Nintendo broke away from competition with Sony and, new arrival, Microsoft with what some call the “Blue Ocean” business strategy. The Blue Ocean strategy is the metaphor of leaving a “red ocean” (one dyed by the blood of competition) for unclaimed waters filled with the potential for creating new demand. From a business stand point this brave (or stupid) move has paid off and now Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 are competing for second place.

Nintendo managed to succeed because they did something more than incrementally improve and repurpose old features. Yes, Gentle Reader, I’m talking about the “I” word, innovation. It’s debatable if the Wii controller is a true innovation as some gamers will still belittle it and mock it, but from a business standpoint it’s a successful change that’s brought in tremendous profit. Nintendo is as guilty as everyone else of giving us sequels by the truck load, most games in each series offer something new every one or two games. In truth, sequels are not really a bad thing as long as they are different enough that it stands on its own or adds to the previous experience. (continue reading…)

If you don’t use Windows, you can stop reading here.

Over the past couple of weeks a virus known as the Conficker, Downadup or Kido worm has been multiplying at an alarming rate. A recent headcount shows it at around 9.5 million infected computers. A botnet that size could probably bring an end to the internet.

No, I’m exaggerating.

However, it’s not all terribly bad. Just as with all epidemics, virtual or real, all that is necessary are precautions. If a friend comes over and wants to plug his key into your machine (No, that was not a euphemism), ask him how his internet’s been recently, and if it’s been acting slower than usual. This a symptom of the worm abusing his internet connection for it’s own ends — See: infecting more people.

Now, I’m sure you’re tired of my rambling and you want me to make the pain go away, right? Well – for those of you that have Windows Automatic Updates turned off, turn them on. The main update you’re looking for (If you want to prioritise.. or just to turn the darn thing off ASAP) is KB958644. Find it, install it – and you’re safe. For the most part. If someone comes and plugs in their USB Key you are still susceptible to it.

For those of you that have got it or fear you may have it, it’s nearly invisible. It only leaves one or two trademarks and those being

• A slower internet connection and/or consistently using bandwidth. If you suspect something, close all unnecessary processes and download a bandwidth monitoring program.
• Automatic Updates suddenly being turned off and disabled.

If you suspect you are infected and are experiencing the symptoms, try this first.

If you are infected, a logical course of action would be reformat. Back up onto a external hard drive (but absolutely NO autorunning files.), and reinstall Windows anew on a formatted hard drive. Once everything is kosher, you can try taking your data from the external hard drive. If you notice the symptoms appearing again then you’ll have to start over. This time, with no backup.

Just looking at it makes me teary eyed..

That’s right folks, you read right.

Microsoft following budget cuts has closed the ACES studio, the minds behind the highly successful Flight Simulator series. But fear not, for the series will continue although Microsoft have not yet stated which studio will head up the project from now on.

From Humble Beginnings..

Pictured left is the original Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.0, released in 1982. Few of we gamers (sadly, I am not one of the few) were around or even out of nappies (diapers to you yankee) when this was released, and even fewer of us even knew it existed in its time. But little did we know this would become the giant it is today, and was believed to be going from strength to strength in the face of naysayers.

I guess it just goes to show you, nothing truly is for certain.

That’s right folks, Sony aren’t the only ones to cut jobs. Thankfully Nintendo are still comfortable printing money from their bengal tiger-furred computer chairs drinking the blood of valkyries out of solid gold tankards.

We’re not too sure on how to take this news seriously, but for the most part, it seems harmless: Gamerscore Blog, one of the bigger ways that Microsoft had used to reach out to the gaming community is now being retired. No, there wasn’t any bloodletting involved (or so they say), it’s just something companies call ‘re-appropriation of resources’. Meaning that the staff of Gamerscore Blog didn’t get canned, they just got placed somewhere else.

For instance, the stuff we usually went to Gamerscore Blog for will be viewable on the Xbox 360’s Inside Xbox Channel. The bloggers who had manned the retired blog can still be read on Xbox.com’s Voices page. And the infamous Major Nelson? He’s not going to stop blogging and podcasting any time soon, you can make sure of that.

Not quite good news, but any news is better than rampant sacking.

Man, those things creep me out

Microsoft recently released the “new Xbox experience” to every online Xbox. First off let’s look at the structure.

