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Coffee Talk #346: Gaming While You’re Sick

Yesterday it was 90 degrees in Los Angeles…and I spent most of the day under a blanket. It absolutely sucked to be sick and weak on such a beautiful day, but I think I made the best of it…

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, Lorenzo Lamas taking his wife’s name, “Sugar” Shane Mosley’s chances against Manny Pacquiao, or new iMacs, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

Yesterday it was 90 degrees in Los Angeles…and I spent most of the day under a blanket. It absolutely sucked to be sick and weak on such a beautiful day, but I think I made the best of it. My gaming habits are a little different when I’m sick. I like to dumb it down a bit and stick to games that I can play blindfolded. I spent most of of my couch time playing Civilization Revolution and doing random battles in Final Fantasy III. I watched some motion comics and WWE documentaries. While I didn’t get to enjoy the beautiful day, it was as good a sick day as I could have imagined.

What kind of games do you play when you’re sick? Are your sick games different than your regular games? How about other nerd activities like movies, comics, and TV? What kind of media to you devour on your sick days?

Sony Offers Free Games, Qriocity, and PlayStation Plus

Sony Computer Entertainment will restore PlayStation Network service this week. Features will be redeployed on a rolling basis. Last week we discussed what Sony would do to make things up to its customers. The company has gotten all official with its make good offer. As part of its “Welcome Back” appreciation program, Sony will give its customers free games, 30 days of PlayStation Plus, 30 days of Qriocity, and complimentary identity protection service. Here’s a clip from the press release:

Each territory will be offering selected PlayStation entertainment content for free download. Specific details of this content will be announced in each region soon.
All existing PlayStation Network customers will be provided with 30 days free membership in the PlayStation Plus premium service. Current members of PlayStation Plus will receive 30 days free service.
Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity subscribers (in countries where the service is available) will receive 30 days free service.
While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, the company is committed to helping its customers protect their personal data and will provide a complimentary offering to assist users in enrolling in identity theft protection services and/or similar programs. The implementation will be at a local level and further details will be made available shortly in each region.

What do you think of “Welcome Back”? To me it seems like a pretty generous program. Do you think it’s enough? Or do you think Sony should have offered more?

Coffee Talk #345: PSN Outage Further Killing Sony’s Brand?

Gamasutra’s Colin Campbell wrote this excellent article on how the PlayStation Network outage has further devalued the PlayStation brand. I don’t think he went far enough. The PSN outage has damaged the (already declining) Sony brand.

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, those pesky Memphis Grizzlies, the Bin Laden attack being described on Twitter hours before the U.S. government acknowledged it, or wanting to hug awesome apps, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

Gamasutra’s Colin Campbell wrote this excellent article on how the PlayStation Network outage has further devalued the PlayStation brand. Colin is awesome and his article is great, but I don’t think he went far enough. There’s no question that the PSN attack has damaged the PlayStation brand. It’s more than that though. The PSN outage has damaged the (already declining) Sony brand.

Remember when Sony was the premiere name in consumer electronics? There was a long stretch when the consumer electronics market was Sony, followed by everyone else. From televisions to audio components to laptops, Sony products were almost always best in class. A lot has changed since then. The company absolutely bombed in the modern portable audio space (which is funny because it basically created the market with the Walkman). PC manufacturers were able to offer computers that were almost as nice, but much cheaper. The television market got a lot more competitive, with Korean companies like LG and Samsung outdoing Sony in both price and performance.

For two console generations, Sony dominated the field. Its third go-round didn’t go nearly as well, for numerous reasons. Although the PlayStation 3 was starting to pick up steam globally, the PSN outage will definitely impact performance and perception. Rightly or wrongly, people will use the PSN outage to illustrate that Sony has lost its grip on yet another market.

What do you think? Will the damage be confined to to the PlayStation brand or is the Sony brand in jeopardy too? Or is all of this being overblown? Perhaps the PlayStation and Sony brands will be just fine by the end of the year. Kindly share your thoughts on the nebulous value of branding!

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

I have a bunch of video editing to do this weekend. Since my PC is not up for the challenge, there will be a lot of rebooting. This will give me time to play Final Fantasy III and NBA Jam on my iPad 2. It’s such an awesome entertainment device — great for games, Netflix, music, and more. I’ll probably buy an external keyboard and Pages so that it’s not all fun and games. My other devices are getting jealous and want to see the iPad do some work too.

How about you? What’s on your weekend playlist?

Read My Tomb Raider Trilogy Review (Please)!

I totally forgot to link to my Machinima.com review of Tomb Raider Trilogy for PlayStation 3. Please check it out when you get a chance. On the plus side, it offers a lot of gameplay for around $40 along with some developer diaries, PlayStation Home goodies, and an XMB theme. On the downside, the first two games look silly compared to Uncharted and Prince of Persia. Plus, the latest game — which is untouched in this compilation — can be had for $15. Here’s a quote:

Tomb Raider Trilogy offers dozens of hours of gaming, some fan directed bonus content, and really cool developer diaries. If you consider yourself a gaming history connoisseur it represents great value and a fascinating insight into the evolution of action-adventure titles. If you’re only into the latest and greatest then this is a tough sell. The two oldest games in the compilation look dated, despite the HD remastering. In terms of gameplay, the same two games have also been left in the dust by newer titles. Underworld, the newest game in the trilogy can be found for $15 or less. I enjoyed the special content in Tomb Raider Trilogy and had fun taking a stroll down memory lane. However, I can understand that nostalgia has no value to some gamers and they’d be better off buying Tomb Raider: Underworld for less than half the price of Tomb Raider Trilogy.

