Rendai

Of course I would end up being the good guys (again)

Personally, I’m thinking of making a Disciple of Khaine because the game mechanic seems interesting. We’ll see.

Sony has been on a tear lately. Last year they brought us the infamous rootkit. Then, a few weeks ago, Sony unveiled the pricing scheme for the Playstation 3:

Sony announced plans Monday to offer two packages when the system goes on sale this fall. A PS3 with a 20 GB hard drive will cost consumers $499. Those wanting a larger, 60 GB hard drive will pay $599. The $499 version will also lack several features found in the more expensive one.

That’s pretty expensive. At that price, I’m expecting a little more functionality from an entertainment device. Like making me a latte every morning and letting the dogs out so I don’t have to get up at 6 AM on the weekends. But alas, it isn’t meant to be. The latest idea out of Sony is a wicked new licensing structure. It’s called ‘Screw off consumer and make me a sammich.‘

High street games shops have been told by Sony that there will be no PS3 pre-owned sections in their stores as it will be illegal for customers to sell any next-gen PlayStation games that they’ve bought, retail sources have revealed to GamesRadar.

It seems that Sony is planning to adopt a licensing system that will mean gamers won’t own the PS3 titles that they’ve paid money for. Instead, they will only be purchasing the licence to play the game and that the software itself will still be Sony property – meaning that the disc won’t be the customer’s to sell.

Somehow that doesn’t sound like an arrangement that I want to get into. Some may remember the arrogance expressed by SEGA during the Dreamcast debacle. It’s almost eerie how Sony is making the same mistakes that brought SEGA low. Who knows, maybe in a year or two, Sony will be out of the gaming hardware industry completely. Then maybe we’ll have Nintendo games where Mario chases BETA tapes and smashes them with a hammer. I’d be glad to pay for a game like that…

Update: That last one is probably false.  I’m starting to wonder how a company would stop a person from reselling something?  If it can’t be enforced, no reason to talk about it.

Civ 4 has gone gold. There are two games I am really looking forward to right now, and Civ 4 is one of them. I will be getting the Pre-release Edition next week at the same price as the regular edition. That’s great, because ‘Collectors’ editions are normally $20 more and all you get is some silly pewter figure.

The second game that I can’t wait to get is the next edition of The Elder Scrolls series. One of the few games that I really enjoyed during college was Daggerfall (second installment of the TES series). The publisher, Bethesda, has always created games that are wide open. Many RPGs, especially the ones on console systems, are constrained. You can only go to certain places or do things that the developers want you to do at that time. With the Elder Scroll games, if you want to take out every single person in a town, you can. There are very things that the game keeps you from doing outright.

I forsee many hours wasted on the computer over the next few months

Update: Got Civ yesterday. I originally purchased the pre-release edition through Amazon, but someone sat on my order and it didn’t come in on time. So I went to EB in the mall and traded in some old Playstation 2 games. I only had to pay $9 for the game! That’s a lot better than $67+ for next day delivery (curse you Amazon!).

This falls along the lines of “Does this make me look fat?” If you ask the question, you know the answer… (Thanks to Ex Candore Decus for the link)
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