Tech Stampede '09
So 2009, what’s new? Not really much that I’m interested in, although there are new items floating around out there. I’m pretty much taken care of for new pmp tech this year, having switched to a 3gs iphone. I had been looking into a new head unit for my car, but that sorta fell through halfway into the year due to more personal issues concerning money. Games are looking pretty promising as well, my consoles have been, and will continue seeing lots of love for the months to come.
Few months back I upgraded my old 1st gen iphone to the 3gs. It’s certainly nice having 4x the storage capacity now as opposed to doing an equivalent of micromanaging a warcraft army of data (mostly movies and music) on my phone. There’s a “new” ipod nano out there, the retarded ipod shuffle is still the same, and the Zune HD, which if I wasn’t already utilizing my phone for most of that, I’d probably be using instead.
Apple is getting relatively complacent. They know they’ve got stuff that works, albeit old (in the eyes of their product loving ADD consumers). I generally don’t care for the reasons of why that is or isn’t, its just more fanboy conjecture, and lord knows I hate fanboyism for brand loyalty. Basically what I’m getting at is apple hasn’t churned out anything new this year, just more of the same stuff with new upgrades/features. The 3gs iphone came out, at first I wasn’t making any plans to get one, but my mother desperately needed a new phone to replace her 1st gen razr. After playing with her 3gs, I saw enough pros to upgrading my aging phone. Picked it up in july, haven’t had any remorse.
This month (which is usually why/when I write these things, isn’t it?) apple released their music player refresh/upgrades, biggest being the same-as-last-gen nano but now with a video camera and radio tuner. Supposedly it doesn’t take pictures, just video. I kicked around the idea of buying one for an in-car video camera, but I haven’t been driving my car much lately, and my commute to work is no longer the fun 100-mile daily drive through the twisties. Thus it would be yet another waste of money. Let’s face it, nobody has much to kick around nowadays. It makes me wonder why people would waste their money on something like the shuffle. Sure it may be good for workouts or something, but this new model is just stupid. I wonder how many they’ve sold. Must have been plenty, because they didn’t do anything to it except dye it different colors. Whoopty-fuckin-do.
I’ll admit I know very little about the Zune HD. It looks damn good though. It’s supposed to be pretty slick, strong hardware, with great video playback. I think there’s been rumors or talk floating around that it will support some good gaming on it, maybe not psp/ds level games, but who knows, this is MS we’re talking about here. They can do software. Hardware, not so much, but hoping the Zune can prove otherwise. I just don’t think I care to use a touchscreen interface for gaming. It sucks on the iphone/touch, but then that’s apple, like I said, MS can do software, and MS can do games.
I hate the radio in my car. Its embarrassing driving a sports car that has a user interface of a freaking moving van. For christs sake, it cant even fucking fast forward tracks on a cd/mp3. I’m stuck listening from the beginning of a podcast, when all I want to do is advance to 10 minutes after the start. I kicked around the notion of buying a Pioneer/Premier F90bt, but things sorta came up and I wound up having to put off the purchase. Kinda sucks too, I had an installer lined up that was gonna put it in for me for free, all I had to do was buy the deck, and I was given the option of getting the hardware anywhere I wanted and not incurring any additional cost. The (at the time) local shop wanted almost 1.5k for the radio and install, and would need my car for most of the day. Hells no. My friend, who knows the guy via a relative, got me squared away on the free install, all I had to do was buy it. I sure hope that option is still available down the road. Basically, in the time I put it off, Pioneer announced a whole new line of hardware, so now I’m waiting on those to come out, and either
a) prove to be a better head unit than the ones I was looking at
or
b) lower the price on the head unit I originally wanted
I like the Pioneer f series interface. It had full ipod/iphone integration and control. People were telling me to look at kenwoods or whatever other brands, as if I had not even known they existed. I did my homework, I tried them all out, I already went through all the steps/hurdles. The others didn’t have what I wanted, didn’t feel good, or just weren’t comparable. I knew of the issues people had with the original firmware on the f series, which were all, for the most part, taken care of with the 2.0 firmware. So that’s where I’m sitting on that. It just looks like that purchase is either going to be left up to a family member to buy me for Christmas, or for me to wait on until after taxes next year.
