This is just an short update while I work on my main post (which should be out over the next couple of days), but there’s an article over on ZDNet which  essentially states that the 3D TV “revolution” is a waste of time!  I could have said that ages ago, but yeah… 3D TV is totally pointless.  I’m actually even wondering if the 3DS might be a bit giimmicky, but I’m gonna let it slide for now.  3D TV itself is rather pointless as a technology, but then the companies seem to expect (or rather hope) that we’ll spend money on a technology that at present is nothing more than a gimmick, especially when we’re barely taking advantage of HD at present!  Yes, I’m all for innovation and all that, but honestly, 3D TV is pretty much just a fad at present and I don’t see it becoming any more than that considering we’re still trying to get used to HD, which as of yet still isn’t a standard technology.  The ZDNet article implied that instead of adding a new gimmick to TVs, they should focus on making HD TVs more affordable and available to the masses.  And given in the UK there’s a Digital Switchover planned over the next couple years, I do think this is more important.  Admittedly though, where I live has no digital coverage at all, and only poor analogue coverage… I wish that were sorted out.  So, instead of fixing present tech, people seem more focused on “The Next Big Thing”, even though in this case, what’s being touted as such is just a gimmick.

Okay, maybe I should go back to the 3DS; I had a chance to play one for a little while, both at the airport before flying to the States and also in a local Walmart, so I am at least reasonably well informed about the 3DS.  I have also glanced at the 3DS Wikipedia article, and while I’m intrigued by the majority of the 3DS’s specs, I’m still not 100% sure about the 3D aspect.  Even more amusing is the fact that the cameras haven’t even been upgraded from the 0.3MP!  It’s not like I’m expecting something like 16MP with the cameras, but the least they could do is increase the sensors to 1 or 2MP; those are cheap enough to at least provide decent resolution on a larger monitor; consider the fact that the SD Card can be used elsewhere, like for printing pictures to paper… also consider that a picture resolution that is over 3-6 times larger than the camera of the DSi, which means sharper pictures.  There has already been comments (based on what has been said in the article) that 3D versions of movies look worse than their 2D counterparts, but then again that is to be expected given the way the films were initially filmed.  I suppose though, to give Nintendo its due, it did at least stick 2 camera sensors on the front so the 3D effect would probably look better than what you see in the movies.  Ironically, I was actually thinking Anaglyph 3D was cool (and still do to an extent), but I really don’t know how 3D adds to movies… sure, it looks good with a still image, but when it’s done with an entire movie, it starts to lose its appeal.

The reason why a still image in 3D is more appealing is because it’s just a still image and you can view it at multiple angles and it still can impress you.  Okay, maybe I’m easily amused, but that’s what I think; you’re free to disagree.  Ironically, I haven’t actually seen any 3D movies, but from the way it sounds, it’s probably best that I haven’t.  I’m also not entirely sure if it’s the sort of pop-out 3D (which is the more impressive kind) or the hologram type 3D where the background appears to have depth, although my point still remains that the tech is presently gimmicky.  However, what Jonny Chung Lee has done with 3D on the Wii strikes me as one of the most impressive uses of 3D.  Granted, this is moving into the realms of games (like I haven’t already gone there talking about the 3DS), but using 3D in games seems just a little less gimmicky than using it in movies, which just seems like an excuse to push 3DTV (and movies) in a world that’s still not fully gotten the hang of  HD yet.  At least in the case of games, there’s a better case for using 3D, although at the present stage of things it’s still not much above 3DTV.  That said however, if a game were made to properly take advantage of the 3D tech, instead of just it being an optional thing, then it may start to become worth it… but honestly, we’re looking at a few years down the line before a proper company goes down that route; you’ll find that it’s the indie and homebrew developers that embrace it first; again, look at Johnny Chung Lee’s efforts with the Wii, a system not even designed for 3D, and not only that, it’s a pretty cheap form of immersive 3D!

All that said though, Nintendo do have a better grip on 3D compared to most companies, when you consider the existence of the Virtual Boy, which was their first foray into 3D gaming.  Granted, it didn’t sell well, but Nintendo certainly learnt from their mistakes in releasing the 3DS (except for maybe still having really low resolution cameras!).  The technology is still in its infancy though, but at least the 3Ds isn’t entirely reliant on its 3D capabilities; it does have the vast DSi and DS library, in addition to the Virtual Console and other downloadable stuff to keep it going, in addition to the gradually increasing library of 3DS games.  The lesson Nintendo clearly learnt here is don’t solely rely on a gimmick to shift consoles.  The enhanced 3DS specs also mean that the system has a fair bit of untapped potential as well, so even if we don’t have games that use the 3D mode, we should at least have games that make use of the enhanced hardware of the 3DS, which will be a great prospect in itself… maybe we might finally see Final Fantasy 7 on on the DS?  That said though, I don’t quite know if the game could be fit onto a single 3DS cart, although after stealing a quick glance at some of the search results in Google (this is going to do wonders for my search results!), the cartridges apparently can store up to 8GB of data, which is more than enough for FF7, hell FF7 could fit on a UMD… though I amn’t confident to fully assert this, given I don’t know how many CDs FF7 takes up off the top of my head, so if anyone happens to know, I would appreciate being told.  Still though, even if it may just barely fit on a UMD, it should be able to fit on a 3DS cart at the very least, and even then the full 8GB capacity won”t even be needed!

