Saturday, February 16, 2008

JT On The NIU Shooting – The Video

6:00PM Mike Fahey | Here is the clip of Jack Thompson on Fox News this morning, explaining how the Northern Illinois University shooting was the result of violent video games. My favorite bit is right at the beginning. “Jack, welcome on this tragic day.” “Yeah, I wish I weren’t here.” “You know? Us too.” We wish you weren’t there either Jackie boy, but there you are anyway, immediately hijacking the interview for your own purposes. The interviewer starts by asking what the shooter’s age (27) tells us about him, seeing as he is more of an adult than the usual late teens that perform these sorts of crime. Jack’s answer? “If you get started playing – for example – violent video games you can uh…you are more likely to copycat the behaviors in the games.” It’s like he doesn’t even hear the question the guy is asking. The question merely served to pull the string on JT’s back to ready the anti-gaming rhetoric. It’s classic Thompson every step of the way. “You can rehearse these type of massacres on simulators which are called video games and you can…therefor made more proficient in doing this.” He explains that “Counter-Strike Half-Life” was that Cho, the perpetrator of the Virginia Tech Massacre trained on in High School, suggesting that the behavoir of the NIU shooter had the same sort of training. He also cites the shooter’s attire…all black…was also similiar to what the hero in Counter-Strike wears. He certainly couldn’t have gotten the idea to wear all black from anywhere else, could he? What kind of bad guy wears all black, other than a good 50% of them throughout the history of fiction? More »

The Wii Fit Peripherals That Didn’t Make The Cut

5:30PM Luke Plunkett | In the latest “Iwata Asks” on Nintendo’s website, the company boss is still talking Wii Fit, specifically how the dev team came up with the concept of the balance (balance, not fitness) controller. At first, it was only going to register your left-and-right movement. Not good enough. So the team expanded it, crafting one able to detect movement in eight directions. Better. Now all that needed work was the design, because the initial prototype looked rubbish. So, living in constant fear of having their tea table upturned by a furious Miyamoto, the team obliged, ending up with the squat, square-ish shape the board is today. Captivating reading for Nintendo fanboys and industrial designers alike. More »

Tetris On Oscilloscope Is Quaint, Fantastic

4:30PM Luke Plunkett | Quake II on a DS? Eh, it’s OK. I guess. It’d be better on an oscilloscope. Tetris sure is. Best part is that, because you can’t exactly port stuff over onto the machine, the blocks are all hand-drawn, and as a bonus the whole thing even refreshes at 100Hz. [thanks Kdawg!] More »

Official Sony Mag Talks PSP Phone

3:30PM Luke Plunkett | I know it, you know it, we all know that, at some stage down the line, Sony will release a PlayStation Phone. We’ve already heard talk that one was originally due in February, but that was just a whisper. We’ve already heard SCE exec Jim Ryan say the idea of one is “definitely plausible”. Now this, this is from Sony’s official magazine, which I’d wager is a little more credible: A new PSP-style phone is apparently in development. There are even suggestions that it could be in shops as early as February. Discount the February thing, as that’s probably just citing the earlier rumours, but mentioning it’s “apparently” in development? I wouldn’t think the official magazine of the consumer electronics company in question would deal in “apparently”. More »

New Indiana Jones Prizes for Japanese Arcades

3:00PM Brian Ashcraft | So has that new Indiana Jones trailer gotten you excited? Japanese arcades are all ready to pounce on that. Just check out this UFO catcher Indy merch. Throw the crane the whip, and it’ll take your money and keep the idol! Or something. Heh. Side note: While I am SUPER EXCITED about the movie, am I the only one who thought the trailer was so-so? [Thanks, Jean!] More »

16% Failure Rate Is News To Microsoft

2:30PM Luke Plunkett | Over the past few days, stories have been circling around the place that the failure rate for the 360 had been “nailed” at 16%. This figure was taken from SquareTrade, who claimed to have issued warranties for the console, and was based on a sample group of 1000 360s. Today, Microsoft have hit back at these claims, saying they’ve never heard of SquareTrade: We have not seen the report, and are unfamiliar with the agency that filed it. Based on the enthusiast community’s feedback yesterday, the methodology of this report is suspect. Fair point, as when releasing the 16% figure, SquareTrade disclosed neither their methodology, nor the entirety of the report. Microsoft Responds to Warranty Report [IGN] More »