So, it’s probably on its way:  The long awaited iPod touch with a microphone and camera. Rumors are everywhere.  I for one, am extraordinarily excited.  I’ve been fighting the urge to get an iPhone, and what I’ve been wanting is one without a phone plan.  With some creative work, it’s doable, and on a non-AT&T plan!

We’ll post more when things are confirmed, but the rumor mill is churning with some pretty reliable sources.

Statistically, the first 14 minutes are the most important, so we’re putting that theory to the test.

So the local crew is sitting here downtown, and I’ve been Twittering bits of the day, and we realized we’ve neglected to announce a couple things here on the main site.

We have a twitter account!  Add us!  www.twitter.com/gvl  Also, as you can see over on the sidebar to the right under the “What I’m doing…” we have our twitter fed into here.

Also, we’re spending the next few days at the Casual Connect Seattle.  We’ll be doing more of the coverage after the event, so Jon and I have enough time to compile our thoughts.  In the meantime, I’m running around with my phone putting up bits here and there.

And like any event that we attend, the swag search has commenced between Jon and Elise.  And we’ll be puting up some of the riches for grabs in contest form.

Keep with us, and we’ll give you the scoops!

TTFN!

Neil Patrick Harris portrays the part Dr. Horrible, who holds a Ph.D. in horribleness, who’s attempts to both rule the world and win the heart of a fellow laundromat patron are continually thwarted by Captain Hammer. The role of Captain Hammer, the brash insensitive prick of a superhero, is played by Nathan Fillion, who fills the part very well. And the last of the main characters is Penny, played by Filicia Day, who’s sweet demeanor and quiet hope balance out the cast.

It’s short, it’s sweet, and it’s really funny. Snappy, like the way comics remain my head long after I’ve forgotten the minute details. Go watch it. Do it. Do it now, or FACE MY WRATH! Ok, perhaps not wrath so much as muttering dissapointment.

For the time being, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog is available free online, until midnight, July 20th. It’ll come in three installments, the last of which will go live on the 19th. If you miss it then, you can catch it on iTunes, for a nominal fee. And really, please don’t pirate it. There’s really not much of a budget here, and I know Jon and I could watch seasons of this stuff, and if they don’t make money on it, they won’t make more. And we want them to make more.

Plus, it’s kinda nice seeing Harris in a doctor’s uniform again.

This is…really kinda weird. Yup. I’d rather think that Pokemon are born the ether and shed into existence by a blissfully ignorant universe, as opposed to actually being born and nursing.

Check out the rest of his work!

I really hope that you don’t need the Wii fit tablet to play the next one…otherwise we’re all going to die.

Ostensibly, what this meant for you was that if the buyout was successful, GTA 4 probably would have been delayed until the 4th quarter of the year in order to make the holiday season more profitable. Take 2, on their own, needed this title to come out as soon as possible. Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t in dire straights. GTA simply would allow a greater cushion for the next year. Among their own intellectual properties, they have a larger number than EA does.

This seemed strange, overall. EA has the best selling game in history in its lineup, The Sim, which just recently got major press attention for having reached the coveted 100 million-unit mark, as well as a number of other AAA titles. Upon thinking about the rest of the games that EA has, Madden NFL 08, NHL 08, NBA Live 08, etc, and about T2’s titles: NBA 2K8, NHL 2K8, I realized something. EA really doesn’t need T2 for their innovation, what they could want is a monopoly over the sports titles.
You can see where this has already happened, in the missing acronym above, T2 has no NFL games for this year, or for the past 3 years. EA secured NFL and NFL players licenses after a pricing war ensued in 2005 where T2 offered their products at $19.99, and in order to stay competitive, EA released theirs with a price point of $29.99. The next year, when EA had the licenses, the games’ price rose to $49.99 and players either bought that or went home empty handed.

