Exploring Stuff That Makes Life Great
Thanks to our partners we’ve added two new shows today. The first is Next-Gen Walkthroughs which has videos showing entire sequences of what happens in games. If you ever get stuck in a game, don’t bother reading a strategy guide just watch this show. The second show is New Gen Gamers Playground. This is a audio podcast from New Gen Gamers covering the world of games.
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In a surprising turn of events Paramount Pictures has come out and said they will release titles on HD-DVD exclusively! This is huge considering the mega Transformers movie will be arriving on the HD format very soon. Kelley Avery, president of Paramount Home Entertainment, said that the reason why Paramount decided to exclusively release movies onto HD-DVD instead of Blu-Ray is because of HD-DVDs better quality and lower cost. Blades of Glory and Transformers will arrive on HD-DVD this Fall as the first batch of titles.
Dreamworks will also be using HD-DVD as their exclusive format and will be releasing Shrek the Third this Fall as well. Other related studios to use HD-DVD in this announcement are Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films. However Steven Spielberg’s movies will not be exclusive to HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Considering how anti-HD Spielberg is to begin with it’s not that surprising.
So far Blu-Ray discs have been outselling HD-DVD because Blu-Ray has the higher install base as PS3’s are also Blu-Ray players. On the other hand the cheapest HD-DVD player is the add-on for the Xbox 360 which hasn’t sold spectacularly yet.
Looking at Fall’s HD disc lineup for Blu-Ray the major two titles are Spider-Man 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean 3.
If HD-DVD does not meet or surpass Blu-Ray sales this Holiday season, studios could begin to question the future of the format. For consumers waiting to adopt a HD format things have just gotten a little crazier.
I own the HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360, but I haven’t bought a HD movie since I purchased the unit. I can’t tell a huge difference between HD titles and regular DVDs so why pay the extra money per disc? The huge advantage to this next-gen formats is with box sets. Now you’ll be able to fit more hours of content onto a single disc which makes viewing extra features better for everyone.
Blu-Ray is here to stay because Sony is using it on the PS3. As long as the PS3 is bought by consumers, Blu-Ray will always have a stake in this war. If Microsoft truly wants HD-DVD to win they will have to integrate it with the system. I think Microsoft will release this combo system next year if HD-DVD can survive this Holiday season.
[Via Reuters]
How do you describe this week in one word? Easy. BIOSHOCK. This game has been breaking records, critics are selling their souls to this game, people are killing for it, it’s a bloody sensation. BioShock is easily one of the greatest games of our time, and it’s coming out tomorrow in America, and on assorted dates for the rest of the world.
Xbox 360 gamers have had a fun time with the Xbox 360 demo that came out a while ago, but it’s us poor PC gamers that have to suffer. But not anymore! Word has come from The Cult of Rapture that the demo will be out today, that is August 20! While I can’t seem to find a site with the thing yet (not even Fileplanet), somebody at The Pirate Bay has gotten it. I have no doubt that BioShock is all over the torrenting sites right now.
God, I wish I had a computer that could at least dress decently in front of this game.
Yes well, thankfully it’s not the Chinese Government that’s going gung-ho this time. Blizzard Entertainment, the famous makers of the StarCraft series, the WarCraft series, and of course, World of Warcraft are getting sued by Chinese IT firm Founder Electronics Co., Ltd. Blizzard is sharing the pain with IT company The9, which handles WoW in China and Qingwentuwen company, which handles it in Beijing.
The offence? Nope, it’s not enslaving half of the Chinese population, but stealing five of the fonts made by Founder Electronics and using them in World of Warcraft. Awesome lawsuit strategy. Founder claims that they lost “One Billion Yuan” because of the whole thing, seeing as WoW itself snowballed into 7.5 million players. If my conversion is correct, that should translate to $131,648,235. Big money, indeed.
If some people are right, this is the largest intellectual property lawsuit in the land of the dragon as far as damages are concerned. It appears that Blizzard is in quite a spot.
[Via Xinhuanet]
Since the dawning of social networking websites, the user has had the ability to design their pages however they wish. This has led to both good and bad designs. In some cases those designs make people runaway from your page! THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING! So I’m here to give you some Web 2.0 advice on how to solve this issue.
First choose the background for your page wisely. Usually a solid color is best, but if you want a image as your background be aware that others will be looking at your profile. Do not choose a image that’s overly flashy or distracting in anyway. Even if the image suits your personality, the idea is to get people to read your content – not be blinded by it.
Secondly avoid background music/video that automatically plays! Any sound that comes from a website is an automatic red flag to a user. They will quickly figure out how to turn it off and if they cannot within a couple of seconds they either have to turn off their own speakers or exit your page. If a visitor wants to listen or watch the content that you provide on your webpage allow them to do it manually.
The color and style of text is very important and always has been important since the creation of the Printing Press! Why would you bother to write something that no one can read? If you think it looks cute, the liklihood is that someone else thinks it looks dreadful. The way to avoid this is yet again simplicity. Times New Romain, size 12 = perfect. The color of the font depends on the background which the font is placed. Be aware that white text with a black background is hard to read. Read your profile information over and over and see how long you can stare at it without your eyes going blurry. If you can last at least 10 minutes without having any problems then you’ve chosen a good color.
In the world where anyone can create their own internet shrine, make sure that yours is user friendly. Why would you want to spend hours on something that only you read?
So what is it like to edit video with me? Apparently I made a video while I was editing the StuffWeLike.com Podcast Mashup episode. I’m not recommending that you watch this video, but I just found it in my account and it completely surprised me. I remember recording it but I never saw the video previously on Ustream and now it’s up. So here you go…