I just hope they don’t make it 3D as it really doesn’t need it; what it could probably do with though is a graphical overhaul, but I’d be happy with being able to play the game as it was back in the day, or even similar to what it is like in FF3 or FF4; the fact both those games (which are pretty large, though maybe not as large as FF7) could be done in a similar style to FF7 shows that it should be possible to put FF7 on the 3DS at the very least… I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it could work on the DS with one cartridge though, especially because the DS carts hold 1 Gigabit of data, which roughly equates to about 128MB; I’ve seen the size of DS ROMs, so I know by default that it wouldn’t even store a CD’s worth of data!  Still though, FF7 appearing on the 3DS, or indeed any console is just a fanboy dream; I’m not expecting it to appear to be honest, but it’s nice to dream… it would be nice to see a remade version on the PS3 though.

Speaking of the PS3 and potential, I bet people are surprised to hear me not comment on the recent PSN outage.  Truth be told, that given I’m not home at present, there’s been less of a push for me to comment on issues that would normally affect me.  However, given that the PS3 is also related to the 3DTV gimmick, both through BluRay and also through 3D gaming (indeed, there was a patch released to help with it), it seems appropriate to talk about the PS3, or rather PSN.  A friend of mine showed me this article on IGN the other day, and I was not impressed with it.  I’m aware that it’s a joke, but all it really does is piss off those who use PSN, while giving the PS Haters and 360 Fanboys more ammunition to say how “crap”the PS3 is; the article comes across to me as somewhat immature and a slap in the face to those who use the PSN service.  I’m totally aware that the same thing would have happened if XBL is down, but that sort of article in any case seems immature and/or a tad petty.  Like one of the commenters said, if you’re a gamer, it shouldn’t matter what console you own.  My reasons for not having a 360 aren’t really anything to do with hating Microsoft (though I amn’t exactly a fan of theirs either); my reason is that I cannot justify yet another MS system in my house, given I already have 2 Windows desktops, as well as this Windows laptop and a broken Windows laptop.  There’s also the fact that I have a rake of PS1 games which I wouldn’t want to give away and also I wanted a Bluray drive, so my reasons for buying a PS3 were purely based upon practicality rather out of dislike.  Admittedly, I’d have loved a 60GB PS3 (a US version), and the restored option to install Linux (hint hint Sony), but the system itself (and PSN too) is pretty solid.

I would also say the same about the XBL service too, given there’s never been any problems that I have been made aware of.  I do quite enjoy playing on the 360, even if it’s only Rock Band 3 mostly, although I’m not a big fan of the controller, but that said, it’s not mind-bogglingly difficult to use; my dislike of the controller stems more from the fact that I prefer how a PS controller feels.  Anyway, I digress… PSN outage opinion, yes?  My major concern would lie with my account details,which may or may not have been compromised; as a result, as soon as I’m able to I am totally going to have change my accounts system around for websites I access, just to prevent my details from being compromised elsewhere.  My payment details are thankfully safe, because I’ve had 2-3 new cards issued since then, but even so, others wouldn’t necessarily be so lucky (though perhaps the payment details are safe if they’re separate from account details).  Given PSN has 60 million users around the world, even some of those account details being compromised is still dangerous; we’re still looking at a figure in the millions at least, which makes me think if I ever want to buy something on PSN (or anywhere else like that in the future), I’m gonna stick to the pre-paid cards instead… it’s certainly safer!  That’s enough about me though… what about Sony’s way of handling things?

Well, from what I hear, Sony is handling things poorly, although given what they’ve done in the past, that’s kind of par for course with them anyway; that’s not a stab at all, just look at what they’ve done in the past and you’ll see what I mean.  I can’t help but wonder if this “attack” is related to what happened with the “GeoHot Incident”, as well as the removal of Linux, amongst other things it could be.  I know Sony isn’t exactly in people’s good books at the moment.  I know another company in the games industry who also isn’t in people’s good books either… you could say that some people are “barking mad” about one of their releases, but I won’t be discussing them here; this is merely a hint of what I’ll be tackling next.  In fact, I do actually have a lot of the post done, but it still needs working on.  Anyway, enough about that, let’s get back to Sony/PSN.  Sony being tight-lipped about the entire incident isn’t really going to do it any favours either… nor is the lack of compensation due to the outage.  The fact that MS actually gives every (Gold & Silver) XBL Member a free XBLA game for any outages is something that Sony should really take note of.

It’s ironic that a company like MS that is disliked by so many people actually knows how to properly treat its customers… then we have Sony, who caused a lot of controversey with their rootkit installer in 2005, and more recently removed the option to install Linux, after promising months before that it wasn’t going to be removed, and then subsequently locking people out of PSN if people refused to update.  When you consider the most recent incident, along with the Geohot thing that was recently settled, it’s no surprise Sony got attacked.  I’m not saying it’s right or anything (why would I, given my personal details are on there too?), but it’s easy to see why Sony were attacked, and the way they’re acting now just goes to show how much the consumer is getting screwed over by them.  On a random note, if this did happen to XBL, I realised I’d get a free game out of it, simply for being an XBL Member, which is nice, but yeah… that was just a random thought.  I understand that a company is out to make money, but at the same time, it’s not exactly morally right to essentially take a customer’s money, then screw them over by denying them advertised features… I don’t think even MS were that bad, and even if they were, they have at least learnt from their mistakes.

