Hart’s War – it’s like Chicken Run, only without the Chickens. And there’s a war.

Actually, I’m surprised anyone’s going to make a WWII escape film after CR. Ever notice how no one made a western after Blazing Saddles for like 30 years?

Last year for Valentine’s I figured it would be just fine to buy the flowers on my way home. Suffice it to say it was a Charley Foxtrot at the Albertson’s when I went, with everyone and their dog getting flowers. And by everyone, I mean idiot men like me. All the good arrangements were taken. I was left to come up with an arrangement of the miscellaneous flowers left. I started picking up any flowers that looked like Wendy’s Wedding Bouquet. I had to pay more since they were assorted, but Wendy liked them, so it was all good.

This year I decided to forgo that debacle and buy an arrangement in advance. Of course, flowers are supposed to be kept in a fridge, but if I did that at home she’d find them, so I decided to buy them a day in advance and keep them in a fridge at work. I ran out and got them over my lunch break Wednesday and put them in the fridge, along with a note to the guys working stating “Don’t worry, they’ll be gone Friday”. Thursday 5:00 rolled around and I went to the fridge to discover they were frozen. Shit!

So I took them down to my car and tried to take off some of the ice chunks (which took some flowers with them) and figured my best bet was to turn on the car’s heater and turn all the vents towards the bouquet, full blast. I don’t know about where you are but here in College Station, it was turning into a hot day anyway, so here I am hanging my head out the window like a dog while my car turns into a sauna. To make things worse, there’s so much construction on the A&M campus I had to take a long damn route to Chili’s, where I was picking up our romantic dinner of hamburgers.

By the time I got home most of the incidental ice had thawed, so I quickly threw the tablechloth on the dinner table, pulled out the placemats and two napkins, and lit every candle I could find with the aim-n-flame.

Everything else went fine. Wendy loved the Kiss Kiss bears (the ones with the magnet lips) and the Practical Magic DVD I got her, and the flowers turned out fine (minus a few casualties).

Coming soon from A&M: designer cat clones!

Oh and a new DreamSNES was released, and this time it’s hella fast! Life is good.

Talk about a total abuse of power.

Back to the Future Trilogy coming soon to DVD. Ph34r!

Assuming all goes as planned, today is the day that the game NHL 2K2 is released for the Sega Dreamcast. The reason this is significant, besides the fact that it’s the first hockey game for the Dreamcast in two years and the first attempt by seasoned sports developer Visual Concepts, is the last game to be released for the Dreamcast, officially signifying the end of this console’s life, as well as the last game Sega will make for one of their own systems. At just under 2.5 years, I’m not sure if the Dreamcast outlasted the Sega Saturn, the previous Sega console (which also met with a shortened life span).

Sega was one of a handful of companies to dare to enter the console market in the late 1980’s to go head to head with Nintendo, the then 900 lb. Gorilla of the industry. Despite being technologically superior to the NES, the Sega Master System ultimately stood no chance to the market leader, mostly a result of Nintendo’s then Draconian licensing policies (developers signed to Nintendo were not allowed to develop for other consoles). The fact that Sega was able to survive to try again based on their own properties is a testament to how strong a first party developer they were – people still clamor for a proper sequel to Phantasy Star, a game which started on the SMS.

Sega decided the way to get a leg up on the market was to be the technological front runner. To this end they developed the Sega Genesis, a 16-bit console (the NES and SMS were 8-bit) and brought it to market over a full year before Nintendo’s entry. Though the term “Genesis” implied it was first to market, it wasn’t – NEC’s Turbo Graphix 16 beat it to market. The Genesis beat out the TG16 due in no small part to the strength of their game Sonic the Hedgehog, featuring a signature character to rival Nintendo’s Mario. The real strength of the Genesis, however, was its sports titles. Electronic Arts’ EA Sports label cut its teeth on the Genesis and to this day people revel in their hockey titles.

Genesis held its own with the Super Nintendo (Nintendo’s 16-bit console), maintaining between 60 and 70 percent of the market until 1993 when Nintendo unveiled the show stopping Donkey Kong Country. At the end of the day, Nintendo had 53% of the 16-bit market, with the SNES selling like hotcakes after DKC‘s release. However it is arguable whether or not they “won” the race, since at the end of the 8-bit race they owned over 90% of the market. To some the fact that Sega was able to make such a dent in the market was victory enough.

Part of the reason the Genesis started to falter was due to what would become known as the cardinal sin in the console market place – they segmented the user base through critical perhiperials. As an example, when a light gun is released for a console, any game written to use that gun exclusively as a controller is limited to the number of people who have the gun, and not all of those people will buy it. Therefore developers are reluctant to make any gun games, since they may meet with low sales, and consumers don’t want to buy the light gun, since few games are written for it – a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts. Sega released an add-on called the SegaCD, to add CD-ROM capabilites to the Genesis. Most of the games on it were merely ports of their cartridge cousins, with redbook audio music tracks. Full motion video was limited to the 32 colors the Genesis could push, so any live action video looked like someone spilled coffee on it, and since it was at the dawn of CD technology, its 1X speed led to unacceptable load times. Then Sega decided to release the 32X, a device which would allow for 32-bit games. It saw a flurry of titles, but ultimately suffered due to developer tenacity on what was on the horizon.

