Thought Clouds
The Digital Bender

First some background. Qwaider made the following comment on a previous post ..... On a side note, have you seen the reports on games? WII beat everyone for December, followed by Xbox36 then PS2 and finally PS3! Looks like Sony might be losing this one if their 5 year old console STILL beats their flagship console December Console NPDs are as follows: Nintendo DS - 2.47 mil Wii - 1.35 mil Xbox 360 - 1.26 mil PlayStation 2 - 1.1 mil PSP - 1.06 mil PlayStation 3 - 797,600 It is quite obvious that XBOX 360 is giving the Wii a run for it's money. And that Sony is struggling with getting people to embrace their next gen PS3. And there is no reason for that to change except for one tiny thing. Hollywood seems to have dumped HD-DVD in favor of Blu-ray, and that is guaranteed to drive up demand for the Blu-ray devices. Of which, PS3 is the most famous and sought after model. People who have been waiting for the format wars to end are now likely to go the PS3 route and get a gaming consol...

Online community. This is the big difference between the XBOX 360 and any other gaming platform. And I am not talking about being able to play with your friends online, only. I am talking about that unique ability to turn on your XBOX 360, see who of your friends is online and what they are playing, and playing with them, or at least start voice chatting with them while you watch a movie or play another game. Some of the best times I've had in gaming is when I could hear the bellowing screams of anguish as I crush my friends in Halo 3, or the hollow accusations of the losers as I pass them by in my lesser car blasting down a stretch of road in the Nurnburgring. "YOU ARE CHEATING!!" They would say, knowing that cheating is not possible on XBOX Live. Add to that the availability of MSN Messenger support and you have a the full experience. I wish more of my friends would pick up and XBOX 360 and "Jump in".

I bought the HD-DVD add-on for the XBOX 360 a while back, and got "King Kong" in the box. I also bought the documentary "Planet Earth", which is nothing short of absolutely amazing. And got "Happy Feet" for my and my family's benefit, especially my daughter who likes to skip around like Mumble. This was about 6 months ago, and I have not been able to buy any more, and here is why. There really isn't anything compelling enough about the movie lineup to pay $12 for a hi-def "experience", which is for most movies only marginally better than DVD. I mean, if you see "Anchor Man" in DVD, then you've seen it in HD-DVD because the extra pixels will probably not add any more enjoyment or appreciation. And fan boys. I am not saying that BlueRay lineup is better. It's just that the whole concept of paying $12 extra on the average for a movie that looks nearly as good on DVD is not a very attractive concept. Come to think of it, onl...

After a while of crashing and freezing, expectedly, my XBOX 360 has finally given me the 3 finger salute known as 3RL (3 Rings of Light). Error code is 0102. Which basically for a while meant that its dead beyond repair. Now however there is a number of alternative methods that may revive it. I have nothing to lose that I didn't already. I'm starting with the eraser. Will keep you posted. UPDATE My XBOX 360 is fixed and I went through the whole Nurnburgring on PGR3 and everything except for the fans seems to be working fine. The fans are much louder now.

I just finished one more round playing the Crackdown demo on the XBOX360. I just want to say that this game is going to be BIG!

On my XBOX360 "Battlefield 2: Modern Combat" lags like crazy most of the time. When it is not lagging, I am all over the place, and on top of the scoreboard, when it is lagging, I am usually at 1:5 kill to death ratio, which sucks. Changing the ISP is no option for me at the moment, since in Qatar we only have one ISP. I am sure this will change soon, as HRH Prince Hamad issued a law to stop the QTel monopoly and allow another company into the country. Hopefully with the new ISP, I will be able to get a lag free stream of communication. Meanwhile, I am not playing BF2:MC except with friends who also reside behind the QTel proxy.