A Beautiful Flower

Just found out about this website that my cousin's cousin (???) started. It's actually a really cool concept and is similar to the idea I had about iTunes early in the month. The site is Aralie.com and it is still in beta but it is really cool. Basically it allows anyone to put up recordings of their music and people are allowed to download it for whatever price they want. The artist gets to keep 85% of whatever people are willing to pay and the rest goes back to the site. They also have an embedded application you can put on facebook or your blog or wherever. It's a really cool idea and could get pretty big if people spread it around more. I'm looking at you Gary. It's a great way for people just starting out to get their music around. The site needs work to make it more community oriented (top rated, most purchased, most listened to, recently added, etc.) but they are constantly updating it. They also have interviews and help promote small bands.

Harry Potter Trailer

The first trailer to the latest Harry Potter movie is supposed to be release today. Still waiting on it. Will update once I catch it.

Update: Check the trailer here.

NHL 09 Online Team

Check this video to find out something awesome about NHL 09...or just keep reading. According to the video you will be able to have your own team online in NHL 09. This team will be entirely made up of actual human players that each play their own player and have their own camera angle that follows that player. You'll also be able to create your own emblem and participate in leagues online.

The Hancock Step-Brothers

Went to the drive-in this weekend with Caitlin and saw Step-Brothers and Hancock. Step-brothers was just what you would expect from a movie with John C. Reilly and Will Farrel. If you like them then go see it for sure, if you don't then don't bother. Hancock was pretty good. I thought it felt a little shallow compared to superhero movies that are based on characters that have been around for awhile. Will Smith did an excellent job though.

My Favourite Blogs are Dying?!?!

I just followed a link in the comments of Xbox 360 Fanboy to This Site which mentions a huge cut to the budgets of the Gaming Network of Web blogs owned by AOL. I had noticed something odd recently when some of the sites had people posting under the name "(Name of Webblog here) Staff". I had never seen this before and didn't know what to make of it. Apparently a bunch of the blogs are limited to 5 posts a day and every other post must be done under a staff name and they will not be paid for it. How lame is that? The link mentions that this may only be temporary while AOL looks for someone to buy them out or possibly just until Q3 is over. I really hope that everything works out because I spend a significant amount of time on these blogs and love every minute of it.

An Idea for the Ages

I have spent several of the last 24 hours pondering the Xbox Live Community Games announcement. Personally I believe that, if it's done right, Microsoft could radically alter the entire video game industry. It's only a matter of time before there are hundreds of thousands of games on XBLC and people are going to need a way to find the one that's just right. XBLC will need an interface similar to Youtube with games having ratings and number of downloads info as well as a way to see them all listed by top rated or most downloaded. Also people need a way to follow their favourite new indy dev so dev's need their own profile pages with links to their own games. There should also be a comment system on each games page so people can write mini-reviews and give feedback to indy-devs as well as a way to search by title, genre, or keywords in game descriptions(ball-busting action!). None of this is novel and should be part of the service on day one. If it is and their are some true gems, like most people think there will be, then we could see a huge new source of revenue for Microsoft. The revenue generated by these games could easily match or outperform XBLA and even full-size games. This of course will lead to all consoles attempting it and shifting focus towards community developed games.

Now for the really novel idea. This ones for the guys in Cupertino. Apple should release GarageBand(the recording/mixing/mastering program) for free with all Macs(everything with OSX). Here's the kicker though, for the low, low price of $100 per year(to keep retards out) you can join the Recording Artists Club. What this allows you to do is take any recordings that your "band" makes and release them on iTunes for $0.50 a song. Apple would take $0.10 from every song and the rest goes out to the person/people who submitted it. Once again stealing ideas from popular community sharing sites and programs (like youtube) this idea could radically alter the music industry and allow some of the newest and freshest sounds to be found. One important feature that would probably be necessary is a quick song preview. People love to support grassroots/indy music and this would be an excellent way to serve it to them. I think it would be a serious winner.

XNA Community Games fulfills all my wishes!

At a press event in Seattle Microsoft confirmed that XNA Community Games will launch later this year. What is XNA Community Games you ask?

In 2006 Microsoft released XNA Game Studio Express, a full game language and pipeline built on C# that allows average programmers to make video games for the Xbox 360 and Windows, for free. In 2007 they upgraded to XNA 2.0 which allows online gaming and cross-platform gaming from Xbox to Windows. In 2008 they will upgrade to XNA 3.0 which will allow Zune games to be made.

At the Game Developers Conference Microsoft announced XNA Community Games. A service that will allow "average joe's" to make games using XNA for the Xbox 360 and then release them for download to all Xbox Live members. All games are rated by fellow XNA users before being put on the service.

The new deets announced today are as follows:
All XNA games will be either 200($2.50) MS points, 400($5.00) MS points or 800($10.00) MS points.
The games will be limited to 150 MB file size.
The games can allow players to play over Xbox Live.
All games will have a free demo.
All games will have trailers.
Games will not have achievements.
The developer of the game will receive up to 70% of the revenue (MS take is based on advertising and promotion, the more they promote the game -> the more money they take)

I already have the ability to make incredibly simple games like pong and breakout with XNA and honing my skills this year could see me making actual money in game development by the fall! How sweet!

Lightning Ride

So lately I have been reading a lot about hybrid and all-electric cars and I think I really want one. The major problem is that there aren't any good ones available in Canada. My favourite is probably the Tesla Roadster but I also just read that Mini is going to release an all-electric version, but of course it's only in the states and maybe even only in California. Stupid California getting everything awesome.

I also like to read AutoBlog Green every now and then to see what's up with "green" vehicles.

Retrospectives

If you have absolutely nothing to due and need something to kill some time I highly suggest the video retrospectives over at GameTrailers.com. Basically they are recaps of all the games in a specific series. There are ones for Mario Kart, Zelda, Final Fantasy, Metroid and even Star Wars. I don't know who it is that narrates them but his voice is right up there with Alan Cross. Definitely check them out if you have the time cause they are an excellent read? watch? time...(I guess that works).