The horizon saw the dawn on 32-bit dedicated consoles from Sega and Nintendo. Nintendo decided to spin the same card that Sega had pulled on them and upgrade the specs of their system to 64-bits (a fire which was hosed a bit by the annoucement of the 64-bit Atari Jaguar). Word came down the pipeline that consumer electronics company Sony was readying their own 32-bit console, but since NEC was also a consumer electronics company, this announcement brought about more doom proclimations than worry.

In early 1995 Sega, Sony and Nintendo were all slated to unveil new consoles in September. Sega got nervous and decided to unveil their console in May instead. With the exception of skeptical journalists and four major retailers, the system’s unveiling was a surprise to everyone, including developers. Since the technology was so new the system debuted at $400+, putting it out of the reach of most. Many didn’t have the motivation to buy it – it’s not like today when people save for months to buy an XBox, no one knew the Saturn was coming so soon. Also, since the developers were not let in on the secret, few games were available at launch, with the ones coming over the summer being buggy rush jobs.

By September Sega had sold 70,000 units. However by that point Nintendo had delayed the Nintendo 64 to April (later September) and unveiled the Virtual Boy instead. Consequently when Sony unveiled their PlayStation it sold 100,000 units in the first weekend. The Saturn never recovered. In late 1997 Sega called it quits on the Saturn in the U.S., with the last trickle of titles happening in the following year, though it did continue until 1999 in Japan.

Sega instantly started spinning Dural, the code name for their Saturn follow-up. It was named the Katana and Sega started to hype it. Later they announced a partnership with Microsoft. Microsoft would port Windows CE, a version of Windows to run on non-x86 platforms, to the system, now named Dreamcast. This instantly caused a stir, since there was a fear now that the system would become the butt of shovelware Windows ports, something which Sega insisted would not be the case. Sega was attempting to replicate the strategy which worked for the Genesis but failed with the Saturn – to beat the others to market. They had the advantages of a strong and large launch library and a $199 launch price. However, more ominous concerns in the form of the forthcoming PlayStation 2 and the future consoles from Nintendo and former partner Microsoft were on the horizon.

They were able to sign every major developer to develop for the Dreamcast, with two exceptions – Electronic Arts and Square. Square was under exclusive contract to Sony (they had been exclusive to Nintendo prior to the Nintendo 64) and their Final Fantasy series of games had become something of a religion in Japan. More upsetting was EA. Debate continues on whether the Genesis made EA who they were or whether EA made the Genesis what it was, but in any event by this point in time EA’s EA Sports line was wildly popular, to the point where it was believed that a console could not survive without them. Whether EA was on the take from Sony to stay off of Dreamcast or whether EA decided developing for too many consoles (and therefore running a constant risk of having unsold product) was not a viable plan, EA decided to not develop for the Dreamcast, though they commmited to the then-unnamed consoles from Microsoft and Nintendo and even continued to release Nintendo 64 titles. EA’s president went on to state that without them Dreamcast was doomed.

Sega sold 400,000 Dreamcast units on the launch date, and went on to sell 1.5 million units faster than they expected. One of the titles on launch was NFL 2K, which in the opinion of many was hands down the best football game ever made in terms of graphics and gameplay. It was developed by second party developer Visual Concepts, who went on to make the NBA 2K series and though they did not make NHK 2K they are the ones responsible for NHL 2K2, the aforementioned last game for the Dreamcast. EA went on to hold out for the release of the PlayStation 2, but when production problems limited that console’s run to 500,000 units during the Christmas 2000 season, EA posted a huge loss.

One of the advantages of the Dreamcast was its use of a media called GD-ROM, Gigabyte discs. Unreadable and uncopyable by CD-ROM drives, they afforded the developer more space than a CD-ROM, less space than a DVD, and a guarantee that it was uncopyable, and it was – until someone copied one. Sega also developed a format called MIL-CD so that makers of music CD’s could add enhanced Dreamcast content if they wanted to. However, once reverse engineered and coupled with the knowledge on how to download the contents of a GD-ROM to a PC, it opened up the door for piracy. Unlike other consoles, which needed hardware changes to make copied games work, Dreamcast piracy was open to anyone with a fast Internet connection and a CD-burner. A later Dreamcast revision removed the MIL-CD format but it was too late.