Someone I spoke to (though don’t like) on a chat room I frequent said that he hoped Apple would be next, although I’m not quite sure that Apple have generated quite the backlash against people that Sony have.  Granted, I’m not exactly happy with Apple, given how they have screwed developers over, the fact you need a Mac to develop for their systems, the fact they want to clamp down on open standards and that their iStore is subject to extremely draconian rules, but even then they haven’t quite generated the amount of shall we say “fury” that Sony has.  I certainly won’t be buying another iPod ever again in any case, and in fact, I’m quite happy with my Sansa Clip Plus, although I need to pick up a 32GB SDHC Card for it so it can store up to 40GB of songs; for what is roughly a matchbox-sized device, it is really impressive with what it can do… I certainly can’t wait to properly put it through its paces from next week.  I especially like that the playback time for MP3s is in the double digits… I think 16  hours was the advertised battery life, which will be great for when I fly home, although the plane I was on when flying between Canada and the UK did have a USB port, so I can recharge it, plus listen to their music and watch movies, so I won’t rely on it too much till after I touch down in Heathrow.

All that aside though, it’ll be interesting to see how long before PSN is back up, and what Sony will say happened, and also what the damage is.  I am expecting an email about that either by the end of this month or early into next.  Suffice it to say, I think I need to start beefing my security methods up a bit, especially where it comes to my money or access to it.  I’d be recommending that others do the same as well, in case an attack of this magnitude happens again… that first attack may have been just to prove a point as I’m not sure if anyone claimed responsibility for the attack yet.  What I do know is that the downtime has cost Sony allegedly between $20 Million to $24 Billion, although I think the latter figure’s a bit extreme.  And my bad, it appears (according to this article) that Sony may actually compensate users after all.  It’s kind of hard nailing details down when this post is being written on the fly, though I’m expecting more additions and edits to be made when the proper story comes forward, because there’s a lot of rumours flying around too about this story.  Rest assured that while I don’t know the full extent of the details now, I will eventually find out, between reading subsequent news articles and also reading the comments below.

I should end this post now as I’m nearly at 3000 words for this post, but suffice it to say, I will be watching the PSN outage with more interest and will be sure to update this post (and future related) with more factual details on this as and when I can.  I still think $24 Billion is a a it much though, but then I realise there are 60 million PSN users, so the maths do add up.  I really can’t wait to get the Gamed Up site up and running though, so I can finally do some proper reporting with stuff like this.  Anyway, that’s it for now… I’ll be back soon with another post.

Oh, actually… one last thing… I’ll end up doing less DiggerCast and DiggerFeast episodes than I originally planned, due to financial and hardware issues, but some will be done… also expect that the Stormhaven Media website will be up soon as well.  Also, Stormhaven Networks is essentially being downsized; it instead will merge everything (Stormhaven IT, Stormhaven IP, Storm Servers and Stormhaven Networks) into a single company called Stormhaven Developments, which will focus solely on software development, be it games, business software or web-based software.  I also have to develop a 5 year plan for the company soon as well.  Rest assured that nothing will really be hugely affected, though you may notice minor changes involved with Stormhaven Networks, and perhaps FSIRC, but that will be discussed at a later date.

Edit: It appears that customers’ credit card details are secure, according to an article here; it also links to the official Sony thread.  The payment data is encrypted, but that doesn’t mean it’s not 100% secure, so be warned.  It also appears the amount of PSN users is 77 million, which is a lot.  I read that the average cost of identity theft is about $319 which is where the 24 billion comes from. Admittedly, while it is nice to finally get some answers, they should have said something sooner, even if it was just to say that they are assessing the damage and to please bear with them, but I guess someone would complain about it.  There is a lot of stuff out there at the moment about this story, so I may need to revise a few things later…

Edit 2: Anonymous have stated that the PSN network outage has nothing to do with them, although they were responsible for a previous network outage at the start of the month.  Sony seems to be getting attacked a lot this month!  I did wonder if Anonymous had something to do with the attack, but given they had orchestrated an attack before, I don’t think they felt the need to proceed with another.  The hacking therefore is a concern, because as far as I’m aware, it’s not known who actually performed the attack, meaning there is an increased danger that the payment details could be compromised, even if it is encrypted.

I did also manage to pick up a few PC games as well, for quite cheap.  I got myself Evolva, Mass Effect, Star Trek: Borg and Space Empires V and with the exception of the ST game, they were all new!  I ended up spending a lot on games the past week or so nut they were so cheap I couldn’t help myself!  Staying on the subject of PCs, my desktop has developed a slight issue where one of my SATA power connectors has broken so I can only have one hard drive going at a time, which quite frankly sucks.  Thje laptop isn’t fareing well either, given that the screen has gone all funny on it.  I do hope it’s just a loose connection because otherwise I’m going to have to shell out for a new laptop, given the gfx card replacement is a good 200-odd Pounds!  Thankfully, my desktop problem is only a couple of quid to fix, though I might get a spare one, in case it falls down again.  In case you’re wondering how it fell, it was simply a case of me getting tangled up with my mouse lead and pulling on the desktop and knocking it down.  Thankfully, it was just that which was damaged… the hard drives seem to be fine which I consider a small miracle.  Not that I could afford to replace them at all.  Not the best week for my computers, is it?

