Yet another reason to add to the growing list why Gamestop is NOT the place to buy anything from. I went into today to pick up MLB 2K7 for Xbox 360, mainly because Best Buy’s shipment was delayed. For the record, I avoid Gamestop at all costs and will shop elsewhere whenever I can. However, I wanted to play MLB 2K7, and this was my only chance to buy it. So…

I walk up the counter, ask for the game. I’m quickly asked “Did you preorder it?”, so which my textbook answer is “No.” The guy turned around grabbed a copy of the game, and before ringing it up, proceeded to lecture me. “You really need to start preordering these games.” Ummm, what? My response: “Why, you’re gonna refuse to sell it to me?”. His shocking answer: “Yeah, starting next week, we’re not selling games to anyone but preorders for the first 2 days of release.” You gotta be fucking kidding me. I reluctantly bought the game as I laughed in the kid’s face (he didn’t take to well to that, but what do I care, really).

I can only hope that either this kid is mildly mentally handicapped or it’s just this store that’s being ridiculously insane. Even if this isn’t a corporate policy, it’s a damn shame that I had to hear this first hand. For shame, Gamestop. For shame.

The moral of the story for anyone keeping score is, NEVER SHOP AT GAMESTOP!

I’ve been downloading the MLB 2K7 demo for literally more than 3 hours now, and I’m only at 67%. I’ve tried cancelling and restarting, rebooting modem and router, but no luck. The 360 shows 4 bars of wireless signal, the router is showing 54Mbps transmit rate (as confirmed on my laptop). I did a bandwidth speedtest and I’m getting 5Mbit download, which is my cap from Road Runner. So it’s not on my end.

Microsoft needs to either not cap downloads (if that’s what’s going on), or get some more bandwidth for the marketplace servers.

[Update] I’ve been downloading the MLB 2K7 demo now for over 5.5 hours. I’m sitting at 86%. This is some grade A bullshit here. Microsoft needs to do something about these servers.

So I fired up my PS3 today to grab fl0w and try it out. I got into the PlayStation Store, which is wonderously fun to navigate, and go to the fl0w portion. I’m shocked to find the game is $7.99. What the hell happened to the announced price of $4.99? Did Sony somehow realize they could get an extra $3 out of this game? Strike 1. Ok, after the price shock, I decide I’ll check it out and see if I like it. Hmmm, where’s the demo? There is none. That’s right, you either buy the game or you don’t get shit. Ummm, yeah. Strike 2. That’s enough strikes for me to not download the game. This is supposedly the killer app for PS3 right now, so I guess I can understand the $7.99 price point. However, don’t fucking announce it at $4.99 and then release it at $3 more. Next, if you want people to buy the game, give them a demo first. The business model for downloadable games, which is working very well, is provide a trial version. It’s been working so far with the games on the PlayStation Store. Why now, with the biggest release, does Sony choose to not give a demo? Doesn’t make any sense to me. I was excited for fl0w, but I’m not going to fork over $8 without trying the game out first. I noticed they did this with Q*bert too. What’s the deal Sony? Give us trial/demo versions!

DuckDuckG00ze writes:
I’m speechless! Sony has shot itself in the foot again. Imagine you are an early adopter in Europe with a pre-ordered PS3 who just sold your PS2 to get the extra money for your shiny new PS3 and this bomb hits. WTF!!! I understand the whole cost cutting thing and Sony is doing a tremendous job at that. I think in two years the PS3 may actually be cheaper than the XBOX 360 as they have already announced plans beyond the 65nm chip, to a 45nm chip in 2008. But come on, this was just underhanded. They should have at least announced this before they started pre-orders in Europe, plus the fact that pre-orders are still being taken makes me really weary about all these companies claiming their console as the most pre ordered console ever. What metrics are they using? Maybe the highest pre-order for a console launched in March or February? Guess now we know why Sony Europe’s head man broke out just before the launch huh? heheh Who knows. All I know is that if Microsoft can’t win this race at this point, then they should either give up on the hardware side or hire all of Sony’s marketing staff.

Check out this flick, pretty funny for anyone who has played Dead Rising.

So, today, after a semi-long gaming session with my 360 (about 4 hours), she decided it was time to go to the big pie in the sky. I’ve been hit with the 3 red lights on my 360. No, this isn’t the first time. It’s not the second either. HELL, it’s not even the third. This is my 4th fucking Xbox 360 to die. Seriously, this is out of control. My 360 is housed in it’s own shelf in my entertainment center, with ample air flow. The power brick is also housed there, separated nicely, also with a lot of airflow. Everything is run through a Monster Power Center with Voltage Regulator. So there’s absolutely no issues with power or air flow causing these fucking things to die.

I honestly don’t know a single person who still has their launch 360. I know there’s a lot of people that do, but no one on my friends list or anyone I’ve personally spoken to have their original box. This 3-5% failure rate Microsoft is talking about is bullshit.

Thankfully I got the Best Buy warranty when I had to buy another 360 (my first died after the 90 days, and well before they upped the factory warranty to 1 year). I’ll be taking this one in tomorrow to swap it out.

I’ve never seen consoles die like this. My PS3 and Wii see about as much gaming as my 360, and they’re running strong. My launch PS2 and launch Xbox (v1) are still running strong. The 360 has some serious hardware issues. I’m willing to bet Microsoft never acknowledges it. Hopefully the Zephyr will resolve a lot of the issues, but I doubt it. Microsoft has a terrific track record of not doing any QA work on their products.

It’s pretty widely known that Carlos Mencia is a joke theif. If you’ve seen any of his “material”, it’s pretty clear to see the bits he’s stolen from Richard Pryor, Paul Mooney, etc. The guy isn’t even really Mexican. His name is Ned. Yeah, it’s fucked up.

Anyway, Joe Rogan has been pretty out there about letting everyone know about Carlos Mencia’s joke stealing antics. On Saturday night, he confronted “Carlos” about it on stage at the Comedy Store in LA. Little did Carlos know, but it was being filmed… Check the video below, and read Joe’s thoughts on his website.

[Update] Updated video since the first one got pulled from YouTube… no idea why

[Update2] Not only did Carlos Mencia have YouTube pull the video, he also had Rogan banned from the Comedy Store, pretty punk ass moves if you ask me.

Quick blurb on the first snow in NYC, nothing much to talk about really since it is no more than slush at this point, but people are making a huge deal about it and driving like they all got licenses yesterday. Why does rain or snow make people drive all retarded?

[Update from drunk pandas] In upstate NY we have about 16″ of snow already and have a blizzard warning until tomorrow morning. YAY

The Xbox 360 Achievement Reward program that was highly anticipated and scheduled to begin this past Monday has fallen short of its promises. Any attempts to log in and register, have failed. The site continues to timeout or give an error message for the last two days, so many excited gamers sit on their computers hitting refresh in the hope to get a log in screen. Quite a shame really, I know myself as well as many other gamers were looking forward to participating in the contest, which is a great marketing gimmick for Xbox and has created quite a buzz for them and Old Spice. The challenge has now been extended by a few days because of the overload to the servers and lack of being able to register, so you now have to April 15 to increase your gamerscore by 1500 points and there are more prizes available if you could register. So for the time being just be persistent and keep trying the site.

Yeah, I read this article and nearly shit myself. How stupid are these politicians? Seriously? The proposed legislation would give a $100 fine for anyone using their iPod, cell phone, or BlackBerry while walking in a crosswalk in any major city in New York State. State Senator Carl Kruger said “[People are] walking into one another and it’s creating a number of fatalities that have been documented right here in the city.” Come the hell on guy. This is just insane. What’s next, people have to wear blinders and not speak to each other?