Apple released its newest piece of tech yesterday, the iPad, and immediately half of the world claimed it as the second coming, and the other half decried it. Comments were made about it’s name, about it being an OS X killer, about it being too expensive, about it not having built in 3G on the base model, about it being tied to AT&T, about it being a Kindle killer, about it not being a Kindle killer, and about it being just a bigger iPod Touch. Personally, I think it’s a fantastic product, particularly for someone like me, but it’s not going to replace laptops like the MacBook or MacBook Pro nor displace the iPod Touch any time soon. Here are my thoughts on it.

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Tags: Opine, Tech by Teh Bagder
855No Comments »http://iam.tehbagder.com/2010/01/28/the-apple-ipad-what-it-means-to-me/The+Apple+iPad%3A+What+It+Means+To+Me2010-01-28+14%3A04%3A27Teh+Bagder

A few years back we had a subscription to RealArcade. This was before we discovered GameTap, and we thought the value of a subscription was worth it. The gist of the sales pitch that RealArcade made was that any games you bought would be yours to keep and you’d be able to play them in the future. They basically put a wrapper around the main executable that tied it to the RealArcade player, which was a standalone executable that ran as a program launcher on your computer. Due to finances we eventually decided to stop the subscription last year, knowing that at any time we could reinstall the RealArcade player and still play the,

Except that’s not what happened.

Real has upgraded RealArcade to a browser-centric application that won’t recognize the old file format of the games that we bought and archived. As RealArcade gets rid of purchase history beyond a current year’s time, we archived all of our games so we could play them again. The problem is that there’s no way to load the new games into the new executable, because the new executable launches a web-browser and operates completely differently.

My laptop got wiped a few weeks back, so of course, I didn’t have the old version of the RealArcade software installed. It took me a couple of hours research to find a way to get the old executable back (which is no longer supported by Real). This mad me quiet mad, but I’ve archived a copy of the installer so that we can continue to install the games we bought and expect to be able to play.

Other games services such as Steam and Impulse keep track of all your previous purchases, so why doesn’t Real? From now on, we’re buying games through Steam, Impulse and GameTap, because these service providers get that you don’t piss off your player base.

Tags: Borked, Opine, PC Games, Play by Teh Bagder
717No Comments »http://iam.tehbagder.com/2008/12/15/borked-realarcade-retrofitting/Borked%3A+RealArcade+Retrofitting2008-12-15+17%3A17%3A00Teh+Bagder

I hate Black Friday with a passion that I don’t have for much else. Apart from the mob mentality that seems to be evident, common civility goes out of the window with many people. Due to tight finances, and not wanting to be in among that throng of crazies, we decided to stay away from most Black Friday sales today. Luckily, we managed to take advantage of a good deal Toys R Us has online. By using Paypal (which I hate using), we saved $25 on a $50+ order. This allowed us to get Raving Rabbids TV Party for the kids for $24.99 AND get a free copy of the first Raving Rabbids. We already have that, so we’ll trade it in unopened to our local store for credit towards another game.

We’re also taking advantage of the used games market for this Crimble, and managed to score two copies of Pokemon Ranger for the older kids, as well as Pokemon: Explorers of Time for Aidan. They’ll be able to play head to head as Maeve already has Pokemon: Explorers of Darkness. Pokemon: Ranger isn’t multiplayer, but they’ll both be able to play along together, which they do well with, anyway.

Additionally, Amazon seems to have Guild Wars Eye of the North for $9.99, so we’re getting a copy for each kid for their Guild Wars accounts, so that when they finally make it to Level 20, that will be unlocked for them.

Compared to last year, when the kids got a Wii and over a dozen games, this year will be a little present-light, but I’m not going to be working retail so we’ll have a lot more time to play games over the Crimble break.

Tags: Deals, Guild Wars, Opine, Wii by Teh Bagder
688No Comments »http://iam.tehbagder.com/2008/11/28/black-friday-prelude-to-white-christmas/Black+Friday%2C+Prelude+to+White+Christmas2008-11-28+19%3A45%3A59Teh+Bagder

EA have announce that they’re going to stick with SECUROM for their games, including Red Alert 3 [via Kotaku]. This means that I’ll not be buying Red Alert 3 any time soon, and will hold off until I can go back in time, and rewrite the past to get rid of the copy protection system on the disc.

Either that, or I might end up considering getting an Xbox 360, and get the game on that platform, although I’ll feel as if I’m betraying my PC gaming legacy by doing so.

Tags: Opine, PC Games, Play by Teh Bagder
657No Comments »http://iam.tehbagder.com/2008/09/09/red-alert-3-time-traveling-wishes/Red+Alert+3%3A+Time+Traveling+Wishes2008-09-09+19%3A53%3A00Teh+Bagder

Check out the two pictures above. Looks like a Wii controller, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not. It’s a very clever knockoff off the design of the Wii controller but it’s for a simple baseball game. See that small LCD screen that harkens back to the dim and distant days of Nintendo’s original handheld games? That’s where you get to play the game.