For gaming, there’s just so much going on. I’m still kicking around a mental list of what I want. Genrally all systems have been seeing love. All the way from the big 3, down to both my portables.
The ps3 is going pretty strong. The slim got realeased a month or so back, along with a price tag drop to 299, which is bringing it into the sweet spot for the gaming majority. Not all too sure on any games coming out for it that I need to get, but in general any multiplat game that has an integral online component gets picked up for this system. I still have yet to actually pay for any online console service, short of buying points to purchase DLC. I _might_ pick up CoD:MW 2 prestige for the ps3, but then that’d require me to pick up one of those mouse controllers, when all I want is the cheapo NVGs and freaky dummyhead to put them on. Oh, There’s also Gran Turismo 5, due in March. Nothing else need be said, day 1 purchase.
The 360 will probably see more attention for the most part. I bought ODST on day 1, have yet to finish the fight… er, campaign. Its just been too hot to play the 360, last thing I want is to induce another rrod. Plus its got a little bit of the ambiance/environment that makes me not want to play it in the dark. Other games I need to pick up for it are going to be Bayonetta, since apparently from reports it plays better on the 360 opposed to the ps3. Also, Assassin’s Creed II, mostly cause I bought the 1st one on the 360 (WHICH I STILL WANNA PLAY MORE OF AND COMPLETE BUT CANT BECAUSE I PUT THE DISC IN STORAGE GRAH). I might pick up Forza 3 as well, depending on reviews. Having missed out on the first 2, I’m waiting to see what people say. So far I’ve seen 1 person that played the demo that didn’t like the changes. We’ll have to wait and see.
The Wii still collects dust for the most part, I still need to beat Oneechanbara (on both the wii AND the 360), but last time I touched the system, I was going through No More Heroes again. I do love that game. So when I learned of the 2nd coming out sometime next year, I sat in my chair burning with anticipation. I don’t care all too much for the retro styled mini-game jobs you’ll have to do, but I’m willing to put up with it for more continuation of the tale of Travis Touchdown. Aside from NMH 2, I still need to pick up Muramasa. Mostly just ‘cause I need something else to play on that system. Kinda funny that all the games I want to play on the Wii all involve hack-n-slash gameplay. Oh, well, there’s that Sports Resort game or something, I hear there’s supposed to be a version coming out with a pair of the motion-plus add-ons. If that’s true/comes out, I’ll pick that up as well.
I hadn't been paying too much attention, but apparently the PSP Go comes out this week. I remember seeing that one artist rendition mockup looooooong long ago on engadget, it looked pretty damn slick. Super thin slider device. Guess the boys at sony liked it too and made it work. Sorta. They did away with UMD s on it, which people at first cheered for. Then, somebody thought, " ...wait, what about my library of UMDs I already have?" At first, sony said they were going to have some sort of exchange program, or maybe offer free digital copies with proof of the version you have. I dunno. All I DO know is they decided to say no to that just last week or so, and that I dont want one.
The DSi came out this year as well, don't really want one of those either. There is one game that has my interest piqued, but quite honestly it scares the bejesus out of me. Yeah, I dont want to walk around seeing the DSi/Ghostwire finding ghosts in my house.
I think most portable games that need to be picked up are done, with the exception of Valkyria Chronicles 2, which is going to the PSP, sometime next year I think? Regardless, I’ll pick it up, I love the original even though I still need to finish it. Games I’ve grabbed that I’m playing on the DS/PSP are Scribblenauts, which was almost an impulse buy, Pangya, which still goes strong on both this and the PC front, and the Hatsune Miku / Project Diva PSP game, even though I really only play that game for one song. Ah, just remembered Gran Turismo Portable, gotta poick that up too since it’s supposed to have integration with GT5. 2010 is gonna be big on racing, which is fine, since I think I’m never gonna get to race on Laguna Seca like I wanted to.
