The term gamer has become cool in the last couple of years. So much in fact that sites like MTV and NewsWeek have dedicated columns and writers used to bring gaming information to the general masses.

Stephen Totilo of MTV and N’Gai Croal of NewsWeek have decided to do an email exchange of sorts discussing the recent Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta. I’m not putting these guys down as gamers, they are both gamers in every sense of the word. But the entire transcription is somewhat of a bitch fest on how they aren’t exactly good at multiplayer games, and how they want Bungie, or whoever, to make them more easily accessible. A valid complaint I suppose. In fact, the tone of the articles really change with the final part of the series.

Of course the graphics issue comes up. N’Gai even references the Reuters Article I was quoted in. Yes…I’m gloating.

Anyway, before we go any further, do yourself a favor and read both articles. I’ll update this article when part 3 is finally released.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

OK…done? A bit long winded eh? That’s ok. There are a lot of good points there, and the articles themselves are a very fresh take on games journalism. So lets dissect shall we?

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As you recently saw I was lucky enough to get a Zune from Microsoft. Huzzah! But…I wasn’t lucky enough to have a working Zune Marketplace. This had something to do with some corrupt DRM files or some such. No idea how this happened. I tried following the Microsoft Knowledge Base article, but something didn’t quite match up. I call Zune support and they were very helpful and walked me through things.

Here’s what you do:

1. 1. Click the Windows Button, and type in userinit in the search box.
2. 2. Click Organize->Folder and Search Options->View and then Uncheck Hide Protected Operating System Files
3. 3. Go to C:->Program Data->Microsoft->Windows->DRM and rename the folder to something else. You MAY have a Program Data->DRM Folder. This needs to be renamed also. This was where my problem was.
4. 4. Go to this link: http://go.microsoft.com/flink?linkid=34506 and click Upgrade.
5. 5. Restart the Zune Software or Windows Media Player 11.

You should be good to go now. The plus side of this is this should fix any connection issues you might be having with your XBox 360 as well. Good luck!

I know…this blog looks like it’s turning into the Halo blog. But damn…can you blame me?

I arrived home yesterday to find a nice surprise on my doorstep, one of those new swanky Halo 3 Zunes.

The packaging is all decked out Halo style, and the Zune itself is packed nicely in it’s little box. I haven’t seen a packaging set-up this nice since my iPod. The Zune itself comes with a pair of headphones, case, usb cable and install CD. This special edition one comes preloaded with tons of Halo content including: 10 Halo related videos including Episodes of Red vs. Blue, all 3 Halo soundtracks, and over 100 Halo related images and concept art. In fact, it looks like some of the concept art might give away some clues as to what is going to happen in Halo 3.

The Zune software and marketplace seems solid. One really great thing is for those of us with an XBox Live account, you can simply sign in with this account and associate your Gamertag to your Zunetag (sorry..no Achievement points…yet). You can then use any MS Points from XBox Live to purchase songs and download alblums.

Of course the defining feature of Zune is the ability to transfer songs wirelessly between Zunes. Unfortuantely I wasn’t able to test that out as I don’t know anyone WITH a Zune. There are rumors that the newest firmware will allow you to hit up the Zune marketplace wirelessly from various hotspots which would make it a much more attractive feature.

Build quality is solid and the screen is gorgeous. The headphones out of the box lack some punch, but paired with a set of quality headphones that audio quality is noticeably better than an iPod, and just about equal with my Creative Zen Vision:M. The software works well, and one nice feature is the ability to transcode your videos on sync to the size and format needed for the Zune.

Any Halo fan looking for a new music/all-in-one player should look no further than the H3 Zune. The Limited Edition Halo 3 Zune goes on sale exclusively at Gamestop/EB Games on June 15th for $249.99.

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Synergy is one of those buzz words I was never fond of. In fact, at my previous place of employment, it was thrown around more than a midget at a cannon factory. But today, I’m going to use the word, as it’s simply the best word I can think of as to Microsoft and their ability to synergize their brands and platforms together.
multiplayer beta of Halo 3 will ship with copies of Crackdown. Suddenly the interest in Crackdown becomes 10 fold greater. Most figured this was Microsoft’s admission that Crackdown was a poor game, when in fact just the opposite is true. The game was released to critical success, and gamers enjoyed it thoroughly…for a few weeks. You see, Crackdown just didn’t have the longevity to make it all the way from its late February release all the way until Mid-May when the Halo 3 beta would actually hit. More on this later.

So time goes on and the Halo 3 hypo-meter is dies off a bit. Suddenly we start to see bits and pieces of information on Halo 2 for Windows Vista. Penned for an early May release most people write it off. While not significant, this gets the Halo name out there again. Slowly but surely the Halo buzz begins to build, and message boards begin talking about Halo 3 again.

Now as we approach the actual beta period, people need to dig out those copies of Crackdown again. What better way to do that than to release some premium content. So gamers dig out Crackdown again, start playing it and realizing that it’s still fun. Along with a free download that adds a lot of missing features, a fresh content pack becomes available and quite a few of these gamers will decide to drop the 10 dollars on it. This holds them over for a week or so until….the Halo 3 beta.

So the MP beta lasts 3 weeks or so. People realize how fun Halo still is, and they still have that itch for more things Halo. What better way to solve that than to go back and play some Halo 2…or better yet the newer, shinier Halo 2 for Windows Vista which hits shelves a week into the beta. Shortly after this happen, E3 is going to come around where I assume the single player portion of the game will slowly be unveiled. The hype train continues to roll carrying it through most of the summer.

I’m not sure what Microsoft will do for the August-November time period, but I assume they won’t let Halo be far from gamer’s minds. And lets forgot tie-ins like the recently announced limited edition Halo Zune. If this doesn’t help get the word out on Microsoft’s music player….nothing will.

The point of all this is, what sometimes seems like minor coincidences turns out to be carefully planned marketing strategies. These strategies sometimes don’t reveal themselves for months, even years later when the entire spectrum of it can be realized. Microsoft is continuously creating an amazing extended marketing campaign that Synergizes multiple brands and platforms…and they are all riding on the Master Chief.

Times are changing, trends are shifting, and fanboys are crying. For Microsoft, things are starting to take a turn for the worst. With recent announcements like the XBox 360 Elite with a larger hard drive, a product consumers have been begging for for quite some time, one would think all would be well in the land of Redmond. But Microsoft shot themselves in the proverbial corporate foot with this. Pricing the system at $479.99, much higher than anyone expected; especially considering the lack of HD-DVD or built in wireless, the internet simply let out a collective meh over the whole thing. On top of that, the hard drive itself costs an astounding $179.99. That’s well over the magic number of .50 per/GB for this 120GB drive. In fact, the backlash from this announcement alone was so bad, that Microsoft needed to defend its pricing of the peripheral.

And that was just the start of the trend for Microsoft. Read the rest of this entry »