Not too long after the 1.5 million mark was hit, sales leveled off and game sales slumped. Many people held off on buying a Dreamcast to get a PlayStation 2. Developers started to cancel projects or move them to other consoles. Sega looked at the dire prospects of having three major competitors and decided that they could either go out of business trying to compete or leave the hardware market early and become a developer. Much to the chagrin of the Dreamcast supporters, they decided in early 2001 to pull the plug on the Dreamcast. They announced support for another year, but several developers decided to cancel any remaining projects they had left. Sega themselves decided to place the RPG Sequel Shenmue II on the XBox in the U.S. The last trickle of titles was scheduled for March 2002, but this month’s NHL 2K2 will be the end.

Ironically, Sega looks to go from the underdog in the hardware war to the top 3rd party software developer, ousting current leader EA. EA issued a statement downplaying the shift, but their attempts to kill off Sega largely backfired, resulting in a strong competitor. Today Sega is developing for all major consoles, including the PlayStation 2, GameCube, XBox and Game Boy Advance.

Though it is sad that Sega couldn’t hang in the console market today, and that there is now a huge barrier to a largely commercial market, it’s better to not lose Sega as a developer.

The Blog Phenomenon – I guess I’m not alone…

Talk about anticlimactic – I opened the box Friday as I left work, and it was empty. Perhaps Jerry just needed a box. Or perhaps Jerry left the box. Or perhaps someone stole the G4 and left the box. In any event, the box was in the dumpster thingy this morning. While this doesn’t answer the question of whether a Macintosh is worth stealing, it does generally indicate that the people here at CIS are kinda messy, since we all walked past this piece of trash for days and no one saw fit to do anything with it.

Yesterday when I got off of work I walked down the two flights of stairs and exited the Teague building. There’s this concrete bench right next to the door and on it was a box for a G4 Power Mac tower. – the gray translucent ones. It had a pink post-it note on it, something about Jerry picking it up. I left sorta late yesterday (~5:10 PM) and there was no one around. No one guarding the box or sitting near it. I naturally figured it had been left for Jerry and Jerry would be along soon, though he was obviously running late and the person who put it down there was either in the bathroom or couldn’t afford to wait any longer.

It’s kinda like when you walk past a car that’s parked in a no-parking zone and it’s still running. I walked past one yesterday. Here at A&M the parking cops are like the Gestapo and it already had a ticket on it. That means that the person had left the car there long enough, with the keys running, long enough to get discovered by PTTS, get ticketed, and the PTTS officer leave already. Suddenly I thought it might be funny if someone were to get in the car, drive it about ten blocks, and then leave it, still running. Better yet, drive it way the hell off to one of the parking lots on campus and park it. I wonder how long it would take for the owner to find it.

So by this same logic, I figured someone was bound to steal that G4 if it was left there long enough. I don’t like Macs, but if the perfect opportunity came up for me to get a free one, I’d take it. Not to say that I would have stolen that G4 – I don’t have what it takes to steal something like that – I was just thinking it might be interesting to suddenly have a Macintosh. Might make any Mac bashing have a leg to stand on

Well, here’s the funny part – when I came to work this morning the G4 was still there. In fact it’s after 4:00 now (see above) and it’s still still there. That means it’s been there close to 24 hours at least. People walk by it, see it, ignore it, etc. Lucky it didn’t rain last night, though my car did have a nice layer of ice on it this morning – perhaps the little translucent case has dew in it now, kinda like when you accidentally diswasher a thermal mug that’s not dishwasher safe. I don’t know what this says about Macintoshes – is it that they’re not even worth stealing, or is it that the kinds of people who would want them aren’t the kind to steal? It would be foolish for someone that works here to steal it – everyone would see him. However, all night long that box went without anyone touching it. Surely someone was here at 3AM and thought about it… or did they?

Of couse the flaw in all this is that I’m not 100% certian if there’s anything actually in the box – I didn’t nudge it to see if there was anything in it. It might be an empty box. Perhaps it wasn’t an empty box last night but it is this morning. Granted, why anyone would leave the box behind is beyond me.

In any event I’m sure that box will be gone Monday morning, because if it isn’t I’m going to have one hell of a laugh.

“C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg.” — Bjarne Stroustrup

True Dat.

I know I’m not really the right generation/mindset for Pink Floyd but I’m listening to them nonetheless. I’ve always enjoyed their album The Dark Side of the Moon but that’s the only real album I’ve ever heard of theirs (I had always heard that that album and the follow-up Wish You Were Here were the only good albums they ever did – the rest were mostly crap). So now I’m listening to Echoes, the latest in the long line of greatest hits cash-ins that flow from the record industry (considering that the Eagles’ Greatest Hits is the best selling album of all time, this is a no-brainer) and I’m listening to this song on it called “Echoes” – it’s seventeen minutes long. It’s like four minutes of song, ten minutes of bizarre conceptual acid trip, and three more minutes of song. They literally just pick the song back up as if it was a freaking guitar solo. Unbelievable. Only Pink Floyd could get away with that.