So that’s it. It’s been relatively quiet for me, mostly cause I have some major crap I have to take care of that cuts into my leisure/hobby time. Tech has taken a back seat to gaming, which has taken the passenger seat to my RL crap. Once the RL crap pulls over and lets the games take the wheel in 2010, things should wind down back to their abnormal pace for me.
Few months back I upgraded my old 1st gen iphone to the 3gs. It’s certainly nice having 4x the storage capacity now as opposed to doing an equivalent of micromanaging a warcraft army of data (mostly movies and music) on my phone. There’s a “new” ipod nano out there, the retarded ipod shuffle is still the same, and the Zune HD, which if I wasn’t already utilizing my phone for most of that, I’d probably be using instead.
Apple is getting relatively complacent. They know they’ve got stuff that works, albeit old (in the eyes of their product loving ADD consumers). I generally don’t care for the reasons of why that is or isn’t, its just more fanboy conjecture, and lord knows I hate fanboyism for brand loyalty. Basically what I’m getting at is apple hasn’t churned out anything new this year, just more of the same stuff with new upgrades/features. The 3gs iphone came out, at first I wasn’t making any plans to get one, but my mother desperately needed a new phone to replace her 1st gen razr. After playing with her 3gs, I saw enough pros to upgrading my aging phone. Picked it up in july, haven’t had any remorse.
This month (which is usually why/when I write these things, isn’t it?) apple released their music player refresh/upgrades, biggest being the same-as-last-gen nano but now with a video camera and radio tuner. Supposedly it doesn’t take pictures, just video. I kicked around the idea of buying one for an in-car video camera, but I haven’t been driving my car much lately, and my commute to work is no longer the fun 100-mile daily drive through the twisties. Thus it would be yet another waste of money. Let’s face it, nobody has much to kick around nowadays. It makes me wonder why people would waste their money on something like the shuffle. Sure it may be good for workouts or something, but this new model is just stupid. I wonder how many they’ve sold. Must have been plenty, because they didn’t do anything to it except dye it different colors. Whoopty-fuckin-do.
I’ll admit I know very little about the Zune HD. It looks damn good though. It’s supposed to be pretty slick, strong hardware, with great video playback. I think there’s been rumors or talk floating around that it will support some good gaming on it, maybe not psp/ds level games, but who knows, this is MS we’re talking about here. They can do software. Hardware, not so much, but hoping the Zune can prove otherwise. I just don’t think I care to use a touchscreen interface for gaming. It sucks on the iphone/touch, but then that’s apple, like I said, MS can do software, and MS can do games.
I hate the radio in my car. Its embarrassing driving a sports car that has a user interface of a freaking moving van. For christs sake, it cant even fucking fast forward tracks on a cd/mp3. I’m stuck listening from the beginning of a podcast, when all I want to do is advance to 10 minutes after the start. I kicked around the notion of buying a Pioneer/Premier F90bt, but things sorta came up and I wound up having to put off the purchase. Kinda sucks too, I had an installer lined up that was gonna put it in for me for free, all I had to do was buy the deck, and I was given the option of getting the hardware anywhere I wanted and not incurring any additional cost. The (at the time) local shop wanted almost 1.5k for the radio and install, and would need my car for most of the day. Hells no. My friend, who knows the guy via a relative, got me squared away on the free install, all I had to do was buy it. I sure hope that option is still available down the road. Basically, in the time I put it off, Pioneer announced a whole new line of hardware, so now I’m waiting on those to come out, and either
a) prove to be a better head unit than the ones I was looking at
or
b) lower the price on the head unit I originally wanted
I like the Pioneer f series interface. It had full ipod/iphone integration and control. People were telling me to look at kenwoods or whatever other brands, as if I had not even known they existed. I did my homework, I tried them all out, I already went through all the steps/hurdles. The others didn’t have what I wanted, didn’t feel good, or just weren’t comparable. I knew of the issues people had with the original firmware on the f series, which were all, for the most part, taken care of with the 2.0 firmware. So that’s where I’m sitting on that. It just looks like that purchase is either going to be left up to a family member to buy me for Christmas, or for me to wait on until after taxes next year.