If you have a moment, please check out my review. If you have two moments, kindly leave a comment over at Machinima. Thanks!!!

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Coffee Talk #344: Do You Care About the Little Guys?

As I was sipping coffee with one of my industry friends, I was surprised by his lengthy and passionate rant on PSP Minis. Do you guys and gals care about the little guys like PSP Minis and Nintendo WiiWare?

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, your favorite NBA playoff performance thus far, tea, or white phones, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

As I was sipping coffee with one of my industry friends, I was surprised by his lengthy and passionate rant on PSP Minis. He loves them. He thinks they’re underrated. He believes there are plenty of cheap gaming treasures to be had with PSP Minis. And he was sad that most gamers don’t seem to care.

To be fair, he loves small indie games. He plays more PSP Minis, Nintendo WiiWare titles, and Xbox Live Indie Games than anyone I know. He made a great point though — why are most gamers ignorant of these games? I’m certainly guilty of not paying as much attention as I should. Part of it is that these games don’t get any marketing money or coverage from the press. There’s also a lot of crap buried with the treasures. It’s hard to find the good games when you don’t hear about them and have to sift through a lot of garbage to find them.

Do you guys and gals care about the little guys like PSP Minis and Nintendo WiiWare? If so, kindly share your recommendations. If not, why don’t you care about them?

Coffee Talk #342: Sony’s Android Tablet Ambition

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, Iranian terrorists taking over Sizzler steakhouses, currywurst, or Intelligentsia’s Los Inmortales El Salvador: Finca Matalapa Puerta Zapa, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

Will the combination of PlayStation Suite and Qriocity lead to Sony succeeding in the Android tablet market? That seems to be what the company is banking on. Sony recently announced that it will be releasing two Android tablets later this year — a traditional tablet with a 9.4-inch screen and a funky folding tablet with two 5.5-inch screens. While Sony’s “style” will help these tablets appeal to the masses, it looks like the company is banking on its own services to help differentiate its tablets from the numerous Android manufacturers out there. Will this strategy work?

I need to think about it more, but my initial inclination is that these tablets will get lost in the shuffle. On the hardware side, a folding tablet doesn’t have the wow factor of 3D (LG G-Slate) or the practicality of a laptop dock (Asus Transformer). On the software and services side, Sony looks silly compared to Amazon and its aggressive Android moves. I know loads of people that love Amazon’s MP3 Store and several that love Amazon Instant Video. I don’t know anyone that thinks highly of Qriocity. PlayStation Suite has lots of potential and I’d love for it to take off, but a few sources within Sony have told me that the product is getting the bastard treatment internally.

What do you think of Sony’s Android tablet future? Will its slick industrial design, PlayStation Suite, and Qriocity help it rise above the competition? Or will Sony’s products end up being one of several Android tablets released in 2011? Leave a comment and let me know (please!).

Coffee Talk #341: PSN Outage Compensation?

Millions of gamers have been inconvenienced by the PSN outage caused by “an external intrusion”. What do you think Sony will do, if anything, to make up for the PSN outage?

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, CC Sabathia finally winning a game, the arrival of the white iPhone 4, or lava salts, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

Sony is still scrambling to get its PlayStation Network service fully operational. Millions of gamers have been inconvenienced by the outage caused by “an external intrusion”. As RPadholic N8R pointed out, customers that pay for enhanced services like PlayStation Plus or subscribe to games like DC Universe Online have been especially put out. What do you think Sony will do to compensate gamers for the down time?

It would be fairly easy to tack on an additional month of PlayStation Plus service or add some extra time to a DCUO subscription, but is that enough? Do you think Sony will try to win back gamers by giving away something really cool? Or will it be something lame like a virtual t-shirt for PlayStation Home? (Though it would be funny to have an avatar wearing a shirt that said, “PSN Was Down for XX Days and All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt!!!”)

I’d be interested in seeing everyone get some PlayStation Plus time and a free downloadable game or two. It would be a nice gesture that could also get Sony some new Plus subscribers. Sony makes money, gamers get free stuff — everybody wins!!! (Well, not if you’re still angry about not being able to play Portal 2 with your friends last week.)

Now it’s your turn to speculate! What do you think Sony will do, if anything, to make up for the PSN outage?

EA Mobile Games Sale: Up to 90% Off!!!

EA is having a pretty excellent sale on select Android, iPad, and iPhone games. A lot of the games have been slashed from $9.99 to $0.99! I’m downloading Dead Space, Max and the Magic Marker, Scrabble, and Pictureka as I type. Check out the games and let me know if you pick anything up (please).

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

I started playing the iPad version of Final Fantasy III last night. It’s barely different from the iPhone version. That said, it’s still a great version of a really deep game. I love the Final Fantasy job system. While the graphics are relatively new (based off of the Nintendo DS remake), it’s crazy that gameplay that’s more than 20 years old is still so engaging. Aside from that, I’ll be breaking up the RPG excitement with Civilization Revolution. That game is just awesome.

How about you? What’s on your weekend playlist?