It looks a little overly simple to me, but still more game-like than what I was expecting. Will Wright’s previous project, The Sims 2, succeeded wildly without having any real goals or competition. It’s more of a dollhouse simulator than anything else.
Persona 3 is a great game and all, but there’s room for expansion here. As long as I’m summoning creatures of myth and imagination out of the collective unconcious to serve as my personal bodyguards, there’s a few I want to be able to pick from.
Coyote - Coyote takes many roles, but he’s best known as a trickster. This essential archetype seems underrepresented in Persona 3, so you might as well start with the best.
Like the headline says, EA’s income from direct digital distribution was $90 million this quarter.
Now, we’re talking about hundreds of millions in gross revenue, so they’re not cutting and running from retail yet. But each dollar made over the EA Store is one that goes directly to the company without any going towards manufacturing costs, shipping and distribution or a retail discount. Obviously that would be highly appealing for a company.
I mentioned before I found the EA store wanting, but as a consumer I’m totally on board with digital distribution. What sense does it make for me to go to a store, buy a DVD-ROM, take it home, copy the game in its entirety to my computer and never use the physical media again?
Especially when you’re continually right. Apparently, the boys out at Studio Briefing, one of my personal favorite news sources, caught up to the fact that Panasonic TVs, especially big-screen digital television sets, were selling like crack in rehab in the midst of some of the worst economic conditions in the last ten years.
Suggesting that the recession is no obstacle to home theater enthusiasts, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes consumer-electronics items under the Panasonic label, reported today (Tuesday) that its net income soared 86 percent in its first quarter, which ended on June 30. The company said that its profits hit $679 million, helped primarily by sales of big-screen digital television sets.
So hey, it looks like there’s a teaser leaked for Oliver Stone’s Bush biopic, W. Everyone keeps warning that it’s likely to disappear soon, but it’s been up for a while, in various permutations. Some videos have been taken down, only to be replaced by others. This one seems to be working currently:
I’ve been saying it for some time now–people are looking for any way possible to save cash these days, and renting a movie is wildly, wildly cheaper than the horrorshow of expenditures that is the movie theatre these days. Debatably, it’s also better, but what’s not debatable is that online video store Netflix is seeing spectacular gains in its bottom line, and some analysts say it’s due to exactly what I’ve been saying it is all along–people looking for a good cheap time that doesn’t depend on four dollar a gallon gas.
Welcome to the club, analysts–we have jackets. Don’t forget to pay dues for the month. Read more…
Confession time: I own Death Proof on DVD. I probably wouldn’t have bought it if it was up to me, but my fiancee pretty much makes all the DVD-buying decisions in our household, because he is better at math and therefore budgets. I have strong feelings about certain things that I want to have, but beyond that, most of our shopping trips go something like this:
Him: Should I get this? It’s $9.99.
Me: Mmm.
Him: I mean, I’m not sure how much I’d actually watch it. But I like the director, so I’d really like to listen to the commentary.
Me: Mmm?
Him: I don’t think I’m going to get it.
Me: Why not?
Him: Okay, I’ll get it.
“Is there some kind of medical term for this?” asked a forum poster on Poe News this morning. “Is it just a symptom of general technophobia to perceive the dangers of pedophilia on any non closed circuit device?… Sitting there in the middle of your living room, staring at some device and saying to yourself ‘Okay… but can some guys pick up little kiddies with it?’ just doesn’t seem normal to me.”
The medical term is “local television reporter,” and today we have another excellent case study.
Oooookay…this is one that bodes badly for all us film critics out there (what? I’m a film critic! Dude, I totally talk about movies all the time! In print! Well…in FONT, anyway.) but at the same time gives us a new marketing ploy to be possibly dubbed “bait the psychos”.
The Wall Street Journal’s film critic–apparently, the Wall Street Journal DOES in fact have a film critic–Joe Morgenstern is the newest target following his review of The Dark Knight, now on track to easily make more money than some Central American countries. Morgenstern’s review has garnered him upward of three hundred emails, filled to the brim with, as Morgenstern describes it, “..the vilest, most abusive language you could possibly imagine.”
“You know, I’ve only been alive for six weeks, and I know nothing of the world outside this dog’s stomach…but I still find Six Feet Under pretentious.”
- worm inside Brian’s stomach, Family Guy
You know the drill: summer T.V. is awful, nothing is interesting, nothing is on. Whine whine whine. I’m right there with you, and I’m here to help. Don’t resign yourself to last season’s reruns and the weekly installment of Burn Notice. (I don’t care if Bruce Campell is in it, it’s still terrible.) I’ll recommend some shows that you might have missed, and are out on DVD now for your enjoyment.
Here’s the creature stage, the tribal stage and the civilization stage. The video for the space travel stage goes up tomorrow.
Coyote - 
Now, we’re talking about 
Especially when you’re continually right. Apparently, the boys out at Studio Briefing, one of my personal favorite news sources, caught up to the fact that Panasonic TVs, especially big-screen digital television sets, were 
I’ve been saying it for some time now–people are looking for any way possible to save cash these days, and renting a movie is wildly, wildly cheaper than the horrorshow of expenditures that is the movie theatre these days. Debatably, it’s also better, but what’s not debatable is that online video store Netflix is seeing spectacular gains in its bottom line, and
“Is there some kind of medical term for this?” asked a forum poster on 