And it isn’t really the best week for me phone-wise either in a sense… I’m trying to pick up a HTC Desire reasonably cheaply, but I’m not having much luck at present here either!  Oddly enough, C64Glen was talking about them quite recently, and I added my little part; I think it’s awesome there’s a C64 emulator on Android, but that said I think I had it on my G1… certainly is better with a keyboard anyway!   As it stands though, I now have less money than I thought I did, which isn’t a good thing, although I’m finally taking the plunge and selling off my extra phones though I seem to be missing one at the moment!  I’ll find it eventually, but I’ve decided to get rid of these phones partly to help fund my purchase of the Desire and also because they’re sitting round doing nothing!  I’ve actually also started to throw out the boxes the phones have come in to save a bit of space, though it seems that you can get money for them on eBay, but I can’t be bothered with that at present.   It is actually a bit of a concern the phone went missing, although it may be upstairs.  Anyway, I hope by the end of October, things will have picked up in many areas.   I also want to make a quick mention that I’ve finally recorded a 3rd episode of the DiggerCast with my friend Ollie, and that the second one will be going up soon, followed by the third.

Moving on now, I stumbled upon an interesting “Mocumentary” through the Money Saving Expert email, which I watched with interest.  It’s essentially an environmental thing, but well worth looking at.  It also brought me to this video about a person called Captain Charles Mooretalking about the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” on TED, which is related to the previous video. I then started looking at TED’s other videos and came up with this video, titled “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” by Sir Ken Robinson.  This video is well worth a watch, especially towards the end where he starts talking about someone who was behind the coreography of some of the most popular theatre productions of all time.  I won’t say any more right now, but suffice to say, it both moved me to tears and also got me thinking about how certain people are treated and how different would things be if they were treated differently, like this person was.  The reason for the secrecy is that I don’t want to spoil the surprise, because it really is that amazing (at least to me), I feel that no matter what I say, I’ll never do it justice.  I do recommend watching the whole video through because it really makes perfect sense.  TED is really a great resource and I think that I need to start using it more than I have in the past.

I also watched another video from Clifford Stoll, titled “18 Minutes With An Agile Mind“, and I’m not sure if he’s actually like that, playing it up a bit or a bit of both, but all I know is that I could so see myself doing what he does, although admittedly, I was a little frustrated in the opening minutes because I couldn’t find an anchor point initially to help me follow the conversation, but as someone pointed out, it does keep you on your toes!  Lastly, I had my first experiences with FreeCycle and also GumTree Freebies a few days ago, which I support the concept of, that is giving something I’m disposing of another chance at being used.  Unfortunately though, the item I put up was set to be taken by someone, but we couldn’t get it down my stairs!  Such a pity, because asides from some minor (repairable?) damage, it was perfectly usable and now I have to destroy it simply because I can’t get it down my stairs!  The item in question was a divan bed base, one of those boxy sorts that was in one piece, so couldn’t be disassembled.  I have no idea how the moving guy actually got it up the stairs in the first place to be honest, seeing as after removing the banisters, the person collecting it and I were still unable to get it out!  Such a pity I’ll have to cut it in half, but I guess that’s what happens sometimes.

Fortunately, I have a bed base to replace that, one that can actually be easily taken apart and moved, but I would have liked the base to go to someone who needed it, as opposed to in the rubbish, though it may be able to go into the local recycling plant, so it mightn’t be a total loss.  I am trying to do my bit for the environment, but sometimes there’s stuff that grinds my efforts to a halt.  Oh well, such is life I guess.  Here’s hoping that I’ll be able to blog soon that I finally have a HTC Desire and can tell you what it’s like… though I suspect I may need to pay a lot more than I think.  I am also in the market for a video camera now too, as I’m hoping to make some videos, as well as bring the camera on investigations too.  This also may take a bit of time, but I have a better chance at getting a cheapish video camera over a cheapish Desire!

We’ll see what happens in time.

I’ve also managed to get myself a T-Mobile USB Wireless Share Dock and a pretty nifty USB stick which also accepts a Transflash (Micro SD) Card, which impressed me.  Though at the moment, I haven’t tried it out yet properly.  However, I am hoping it’ll mean I can start doing more stuff outside as a result, such as live updates but I imagine realistically that’s a while off yet.  Anyway, I also have got myself a copy of the new version of  Space Hulk.  Those of you who both had the money and listened to those at the Games Workshop likely have 2 or 3 of them now; one to play, one to sell on (they could easily increase in value by 3 times in a couple years, meaning their value would be about 180, going by the standard pricing) and one for… erm, I’m not sure actually.  Anyway, the reason why they’re so valuable is because of the fact that the current run is the only run, and also it’s been 20 years since the anniversary of the last one.  There more than likely won’t be another one for a good 30 years or so now so this one will shoot up in value.  Getting 2-3 copies does hurt the wallet a bit though.  All the same, it is a worthwhile investment… it does way a bit though, but you do get a lot in it.  I’ll post up pics when I’ve finished assembling the figures… keep in minf they won’t be painted just yet though.