Pros

· Quicker browsing through easy scrolling

· New big display panels for each task, such as edit profile or play current disc

· RB, RT, LB, LT buttons utilized for maneuvering through the menus

· Friends channel makes it easier to find those suckers (keep your friends close and your enemies closer)

· *double dragon Xbox theme still awesome looking

Cons

• New layout includes spotlight channel and other little tweaks to spurt advertising right into your face from your TV screen
• Your Xbox themes will not rotate through their pictures when you go through the new Xbox channels, only when you select something such as the video library or marketplace, unlike before when it changed while scrolling through menus.
• Big gray surface obstructing half your Xbox theme anyway
• You have to stare at your Xbox avatar abomination when you go to edit your profile

Now first off, Mii’s. Oh wait what’s that? That’s not a Mii? ‘Course not, it’s an “Xbox avatar” designed to be more realistic. Ultimately what happened is, take the bastard love child of cartoonish human personas and uncanny valley humanoids and make it into an avatar system. You are FORCED (curse the day we gave console’s sentient minds) to make one at the start of your Xbox online update that contains this ‘new experience’. These avatars although customizable in hip clothing and bling (yes they have bling, diamond rings and a chain etc., oh god) lack customization in physical feature placement. Yea you can chisel your jaw line but you can’t even move your eyebrows to their proper position. Maybe I’m just a bit biased against these things since, well they ripped off Nintendo, and that all my so-called ‘colleagues’ share my view and agree with me, thus only reinforcing my negativity, but I stand strong on my position against these little critters. I only hope that Microsoft doesn’t start charging people to customize these things, the next thing I want to hear in life is: “Hey bro, I just spent 500 MS points on a new hat and jacket combo for my Xbox avatar!” The best thing about these things is that you can put sunglasses on them, then zoom in real close, take a picture, and now you have a nice gamerpic of sunglasses.

That’s really all there is to this whole ‘new experience’ thing. Hopefully Microsoft will release some real nice homerun updates eventually. So what do you think? Good, bad, or just plain unnecessary? I’m going to go with unnecessary for now.

Since we were talking about the new experience, let’s go back to something old for just a minute, gamer pictures. This topic has made me considerably annoyed for a while now. Not only will Microsoft not let you simply make your own by using a custom uploaded image thumbnail (except for those dumb Xbox avatar photos) but they also nickel and dime you for their gamer picture designs and a lot of them aren’t even that good (here’s a nice marketing idea, give a gamer picture free with each Xbox360 game at least, maybe people will even buy the games then for picture collectability…if somebody would actually do that).

Yeah, you read right. The Xbox 360 relied upon the Sony and IBM lovechild, the Cell processor. The Race for a New Game Machine, written by David Shippy and Mickie Phipps tells the story of how Microsoft managed to use the IBM & Sony partnership against them, even going as far as to use Sony’s R&D money against them by having the engineers use techniques they may have only discovered hours beforehand. All culminating in Microsoft’s ability (with a touch of foresight) to be able to release their console a full year ahead of Sony.

The Wall Street Journal has a more complete synopsis of the book, but naturally, if you want to learn the drama fueled tales of IBM’s treachery, then you’ll have to buy the book yourself. Now if only Microsoft had stolen the PS3’s heatsink designs, we wouldn’t have that ongoing RROD debacle over our heads now would we..

Microsoft Sam loves video games, especially old ones. Join him each week as he reviews his favorite classic games. This week he reviews Wheel of Fortune for the NES.

PC Gamers don’t often take lightly to the idea of any kind of closed platform, naturally, this is what Microsoft appear to be proposing. Games for Windows LIVE, something like STEAM but with a hell of a lot more money behind it.

The idea was first brought to the public’s attention at the same time as the hyped, but ultimately disappointing, DirectX 10. Messenger in and out of game with voice chat, a platform to buy games and downloadable content, topped off with the ability to play cross-platform with Xbox 360 users. We could even keep our fantastic mods if we wanted!

Wait, where have I heard this before?

Oh right, Steam. Been there, done that, and still doing it very well. Perhaps Microsoft saw the success that Valve had accomplished and wanted a piece of the pie, with the stealth update (read: much needed) to the UI of LIVE on the PC and the promise of a standalone client supporting all games coming in weeks time, MS seem to have kicked their idea into overdrive after a long period of stasis. The question now is: will PC Gamers bite?

The main issue is downloadable content. What can be gotten for points (read: money) on the Xbox is usually issued in a patch on PC for free. When it isn’t, it divides the community as most aren’t willing to pay simply for downloadable content, expansion packs are how the PC platform has learned to operate; micro-transactions may be wildly successful in the Asian MMO market, but Western gamers tend to like a more solid approach, and just the mere mention of a micro-transaction will often have gamers spinning their heads in anger.

At the same time, this could bring even more new gamers into the fold; the cost of a gaming PC is rapidly approaching that of a console leaving fewer and fewer reasons not to get a PC, especially for those who want a more complex but more rewarding experience. Perhaps applications like Games for Windows LIVE and Steam are the halfway house between a console and a PC.

Microsoft Sam loves video games, especially old ones. Join him each week as he reviews his favorite classic games. This week he reviews 3D World Runner for the NES.