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Tags: Opine by Teh Bagder
478No Comments »http://iam.tehbagder.com/2007/08/14/opine-getting-on-the-wii-bandwagon/Opine%3A+Getting+On+the+Wii+Bandwagon2007-08-14+13%3A30%3A24Teh+Bagder

There’s an interesting article on 1up.com at the moment about Couples Therapy which takes a look at four couples and whether gaming is of benefit to the relationship each couple is in or if it harms it. Two specialists — a matchmaker and a psychologist — then look at the relationships and give their thoughts on them. While an interesting read, I don’t agree with the final thoughts that were given and have some things to say on the matter.

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Tags: Opine by Teh Bagder
448No Comments »http://iam.tehbagder.com/2007/08/08/opine-therapy-schmerapy/Opine%3A+Therapy+Schmerapy%212007-08-09+01%3A22%3A27Teh+Bagder

A possible Xbox 360 price drop? Can it be true? Yes, according to Cheap Ass Gamer and a number of other sites.

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Tags: Opine, Web by Teh Bagder
405No Comments »http://iam.tehbagder.com/2007/07/29/opine-xbox-360-price-drop-on-august-12th/Opine%3A+Xbox+360+Price+Drop+on+August+12th%3F2007-07-29+16%3A30%3A03Teh+Bagder

I’m in the process of cataloging all of the games that we own. So far I’ve managed to catalog all of the console games, and haven’t yet gotten to listing all of the Windows PC games nor the 8-bit computer games.

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Tags: Opine by Teh Bagder
4002 Comments »http://iam.tehbagder.com/2007/07/28/opine-the-1-hour-a-day-gamer-grandpa/Opine%3A+The+1+Hour+A+Day+Gamer+Grandpa2007-07-28+20%3A35%3A31Teh+Bagder

While building the store lists for the IATB Amazon Store, I popped into the Playstation 3 section, and was presented with the above image. It might be a little small, so here it is at 1:1 screen size:

As you can see, the Xbox 360 version of GTA is leading the Playstation 3 version by 60:40 right now. That’s rather interesting because of a number of factors:

• These are preorder numbers from a single Internet retailer. They’re probably indicative of trends across the US though, even in the B&M stores.
• The GTA series was born on the PC, but then moved to console. It eventually became recognized as a major Playstation brand, with Xbox and PC ports coming out later than Playstation versions.
• GTA games have been system sellers in the past for the Playstation.
• Microsoft spent a lot of money securing advance rights on downloadable content from the GTA developers and stole a lot of Sony’s thunder in doing so.
• The Xbox 360 version may suffer from the fact that Microsoft is pushing for it to work across all versions of the 360, including the Core, which doesn’t come with a hard drive.
• There are certainly more Xbox 360s in the hands of consumers than there are PS3s.
• The price for both games is the same, but the price of the console isn’t. It’s still cheaper to get an Xbox 360 than it is to get a PS3, even with the price drops.
• The release date for both is October 16th. That’s a little less than 2 months away.
• Most journalists and analysts will focus on sales out of the gate, rather than over a year or so.

There’s also a whole lot of discussion going on at the Amazon comparison page.

My thoughts are this: GTA is one of those seminal brands that has a core following of players behind it. Most of these players will have played it on one platform and will continue to play it on that platform. The battleground really becomes generating sales to new gamers that haven’t played the game before, and this is where the 360 has the lead. Of course, the 360 also has a habit of dying on gamers, so this might affect things a little. Ultimately, sales of this game will be strong no matter what. Once the price drops by about 25% more people will pick it up and will play it. 

Keep in mind that these numbers can change. There’s still almost 2 months to the release date, and in the past the GTA franchise has sold systems. Tie this into the fire sale that Sony has had on the 60Gb and you might get a bunch of sales leading into October. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Tags: Opine, Uncategorized by Teh Bagder
3731 Comment »http://iam.tehbagder.com/2007/07/24/opine-the-gta-iv-wars/Opine%3A+The+GTA+IV+Wars2007-07-24+21%3A16%3A33Teh+Bagder

Nintendo, do you have any idea about online connectivity at all?

Why can I connect with my WII via WPA, but you won’t let the DS do that? I understand your argument about WEP being ubiquitous throughout much of the world. Surely a simple firmware update can allow WPA and WEP in the chipset of the DS? How hard could it be? I’m hoping by the time I get my DS that they’ll allow WPA.

Technorati Tags: bagder, wireless, wep, wii, wpa

Tags: Opine by Teh Bagder
3382 Comments »http://iam.tehbagder.com/2007/07/17/opine-riddle-me-this-why-wii-wpa/Opine%3A+Riddle+Me+This%3A+Why+Wii+WPA%3F2007-07-17+11%3A35%3A57Teh+Bagder