick search on the average of ages based on console and according to Nielsen (http://www.joystiq.com/2008/06/23/new-study-compares-360-ps3-consumers/) it's surprising to me that the ages are pretty close together. My initial reaction is then what games are being developed and the time requirements and skill levels do you need to have to be successful in the game.

Of course, that doesn't take into account the price of the console, those who own multiple consoles and actual PC gamers. I'm 33 and own a Wii and a PC, can't afford the time or the money for a 360 or PS3.
**Of course, I'm only speaking on my own behalf...

This comment was edited on Aug 10, 2009, 23:13.

I think the first thing I noticed was that I never got touched by anyone throughout the entire demo. I heard someone else say that they felt Batman was a little too powerful, but based on the franchise whippin' up on henchman without taking a scratch is about right. I'm sure the game will get tougher. What I thought was funny was when I accidentally let the guard fry in the chair, Joker comes up and does a nice "you fail/you suck" little speech over you. Made me laugh. It felt short to me and was hoping I'd play the boss, but not surprised it fades to black there. Will take the advice of trying it through a few more times with different approaches. My first approach was to pick each one off from the gargoyles all stealthy-like.

Other thing I liked, the Detective Mode was pretty cool and was really happy it doesn't have a timer like the flashlight in HL. I played most of back half with it on.

Frame rate stuttered at the beginning, set the AA at 4x, 1920x1080, the rest of the settings to "yes". Running a 9600GT, old Q6600 quad, 8gb ram. After the initial stutter, the rest ran smooth.

I've heard six-month old's eat extra pennies like I drink beer ..... best of luck with your business

Thanks! It's fledgling in that I've ran it off and on for a few years now, but with recently layoff it's my full-time gig now. And he's basically a vacuum-cleaner, but unfortunately not the bagless kind...

Black... Market... Ebay... How healthy is your 6 month old? lol Something to take into consideration.

I'm thrilled about the demo, 57% downloaded so far.

In all honesty, I probably won't buy the game regardless if it was scheduled for release tomorrow or a year from now. Don't get me wrong, I'm an avid Blues reader, but a retired gamer - retired in that I have a six-month old and a fledgling business I have to invest all my extra pennies.

Thrilled for the demo in that I can have some sort of reference when people starting making positive and negative comments on this site.