Moving into the educational sphere now, and I’ve been looking at returning to education at some point.  Despite the fact that there’s the strong chance of fees increasing next year, I  sill want to get myself a BSc.  Amusingly enough though, I was looking at a games design course somewhat local to me, just outside of London, but unfortunately for me, it doesn’t have anything to do with programming, which was the main area I failed in.  Not only that, it’s also a level 3 certification, whereas right now, I’m at level 4, so I’d be declined based upon the fact I know what is being taught… hell, I could most likely teach the students if I were actually able to focus enough!   Not to sound too cocky about it, but my design skills are pretty much beyond what my certication (Certificate of Higher Education) is, and my graphics skills are sufficient enough as well, as is my hardware knowledge.  My essay-writing skills are alright as well and would pick up when I actually commenced study again.  What prevents me from actually being able to use the CertHE to start at the second year of university is the fact my programming skills are teh suck atm, both in Java and Flash.  Granted, like the essay writing, I’d pick up a lot if I got a chance to refresh myself, but I’m so out of touch with both, I’d really need to go somewhere that allows me to refresh my Java knowledge, and teach me Flash (I never got a good grounding in it – perhaps one day I’ll tell you why I had such an aversion to it), while at the same time, helping me to progress past my CertHE.

Something tells me though that I may just have to teach myself Flash and Java to CertHE standard, if not beyond, which is by no means a bad thing.  It does mean that I’ve got a little extra help to rely on if I’m stuck when getting back into study.  And speaking of that, the one that takes my fancy is the one offered by Qantm; their Games Design & Development diploma course, as it enables me to do a diploma in 1 year,  as opposed to 2.  I could also do a BSc. the year after that meaning I could effectively get my degree in 2 years.  Best thing there is that I wouldn’t have wasted so much time trying to get back to my previous level.  I was going to start it next year, as I’d need tome to build myself up for full-time.  While I’m waiting, I can re-teach myself Java and Flash and anything else I need to do to make sure I’ve got at least my CertHE standard polished up.

Still focusing on games and in particular the industry, I’ve reserved my place for the AdventureX event in London, which looks to be pretty cool, as the main bloke from Revolution Software will be there, along with a few other guests, including the creator of Loom, Brian Moriarty although this depends on the interest in the event.  They also plan to show people how to use Adventure Game Studio (AGS), and DOG 3D, which I’ve never heard of.  There’s also a buffet there, although it costs extra.  The event itself is 20 quid for the 2 days, and honestly, it looks like a worthwhile investment, if even to make some games industry contacts.  On that note, I also plan to bring forward an idea I’ve had at the back of my head for a while now, ever since I was at university in East London.  In some ways, it’s a continuation of a site I used to own called Emulation Storm, and its (very) distant cousin, Game Phreeks.  While GP wasn’t mine, at the time it was owned by a former friend of mine, and ES was essentially the retro version of it.  Along with a couple of other sites – one of which still exists with its original name, the other has a slight change of name – formed Storm Netwerks.   At the height of Storm Netwerks, we managed to score a lot of press material for use in the site while we were at the Game Stars Live event in 2004, although admittedly, at the time I was more interested in the freebies and booth babes!  That event is actually why I’m in London in the first place, but more on that later.

Anyway, things happened, and GP lapsed into obscurity, while I did keep Storm Netwerks and ES running for a bit longer, before I dropped ES entirely and renamed Storm Netwerks to Stormhaven Networks.  Yeah, I know… similar names, but it’s different enough to consider it a new start.  That said though, there are still references to Storm Netwerks out there, especially as I used it in 2005 or 2006 for an event, so any references you do see to Storm Netwerks are more than likely me.  Xeno Storm started out as Storm Rain, before also getting a name change although StormRain Paranormal still used the old name, so I haven’t removed it entirely.  I’m very much connected to my past in some ways, to the extent that I’m still trying to gather up all the sites I was ever involved with, which I’ll eventually list on a site somewhere as I’m wanting to look back on how far I’ve come from the early days.   Anyway, moving on… Gamed Up, as I called it at UEL was initially started as a project for my Introduction to Graphics course when I was studying my BSc. in Computer Games Design(This is its current name, and pretty much exactly what I studied as well – I do hope that the module I failed has been improved!).  It was heavily influenced by vBulletin’s default template design, although instead of becoming a games blog and podcast like I intend it to be now, it was going to be a site aimed at education relatijng to the games industry, including How Tos, hints and tips with programs, interviews with figures in the games industry and a listing of courses, universities and games companies, as well as news relating to careers and education within the games industry.  As I put it at the time, Gamed Up was just a play on the term “clued up”, meaning that a person would be clued up relating to the games industry.

I may consider going down that route someday, but for now, I’m going through with the more recent idea I have; seeing as I have a few willing people to help me with it.  I’m also merging the forum of my games clan, the XSG into the forums as it makes perfect sense.  Seeing as general games were to be talked about on the XSG forums anyway, and Gamed Up is about gaming in all forms, the decision to combine them was done to reduce resources used.  I understand that some of my ideas may be a little abstract right now, but this is because I have a tendancy to write off the cuff at times, a practice that I will be cutting down on as part of my improved style.  I’m going to be using my academic writing skills to help with more coherance on stuff, and also some research.  That’s not to say that I won’t stop writing off the cuff entirely, but I do want to make my factual bits more seriously, so I can be taken a little more seriously when it comes to blogging.  Another reason why I’m being deliberately abstract is to protect my ideas in development, as I share specifics with only a handful of people.  Of course, that said, I usually have the domains for my ideas registered before alluding to them, so there’s already some protection in place for me!

