XBox 360: Call for action!

I'm only a casual gamer but I'm intensely interested in this generation of gaming hardware. I think this is gaming's "breakout" generation. Nearly everyone is going to have one of the 5 devices out there by the time the generation is done and lot of us are going to be doing more than gaming. Some of the rules that applied to the previous generation will not apply here. The current hardware has a lot more staying power than previous generations. Sort of like the Audio CD. The Audio CD was seen by most as good enough. While DVD Audio and SACD offered better quality, people were happy with Audio CDs and they didn't buy into the higher fidelity.

In a way, Sony has the right idea with their 10 year strategy for the PS3. The Cell chip has enough processing power and by the time new hardware comes out from Nintendo and Microsoft, developers should've learnt to fully utilize all that power.

Anyway, I want to talk about the XBox 360. Against all odds (I'm writing on a Mac, I don't like paying for online gaming, I'm not interested in the Zune), I find myself liking the XBox 360. More surprising, I like it for the software! Yes, Microsoft is definitely doing good on the software front here. Unfortunately, their hardware is falling behind. Here's my call for action to get the XBox 360 back to being competitive. As of now, its falling behind and will likely be relegated to 3rd place in this generation again. Here are a few things Microsoft should do -

1. Bring sexy back.
It worked for the DS Lite. Yes, the games are awesome but MS needs to redesign the XBox.
A few suggestions -

• Get rid of the monstrous external power brick, we need one nice svelte XBox.
• It would be nice if I didn't feel the need to reach for my noise canceling headphones when the XBox is powered on - make it quieter. A slot loading disc drive might help too.

2. Make XBox Live Gold cheaper.
Yes, hardcore gamers don't mind paying for XBox Live but if you're looking to get this into kids' homes, you need to look beyond. Faced with a choice between a Blu-Ray playing PS3 with free online play and a DVD playing XBox 360 with paid XBox Live, guess which one is getting picked? Also casual gamers like me would like to play a few nights a week, but I'm not going to pay for this privilege.
Free would be nice but even $24 ($2 a month) is easier to swallow than the current cost.

3. Include wi-fi.
This is 2008! How many homes have ethernet in their TV room or bedroom? Wi-fi is everywhere. Your wi-fi accessory is outrageously priced and I don't want a Gaming adapter in addition to the noisy console and its huge power brick.

4. Increase storage.
You need to keep up or move ahead of the competition here. 160GB standard would be nice, 320GB for the premium? Personally, I'd like the ability to upgrade the drive myself, but I realize that the non-techie users (vast majority) would prefer to buy these upgrades at Best Buy.

5. Sell Media Center.
How many XBox 360 users who have Vista pay for Tivo? I bet it isn't a small number. MS needs to sell this functionality. Btw, we need the wifi toting, quieter XBox that can fit in a TV cabinet for this to happen. Create a Media Package - the 360 console with a USB TV tuner for those using Vista Premium or Ultimate. For $50 more, you can have a DVR too!

6. Make it reliable, stupid!
Last but not least, the hardware needs to be reliable. MS is lucky the users like the games and software as much as they do. I can't image a mass market device being so unreliable. My unit has been replaced twice in 2 years! I don't have much hopes for it staying alive long after the 3 year warranty ends. It would be nice if there was a trade in option for the older XBox owners on a newer console.

I'd like to end by giving kudos where it's due. These are the things that the XBox 360 gets right -

1. Great integration with XBox Live. Superb online experience.
2. Graphics on par with PS3 even while having launched first and using DVD media.
3. The best wireless controller of the current generation. Feels right, reliable.
4. Best games library of current generation.
5. Media Center is awesome.
6. XBox Live Arcade is best in class. Great selection.

Flashback: 4 years ago

The blog is now 4 years old! Feels like forever :) It is fun to look back at what I was doing then though.
Anyway, on October 23rd 2003 I wrote in this blog post that I thought AAPL was a good investment. Unfortunately, I did not have *any* money to invest back then.

