Thursday, January 4, 2007

So THAT's why it's so addictive...

 Xbox designers explain the strange appeal of the system's Achievement Points system...

It's so clever," he says. "I mean, it's just a score. You may say it can't be used for anything, but gamers use them for pride. They're pride points! You can compare it to the feeling you get when you pull up to a restaurant in a Lamborghini. People go, 'Oooo, he must be somebody.' In the virtual world of gaming, points create that same sense of rank and envy, and that's why gamers have latched onto them. I read that people are picking up the Burger King Xbox games just so they can score additional points. If that doesn't prove how well this program is working, nothing does."

Not that I would ever resort to playing something as lame as, say Uno, for the easy gamer points..

Link

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

Happy New Year, from Microsoft

I and hundreds of other Windows Vista beta testers awoke Jan. 1 to discover that the operating system's Media Center functionality stopped working with nary a warning, even though the Vista beta (release candidate 1) isn't set to expire until this summer.

That wouldn't be so bad if the final version of Vista were available to purchase. Looks like Andrea and I are set to miss a whole month of Heroes and Ugly Betty.