Another couple of my ideas, which I’ll mention for the above reasons are the Techie Guild, which is a website for discussing current technology… or it could be a social networking site for the technical field, not sure yet!  One idea I do want to experiment with (and I am keeping this one secret till it’s up!), is that of a redux of the DiggerCast and although I’ll keep the name, I’m renaming it mainly to the Jammed In Podcast.  You’ll eventually find out why I named it that, but for now, everyone is going to be left in the dark, except for the people I want to talk to about it.  Lastly, I have an idea which is essentially a spinoff of the Techie Guild and also a development site for the Wii, inspired by what Johnny Lee has accomplished.  It would also handle development with the DS and GameCube (they do have a direct connection to the Wii) and also the GameBoy Advance.  The spinoff of the Techie Guild site is something called Passed the Present, where future technology will get talked about.  Why the odd name?  Well, for starters, Past the Present was taken and secondly, the idea still works because in talking about the future of things, we have “passed the present”.

Get it?  No?  Oh well, I tried.

Anyway, I do have other sites that I need to give attention, so don’t expect the above ideas to come to fruition just yet, especially as I need to reshuffle the existing sites a bit.  Such as proceding with the development of the new Therians dot Net site, the redevelopment of Stormhaven Radio’s site and the deployment of my portfolio site.  I’m debating deploying my blog site Altered Awareness now, sans sub-domains as it’s an idea that can be readily deployed, save for that issue and really the lack of providing subdomains is the only reason the site hasn’t been put up sooner!  I’ll eventually find a way to put in subdomains, but I think it’s just as important to get a userbase for the site up!  Perhaps unsurprisingly, Stormhaven Radio, when it comes back up, will be at the centre-side of all the sites that I’m developing, as I’m going to be offering a player for the station with as many sites as I can although that may take a bit for some sites.

Either way, I think for the forseeable future, I’ll be pretty busy with my ideas, although I’ll have the assistance of others too; consolidation of my ideas was also another way to make things simpler.  I do have the plan to make a multi-wiki website, but that’s again a while off, although keeping all my wikis in the one place with a single login will bring in many benefits.  However, I only have plans to do that with 4 wikis atm, as the other wikis that I’d have planned need either site integration, or do not fit into the theme of the “WikiNet”.  I could go on and on about my future plans, but really, I should just do them and then write about them when I have them up, so people can go look.  I do plan on making a mini-site for all my projects, or rather pages of all the  websites I’ve ever done, provided they’re still online as otherwise I’ll just leave a name up.  I also plan on linking together all my image galleries as well.  It’s no small task, sure but it’s worth doing, so I don’t have to keep on Googling all my sites!

Anyway, that’s it for now.  I’ll be back next month with a thought-provoking entry, albeit with some proper research, as opposed to research as I do it!

Anyway, simplicity is why the Wii is popular (I imagine this has its own take on Tetris too), as the games are easy to understand and get into.  I’d even go far as to say that Tetris is perhaps one of the main reasons why some people became gamers.  Of course, you can still see the influence of Tetris in other puzzle games, even if it’s not obvious.  I’m pretty sure that Tetris was in the back of the developer’s heads for games like Peggle and Zuma, to name a couple of games I’ve played recently.  The major influence of Tetris in games like that is simplicity and accessibility, which is at the core of casual games.  Addictiveness is another factor too… how many of you can honestly say you haven’t looked at the clock and thought “just one more game/level and I’ll stop, and it turns into 3 hours?  I know I have had that many a time.  Granted, it may not be towards our birthday game, but it has been towards a game.  Another aspect of Tetris that is also recognisable is the music.  How many of you reading this remember the Tetris music, the A one?  I bet anyone who has played the game remembers it quite well.  It’s like the original Super Mario Brothers song; it’s catchy and hard to get out of your head, although admittedly, there’s not a lot of music in SMB, so it’s all most likely remembered.  For me, anyway the A Song is my most remembered song of tetris, apart from the main theme.  The B Song, while I heard it and know it’s there, I don’t remember quite as much.  I just read up about Tetris and there was a C song too… I don’t remember that at all!

Anyway, although Tetris for the most part is simple, there have been some spinnoffs, clones and sequels, some of which I’m aware of, and others not.  Some of these have brought something new to the table, like for instance Welltris, which was developed by Tetris’ creator Alexey Pajitnov.  This was a sequel to Tetris, albeit with a twist; it was set in a well with a 3D prespective.  I had the C64 version, although I wasn’t able to understand it as I was much younger than I am now.  Either way, this game hasn’t really been mentioned a lot, as the original Tetris and its any clones, on many systems have pretty much taken over.  Also, if you look at the Wikipedia article for Alexey Pajitnov, you’ll notice that 2 years ago, he recieved an award for “pioneering the casual games market”.  This is pretty impressive, given casual gaming ony took off over the past few years or so.   Nearly all games were considered to be for “hardcore gamers”, which explains why there was such a low penetrations of female gamers and also people who don’t usually play games.