It turns out that approx. $11.5 invested in Apple stock then would be worth approx. $186 today!
I wish I had found some money to put my opinion to the test; oh well, at least I get to say - I TOLD YOU SO! :)

The Big Lebowski

If you know me, you know that I have a zillion movies lying around the house waiting to be watched. Someday, when I find the time, I actually plan to watch these movies. Today I am happy to report that the list of movies that are "to be watched before the end of eternity" is actually shorter by one.

Last night I watched "The Big Lebowski". And enjoyed it at that. "The dude" kind of resonated with me, and the movie was quite watchable. There were a lot of different characters in the simple plot. Make that a lot of characters who were far from normal. In a manner, you got a taste of all these characters but the movie was pretty focused on "the dude". I'd recommend the movie if you haven't already watched it, but its not for those who can tolerate foul language - you've been warned.

Btw, this is the third movie made by the Coen brothers that I've liked, the other ones being "Intolerable Cruelty" that I really liked (App, not so much) and "O Brother Where Art Thou" which App and I both liked.

Now Playing @ Home : PS3

With the XBox 360 in transit to the "Repair Center", there's never been a better time to start taking about its new rival at home - The Sony PlayStation 3. I've been meaning to introduce the PS3 to the blog for a few weeks. The PS3 is approaching the price point where I believe it really takes on mass appeal; I bit the bug earlier this month.

How do I like it so far? I like it a lot. The only real misgivings - weak online experience, no rumble. Sony has already addressed rumble so I'll skip over that one. I would give them about a year to catch up with XBox Live , so I'll continue to monitor that.

The best part? Media. The PS3 is probably the best Media player in the "set-top" form factor for the money. In fact, if they added support for DivX, XVid and WMV video, it would be the best box, period.

Let's do a quick check of media functionality starting with the really basic.

1. CD Player - Check.
2. MP3 CD Player - Check. While you are at it - make that AAC, WMA and ATRAC too. And oh, your files can be on a DVD too.
3. SACD Player - Check.
4. DVD Player - Check. Upconvert? Yes!
5. Blu-Ray - Obviously! And cheaper than stand alone BD players at that.
6. Photo Player - Check. Again, from CD, DVD, or Memory Card (CF, SD or Memory Stick)!
7. Video Player - In addition to DVD, BD discs, you can play back MPEG4 Video. I was able to download music videos off the internet and play them fine. No support for DivX though :(
8. Networked Media Player - Check. Can play all above media (digital audio, photos, video) over the network from your PC. WiFi is included, I use ethernet though. Picked up shared media from my Windows XP box (shared through Windows Media Connect) automatically. No stupid "configuration" dialogs.

There's more.

9. You can browse pictures from your digital camera. Easiest way to do this is to take the memory card and plug it into the PS3.
10. PSP Remote Play - Configure your PSP for remote play and access all media available to the PS3 on your PSP, whereever you may be connected from. This includes the internet - so yes, you can be at your friend's house connected to his WiFi playing back the content on your PS3 back at your house. Way cool.
11. Playback from devices - I was able to connect my Walkman devices and play music back through the PS3. Displays Album Art too! This worked for my NW-S205F, NW-S705F and App's NW-E005F. You can also copy music from the PS3 hard drive to the Walkman directly. So you could potentially use your Sony Walkman device without ever connecting to a PC.
12. PSP memory stick playback - I took the memory stick from my PSP and plugged it into the PS3. The PS3 let me play music, photos, video. Also let me copy content back and forth between the PS3 Hard Drive and PSP Memory Stick.

So far, so good. I'm a demanding media user though, so I have a few gripes. Here we go -

1. The PS3 did not recognize my Hi-MD units (MZ-RH1).
2. The PS3 did not recognize my SonyEricsson Walkman Phone (W600i)
3. SACD audio cannot be played back over optical audio output but only through HDMI. Whatsup with that Sony, think I want to spring for a new receiver? It's not going to be Sony ;)
4. Did not recognize my iPod when I plugged it in. You have to support the market leading device!
5. Cannot play MPEG-2 video. This is the video format of files dumped from a DVD Rip. This would be nice but would be secondary to DivX.
6. No DivX, WMV playback.
7. Would be great if it worked with iTunes sharing.

