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Sometime within the last year or so Apple has revamped their repair system. Their repair system used to be very helpful, because one could see step by step what was going on. It used to list the arrival of the system, what the step the tech was working on, and timestamps for each. Apple's current repair system, by comparison is bad because it obscures information from the user. I have no idea what is going on with my MacBook Pro. As far as the status shows, it simply says "diagnosing problem". I want to know what is going on in detail.

Posted by Michael Huang at 07:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At the DIEC 2005 Conference in Tokyo this week, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell slammed Sony and praised Nintendo.Bushnell also presents some interesting numbers:

In 1982, he tells us, there were 44 million gamers. Today, there are 18 million. Where’d they all go? “Complexity lost the casual gamer,” he says. “Violence lost the woman gamer.” He ventures into Nintendo territory, even slamming the PS2 controller.

I don't believe that there's only 18 million gamers out there. I think there's much more than that. A number of 18 million gamers would mean that 1 out of 3 gamers bought Diablo II, and that half of the gamers out there bought Final Fantasy VII.

I do however, believe in his statement that complexity has lost the casual gamer. I don't think it's the complete fault of the controller. Games have gotten more complicated, and certainly more visual, but it doesn't have anything to do with the controller -- in fact, save the addition of more buttons, the current console controller isn't all that different from the joysticks of yesteryear.

Posted by Michael Huang at 01:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)