These days, this has changed slightly, with the introduction of the Nintendo Wii.  As I have mentioned before, games on the Wii are usually quite accessible to anyone, so the Wii generally has the perception by many gamers as a non-gamers console.  Nintendo systems in general had the perception of being aimed at kids, due to the lack of violent games for the systems, which was in line with Nintendo’s family-friendly image.  If you wanted to play “real games”, you generally had to go for the alternatives, which at the time of the SNES, was the Megadrive; N64 had the PS1 and Dreamcast and the Game Cube had the XBox and PS2 to contend with.  These days though, Nintendo has relaxed those rules in order to appeal to a larger demographic.  However Microsoft’s and Sony’s console offerings have a larger market share.  I can’t say who is currently at the top, as I haven’t checked recently, although I did expect that over the Xmas periods of 2007 and 2008, the Wii would experience a surge of ownership.  I still expect that in 2009, the Wii should again see an increase of ownership, along with perhaps the PS2, as they tend to be cheaper systems.  That said however, the XBox 360 has also come down in price, and also has an arcade model, so now it’s competing with the Wii.  I seriously doubt the PS3 price will be able to go low enough to compete, so the PS2 will be Sony’s offering there, especially as it’s still being supported.

The mobile gaming market, despite being a great place for casual gaming development due to the limited resources on the mobile phones compared to the consoles, is still somewhat of a niche market, although this market has being steadily growing as everyone nowadays has a mobile phone, nearly all of which are Java enabled.  Java-enabled phones are pretty much the major reason why the mobile gaming market is taking off at all, due to Java being a universal language, meaning developers no longer have to develop games for each individual system, which saves them money.  However, despite the mobile gaming market’s growth, it still won’t be as big as the console market in certain ways.  The only competition within the mobile games market would be similar games, whereas within the console market, it’s a bettle between the consoles themselves as well as the games.  There is a battle within the mobile market however, as mobile phone manufacturers try to outdo themselves with developing features for phones.  Even the mobile networks are in on it too, trying to make sure that a particular, new device is exclusive to them, such as the iPhone woth O2, the G1 with T-Mobile and the HTC Magic with Vodafone, to name 3 recent examples off the top of my head.

One thing about the mobile market however is that mobile phones themselves aren’t games systems, they’re tools.  And despite the intense competition between Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, it’s practically nothing compared to mobile phone manufacturers and network providers.  For starters, in the UK, there’s at least 2-3 times as many network providers as there are console manufacturers.  Andf there’s a hell of a lot of phones out there too.  It’s very much a cut-throat industry, very much like the video games industry; if you make a mistake with your product, you’re screwed.  The PC market has its own battle, on scale with the console wars almost, though there’s one less competitor, but there’s a duplicity at play; for processors it’s Intel vs AMD and for graphics cards, it’s AMD/ATI vs Nvidia.  Seems that whereever you go, it’s competition, but that’s the nature of the technology markets; one company wants to develop better technology to the others.  I guess it’s inevitable though.  Either way, despite such intense competition, there will always be those gems that stand out, be it gaming or technology and Tetris is one of those.   It’s remained in the public consciousness and the mainstream for 25 years and may it remain there for another 25 at least.

Happy 25th Birthday Tetris.

The past half hour or so, I’ve been looking at many things… things mostly to do with how the human mind works and percieves things. I have to say, there’s quite an interesting amount of stuff there, and I haven’t even scratched the surface. First of all, we come across this article, which talks about the fact that schitzophrenics are not fooled by the “hollow face illusion”, with an included video. Essentially, the “hollow face illusion” involves — as you may have guessed — a hollow face. The article describes it as:

In the hollow mask illusion, viewers perceive a concave face (like the back side of a hollow mask) as a normal convex face. The illusion exploits our brain’s strategy for making sense of the visual world: uniting what it actually sees — known as bottom-up processing — with what it expects to see based on prior experience — known as top-down processing.

Anyway, it has been shown that those with schitzophrenia are not fooled by this illusion and see the concave face as what it actually is. The rest of us (including myself, which is interesting) see the conclave as a convex face, to the extent the nose sticks out! And even if you know this already, it doesn’t matter; your brain will still percieve the back side as a normal face. I found it interesting that I saw it like most “normal” people do, because I have a type of Autism known as Asperger Syndrome (AS). Now granted, I have been taught to act somewhat normal, but I do wonder if anyone else on the Autistic Spectrum will see things like normal people, or schitzophrenics.

Why I say this is because AS was once considered to be a form of schitzophrenia… see where I’m going with this yet? Good.  Anyway, if those on the Autistic Spectrum see things like a normal person, it would mean that Autism Spectrum Disorders affect different parts of the brain to schitzophrenics. That said of course, those who are drunk and under the influence of drugs see through it too, which makes you wonder what parts of the brain intoxicating substances hit, doesn’t it?

Moving onto the magic part of the title now, but still focusing on the mind (this is the underlying theme here, everything in this entry has to do with the way the mind percieves things), we move onto magic! This article talks about magic tricks revealing the inner workings of the brain. And while the face video was interesting, the magic tricks had me enthralled. Yes, I know they’re sleights of hand and optical illusions, but still while they’re happening, you can’t help but be amazed. I’ve always wished I could perform stage magic, but as of yet I haven’t gotten around to learning so for the the time being I’ll watch everyone else do it instead. I can’t get to detailed with the videos, or I’ll ruin the suspension of disbelief involved, so do have a look yourself and comment. One interesting video is here… see if you can work out the trick and also marvel at the new YouTube interactive video feature.

Also be sure to check out Quirkology on YouTube if you have the time. It’s an amazing look at “alternative psychology”, which interests me. Dr. Richard Wiseman, who came up with Quirkology also wrote an article on luck, which featured in a men’s health magazine somewhere. I may actually upload the scans I took of the pages, if there’s enough demand for it, especially as it’s a fascinating article, and also one that got me interested in Dr. Wiseman’s research. It’d be a shame to leave it on my hard drive where no one can view it as it really is a fascinating article. There’s even a quiz at the end too, so I’ll expect people to put their results up (be honest!).