Kudos to Sony for -

1. The best allround media functionality I have seen so far.
2. Bringing the price down so quickly after initial release. $400 would make a few competitors squirm - XBox, AppleTV, etc.
3. Letting users run Linux if they choose.
4. Keyboard, Mouse support.
5. Making the power supply relatively silent and internal.

Let's bring the games on now!

To be sure, I'm happy with my PS3 even without any games. However the high-definition games on Blu-Ray make it that much more attractive!

RROD again!

Okay, I think Microsoft did a good job on the XBox 360 software; none of the other consoles can match the elegance of the "blade" interface they have going and the integrated Live (online) functionality. They also have the best controller. The 360 controller has just the right heft, includes rumble, easily swappable batteries and can be made to work with a Windows PC.

However, the XBox 360 has one big weakness - the crappy console hardware! I just had my console go RROD on me again. For the uninitiated, RROD = Red Ring Of Death, which is what you see in the picture. It is the XBox 360 equivalent of the Windows BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death and if you haven't seen that before - you must be a Mac/Linux user or a really lucky human!).

I bought my XBox 360 in May '06. I had my first RROD in March '07, after an estimated 240 hours of usage. The second RROD happened this week after just another 120 hours of usage. Plain unacceptable and may really be the reason I jump off the XBox 360 bandwagon.

My biggest gripe with the RROD is the timing, I was really looking forward to Halo 3 in a few weeks! And now I'll have to wait about 4 weeks to get my console back.. oh well.

The iPhone - Ouch!

This may be a week late but I'm sure you've had your share of iPhone news already. So Wow! - the 4GB iPhone is selling for $299.

The "ouch!" in the title is not about the early adopters getting screwed, forget them for a while here. I'm talking about the huge "ouch!" that went up from Apple's newest competitors - that would be Samsung, SonyEricsson, Nokia, Motorola. Apple is putting the squeeze on these guys with their pricing!

Apple is muscling its way into the cellphone market building on its strengths that have been on display with the iPod rollercoaster. Apple is on course to buy up 25% of the world's flash memory pretty soon. Let that sink in for a few seconds. A quarter of the world's flash memory is bought up by Apple. Apple has a great manufacturing model - design in California, use their manufacturing partners in China/Taiwan to get equipment manufactured at low costs (they're experts at this), reuse components across product lines to get economies of scale - all of this while maintaining a ridiculously high profit margin (compared to its competitors) anyway. They can do this because they're selling millions of these things while still making just a handful of products (talking hardware here).

Back to the iPhone, how is this going to affect the big players? Let's look at Nokia - they sells more cell phones than anyone. They have a lot of models - the lower end ones will sell the most, but Nokia has a lower margin on those. They sell a lot of their N series phones which I'm betting are far more lucrative than the $100 phones. This is the market the iPhone is going to eat into. They don't sell enough N-Series phones to be able to price compete with the iPhone. To do this they would have to reduce the number of models they have, work on cutting the manufacturing costs and bring the price to consumers down drastically. Few companies are ruthlessly efficient at this as Steve Jobs' Apple.

Why would a consumer such as myself pick an iPhone when there are so many choices in the marketplace? One overwhelming reason that is usually never associated with Apple - cost!!
The iPhone certainly doesn't have all the features I want from my phone. I have been shopping for a SonyEricsson Walkman phone in the $350 range. If I buy that phone, I probably would plan to spend $70 on a 4GB memory stick so I can load songs and videos. The total cost runs near $420 for a Walkman phone with memory.
At $299, however, with the 4GB of memory - I just might be ready to forget some of the features I wanted and give in to the iPhone's lure - the wonderful screen, wifi, Google maps, browser etc. along with the low price would make it worth it for me. The only catch right now is that I am T-Mobile customer. Oh wait, isn't iUnlock out already? :)

Fun times in the world of consumer electronics, I tell you :) Apple is fast becoming a giant here!