Of bits and bytes

Just some random updates:

For some reason, Ninny has stopped shipping the DDR:Mario Mix sets. (Glad I got one early even if Sarah doesn't find it very interesting yet.) Something about problems getting the pads made. Not too much of a surprise to me as I thought they were being generous to sell the game and pad for a "mere" $49. They are going for $100+ on eBay currently. Be interesting to see if they drop it altogether or start up again with a newly manufactured pad.

360 mania continues with no new consoles available until the middle or so of this month. I've seen a couple of columns that actually talk more about the impact on Xbox than the improvement of the 360. Microsoft has created a bit of a tar baby here - Xbox's won't be blown out for discount prices, but the 360's are too expensive for alot of people and aren't fully backward compatible. I think that this will all work in Sony's favor and the new super console will be PS3.

Ninny maybe headed for problems too. A report I read stated that developers who got their hands on early dev kits likened the graphics for the Revolution to those of the Gamecube. This also doesn't surprise me - the Revolution unit is too small to provide adequate cooling for CPU, graphics and memory if they are going to be pushing the performance envelope. Of course, what do you expect from a company that is competing with itself on 3 different handheld gaming units at the same time.

Games just keep stacking up. Damn these holiday sales! (Ok, not really. Plenty of room for more games.) I just can't see adding another platform to my collection anytime soon. With the sparkling new SP, I have 4 major systems to buy games for. A DS and/or an Xbox 360 is not in my near or mid-future buying plans. Back when videogames were new (ie, Atari 2600 days), the thought of buying games and not playing them within hours of getting them home would have been unthinkable. But those were simpler days.

Going to try putting a "skin" on one of my Gamecubes. Fry's was selling the skins from Pokemon XD for $0.99 and I couldn't resist. With all the luck I used to have putting stickers on toys, I don't have much faith in it coming out looking anything but crap, but for a buck I'll try. Pics to be posted here if it isn't a total disaster.