For gaming, there’s just so much going on. I’m still kicking around a mental list of what I want. Genrally all systems have been seeing love. All the way from the big 3, down to both my portables.
The ps3 is going pretty strong. The slim got realeased a month or so back, along with a price tag drop to 299, which is bringing it into the sweet spot for the gaming majority. Not all too sure on any games coming out for it that I need to get, but in general any multiplat game that has an integral online component gets picked up for this system. I still have yet to actually pay for any online console service, short of buying points to purchase DLC. I _might_ pick up CoD:MW 2 prestige for the ps3, but then that’d require me to pick up one of those mouse controllers, when all I want is the cheapo NVGs and freaky dummyhead to put them on. Oh, There’s also Gran Turismo 5, due in March. Nothing else need be said, day 1 purchase.
The 360 will probably see more attention for the most part. I bought ODST on day 1, have yet to finish the fight… er, campaign. Its just been too hot to play the 360, last thing I want is to induce another rrod. Plus its got a little bit of the ambiance/environment that makes me not want to play it in the dark. Other games I need to pick up for it are going to be Bayonetta, since apparently from reports it plays better on the 360 opposed to the ps3. Also, Assassin’s Creed II, mostly cause I bought the 1st one on the 360 (WHICH I STILL WANNA PLAY MORE OF AND COMPLETE BUT CANT BECAUSE I PUT THE DISC IN STORAGE GRAH). I might pick up Forza 3 as well, depending on reviews. Having missed out on the first 2, I’m waiting to see what people say. So far I’ve seen 1 person that played the demo that didn’t like the changes. We’ll have to wait and see.
The Wii still collects dust for the most part, I still need to beat Oneechanbara (on both the wii AND the 360), but last time I touched the system, I was going through No More Heroes again. I do love that game. So when I learned of the 2nd coming out sometime next year, I sat in my chair burning with anticipation. I don’t care all too much for the retro styled mini-game jobs you’ll have to do, but I’m willing to put up with it for more continuation of the tale of Travis Touchdown. Aside from NMH 2, I still need to pick up Muramasa. Mostly just ‘cause I need something else to play on that system. Kinda funny that all the games I want to play on the Wii all involve hack-n-slash gameplay. Oh, well, there’s that Sports Resort game or something, I hear there’s supposed to be a version coming out with a pair of the motion-plus add-ons. If that’s true/comes out, I’ll pick that up as well.
I hadn't been paying too much attention, but apparently the PSP Go comes out this week. I remember seeing that one artist rendition mockup looooooong long ago on engadget, it looked pretty damn slick. Super thin slider device. Guess the boys at sony liked it too and made it work. Sorta. They did away with UMD s on it, which people at first cheered for. Then, somebody thought, " ...wait, what about my library of UMDs I already have?" At first, sony said they were going to have some sort of exchange program, or maybe offer free digital copies with proof of the version you have. I dunno. All I DO know is they decided to say no to that just last week or so, and that I dont want one.
The DSi came out this year as well, don't really want one of those either. There is one game that has my interest piqued, but quite honestly it scares the bejesus out of me. Yeah, I dont want to walk around seeing the DSi/Ghostwire finding ghosts in my house.
I think most portable games that need to be picked up are done, with the exception of Valkyria Chronicles 2, which is going to the PSP, sometime next year I think? Regardless, I’ll pick it up, I love the original even though I still need to finish it. Games I’ve grabbed that I’m playing on the DS/PSP are Scribblenauts, which was almost an impulse buy, Pangya, which still goes strong on both this and the PC front, and the Hatsune Miku / Project Diva PSP game, even though I really only play that game for one song. Ah, just remembered Gran Turismo Portable, gotta poick that up too since it’s supposed to have integration with GT5. 2010 is gonna be big on racing, which is fine, since I think I’m never gonna get to race on Laguna Seca like I wanted to.
So that’s it. It’s been relatively quiet for me, mostly cause I have some major crap I have to take care of that cuts into my leisure/hobby time. Tech has taken a back seat to gaming, which has taken the passenger seat to my RL crap. Once the RL crap pulls over and lets the games take the wheel in 2010, things should wind down back to their abnormal pace for me.