While I could go on about the science of Quirkology, I now want to move onto the gaming part of this entry. While some people may wonder what games have to do with the workings of and on the mind, others have undoubtedly worked out where I’m headed with this.   Simply put, games are an immersive experience where suspension of disbelief is required, much like what is needed in magic. However, as this entry is not about games design and playing (which I’ll write about another time), I won’t go too much into the subject of immersion in games. Anyway, the point here that I’m making is that when you get into a game (the more realistic and believeable the game is, the easier it it is to get into), you start to view the main character as an extension of your own. For instance, my mum cannot play Doom, or watch me play it when I’m running around because it gives her motion sickness! Additionally, a lot of people complained about similar while playing Descent, which is more of an… ah… “headfuck”, given the 360 degrees of movement offered to the player. This phenomena is known as Simulation Sickness, and affects people while they play games, usually of the first person variety.

Wikipedia describes Simulation Sickness as this:

Simulation sickness, or simulator sickness, is a condition where a person exhibits symptoms similar to motion sickness caused by playing computer/simulation/video games.

The most common theory for the cause of simulation sickness is that the illusion of motion created by the virtual world, combined with the absence of motion detected by the inner ear, causes the area postrema in the brain to infer that one is hallucinating and further conclude that the hallucination is due to poison ingestion. The brain responds by inducing nausea and mass vomiting, to clear the supposed toxin. According to this theory, simulation sickness is just another form of motion sickness.

The symptoms are often described as quite similar to that of motion sickness. Some can range from headache, drowsiness, nausea, dizziness, vomiting and sweating. A research done at the University of Minnesota had students play Halo for less than an hour, and found that up to 50 percent felt sick afterwards.

In a study conducted by U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences in a report published May 1995 titled “Technical Report 1027 – Simulator Sickness in Virtual Environments”, out of 742 pilot exposures from 11 military flight simulators, “approximately half of the pilots (334) reported post-effects of some kind: 250 (34%) reported that symptoms dissipated in less than 1 hour, 44 (6%) reported that symptoms lasted longer than 4 hours, and 28 (4%) reported that symptoms lasted longer than 6 hours. There were also 4 (1%) reported cases of spontaneously occurring flashbacks”.

I haven’t ever suffered from this myself, but I certainly have been too immersed in a game before! For instance, whenever I play Doom, Quake or any other FPS and get shot at… my immediate reaction is to physically dodge the projectiles, while at the same time doing the same within the game. It’s at this point I have become totally immersed. The reason for this is the realism the game has which is also the reason why people get motion sickness when their character moves fast. Admittedly though, I did feel quite dizzy and a little ill after seeing a video for Mirror’s edge, which is by far the most realistic game to date that I’ve seen. It actually made me want the game, but again that’s another blog entry. Here’s a video of Mirror’s Edge in action, which shows you why I got a bit dizzy, given the way the prespective and character movement is. I’d have looked for more but after twice being stung by a Rickroll when looking for more detailed videos, I’m kind of wary of looking for anything else at the moment… once bitten, twice shy!

Lastly, we go onto something more grounded in reality, and yet still kind of Scifi. A study by the journal Cognative, mentioned in this article showed something rather interesting:

Washington University researchers asked people to identify letters onscreen, and the test subjects fared better with their hands beside the monitor than with their hands in their laps. The presence of their hands apparently improved their vision — and this held true even when when their hands were hidden behind cardboard.

This may partly explain why games actually increase hand-eye coordination. Games also seem to sharpen eyesight, according to an article on Yahoo! Games. This fact doesn’t surprise me however, as I attribute my improved hand-eye coordination to playing masses of games in my youth. Whether or not that turns out to be wasted time overall is yet to be seen, but it certainly helps me write this megapost! Something that strangely enough is related to Mirror’s Edge is this article, which talks about experiencing someone else’s (or even a mannequin’s or other artifical body) body as their own, through the use of cameras. This stuff is both interesting and scary, especially as it talks about humans inhaviting artifical bodies, although this is something that may happen in the future, perhaps after my lifetime. That said, in some instances, it could be useful in some medical applications, at least where this article is concerned as it shows the link between the brain and the body.

As far as the artifical hand experiment goes, this will eventually enable people to eventually have working prosthetic limbs. The other experiment could be used to make more realistic virtual reality games, perhaps also assisting with fine remote control for machines. We certainly seem to be getting closer to the sort of future where you’ll be able to fly around cyberspace and feel it, ala TekWar. Max Headroom and Johnny Mneumonic also come to mind in terms of what could happen.It’s all getting rather cyberpunky now, isn’t it?

Granted, we may not have flying cars less than 6 years to 2015 ala Back to The Future (BTTF), but we’re certainly getting closer to some of the other futures predicted by science fiction movies, books and TV. This is both an amazing and scary thing, depending on what direction this could take. Thinking about BTTF though, I don’t think a lot really changed overall, despite the cars flying and not looking like they do in the film. But, a lot can happen in 5-6 years. I certainly would love to hear Christopher Lloyd’s thoughts when 2015 arrives in reality.

We still have a while to go before we reach that stage though.

Oh, by the way, does it show that I used to do academic writing?

Anyway, expect videos from my assembling the stuff when I get an SD Card.