Take 2 originally stated that EA had undervalued their stock at $26, and declined the initial offer. Shortly thereafter, EA put in another bid, again at $26, going far enough to open a section of their website regarding their offer. Overall, it was laughable. On April 17, Take 2 had its shareholder’s meeting, where they encouraged their stockholders to deny the bid. I wholly stand by this position. Monopolies are bad. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Do not get lube as contraband.

Go ahead…take this the wrong way. I get scared when things get too big. If I see an indie movie, and I dig it, there is a small chance that everyone and their dog will love it, think it’s a life-changing experience, talk about it incessantly, and suddenly the fact that you like it tears you away from your baret and black turtle neck wearing artsy hip friends because you became trendy.

Big companies have this same effect for me. The bigger they are, the more popular they become, the more mindless drooling information whores they have spouting all that is good and wholesome, and how earth-shatteringly important their wares are. I cling to my hipness, my funny hats, and the uncomfortable shirts I stole from Steve Jobs by being a fan of particulars designer rather than the companies they work for. Really, if genetics and temporal anomolies could be controlled, I would be having Wil Wright’s baby. Please see our videos for more regarding this…or don’t because it’s horribly embarassing. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

Now that I have your attention again, let’s talk about what’s happening this afternoon (6:30pm Eastern). Take 2 Productions is having it’s investor’s meeting. As a total side note, Jack Thompson (a shareholder) is attempting to get some time on the floor. This should prove interesting. Anyway, the meeting should be a good indicator of whether or not Electronic Arts is going to be successful in it’s buyout offer of the company.

This started me thinking about 800lb gorillas. Uh-huh…I’ll keep waiting.

Thank you. Now that we have have our King Kong (Blizzard/Activision), I’m looking at this as if I were looking at the nuclear blast that is going to wake up Godzilla. This, at first, scared the bajiggers out of me.

That’s when the part of me that is not simply a gamer, but an otaku of interactive digtal entertainment, smacked the rest of me. “No, you fool!” it said, “We need these! We need the makers sequels of popular titles to continue to make them. There has to be the companies that satiate the twitchy, homicidal Xbox owners, the MLB (insert year here) beer guzzling neanderthalic fans, and other “casual” gamers at bay so that true creativity can continue thrive.

There are several gleaming examples of this, ie: Valve’s Portal, and 2D Boy’s World of Goo. The greatest thing about these titles, aside from amazing (if not unconventional and subtle) writing, is there distribution methods. Not only are they amazing examples of design, but they are available through non-traditional methods of downloading rather than having to drag one’s rear-end to an archaic brick and mortar store and buy a physical copy of the game.

Sony has said that 90% of games will be downloaded by 2018.

I think this date is far too conservative. I’ve heard the arguments against this, one of the best one being 90% of gamers don’t have credit cards. This seems shallow to me since 54% of gamers are housewives, though their games of choice are usually flash based. (Curse you, Word Womp! Give me my mother back!) This already gives downloaded games a significant market share. “But these aren’t the hard core gamers!” I hear you cry. Okay, so most of the “hard core” crowd plays games that are larger than that. Perhaps these players don’t have credit cards, but points can still be purchased through traditional means in a store. Let’s call that argument debunked.

The way I see it, the biggest problem is bandwidth. But as I pointed out in an earlier post regarding high definition formats for movies, that will not be a problem soon enough with Comcast’s new uberservice. It’s just too expensive right now.

And this leaves the doors wide open for things such as Steam and the new Greenhouse Games to provide downloadable games direct to your hard drive, and allows smaller development companies to grow and give us new and exciting games.

So I say, “Let King Kong and Godzilla, future Mothras and other mythical beast fight it out!” Dinosaurs were huge and controlled the earth for millions of years, but it was the smaller creatures that remained. And cycles will continue as things merge, die out, divide, evaporate, and emerge. I can only sit back and watch right now, but honestly, I’m really excited.

So you’re a wino, a gamer, love remote control cars, and have nowhere to recycle your old bottles? Take a hint from this kid. The original Super Mario theme on wine bottles. It sounds awesome.

Thank you, Boing Boing