Beware of GIANT REGGIE FACE!!!

You can not escape Giant Reggie Face, feast your eyes on its giantness, also check out Nintendo's release schedule, since chances are you have a DS or Wii that you've only bought a few games for, and was wondering if anything else worth buying was coming out for either of those systems.

(for a wildly successful system, seems odd so few Wii releases for the USA in 2009, they must be cooking up plenty more, just not ready to announce)

I'm Filling Up My Hard Drive, Just for You . . .

. . . OK, not really filling it up, and besides there's two more where that first one came from, but I am recording FOX all day, their Super Duper Califragilistic Sunday seems like an interesting experiment, so I was going to record the whole thing and look for interesting moments. First interesting moment so far . . .



Nothing says political or football coverage that should be taken seriosuly like a couple of Hooters Girls playing Madden on Wii.

People who complain about Fox News, just don't get it, they don't care that they aren't taken seriously all the time, they know how to have fun, and they know how to tweak their critics. Roger Ailes is a freakin' genius (of the evil variety, at times, but genius nonetheless).

(Were they inspired by the topless Wii playing (and NSFW) Nuts Girls?)

Wii Stuff, Let's Talk Virtual Console

I'm a big fan of the VC. I like being able to download fairly inexpensive versions of classic games from the 8bit and 16bit era (and even the Nintendo 64 games, which while 64bit weren't really much more advanced than the 32bit PS2).

So far I've downloaded Super Mario 3, which I didn't pick up first time around, so it's new to me. It's a fun take on the original, with lots of twists, it's probably the apotheosis of Miyamoto designed side-scrolling action.

I've also downloaded Tecmo Bowl, cause it's Tecmo Bowl, and anyone who knows what that means know how important of a game that is (screw those fancy-schmancy people with their Tecmo Super Bowl). It's a shame that the tiny pixellated players and teams aren't identified by their real world names anymore, retired players aren't under the NFL license exclusive to EASports, but guess Tecmo and Nintendo didn't want to negotiate with all the individuals. But I know that when I play Denver, the QB is Elway, even if he's not identified in this version, and I know that if I play as Los Angeles (which is basically cheating in this game), their RB is utterly unstoppable, just look at these real world examples from back in the day. I was still a Raiders fan back then, it was pretty easy to be in those days.

The last downloaded game, I haven't tried yet, but it gets crazy good reviews and has topped more than one list of best games of all time, so I figured it was worth $10 to sample.

Now they just need to support external hard drives so that they can offer larger games for download. Sega is supporting Virtual Console games, and I'd love to see Dreamcast games available, but they're probably too big for the current flash based storage set up. Let me hook up a 250gb hard drive, and I'd be happy to download reasonably priced Dreamcast, Gamecube, more expansive new WiiWare content, and maybe some really accurate arcade ports from the golden era all the way up to the late 90s. I know you can do it Nintendo, make it happen already.

Only Some Manifesto Thumping Marxist Could Think This Is a Bad Thing . . .

. . . or someone who really wanted to get a Wii this weekend and were thwarted in their attempt. Over at Kotaku they compile the listings of Wii consoles by hour on Sunday, and there seems to be a massive spike of Wiis on eBay directly corresponding to the flood of Wiis made available by retailers on Sunday.

The commentariat (for the most part) over at Kotaku decry the greed of the eBay sellers while they also sneer at the folks willing to pay the steep price.

Screw that, I think capitalism kicks ass, the purer, the more uncut, the better. I think the folks who bought the units speculatively in hopes of getting a quick $100-$150 profit per console purchased may find it harder than they hoped. Nintendo claims a production of 60,000 Wiis a week, and I'm guessing that they are sending a huge chunk of the Wiis they make to the US market during the holiday season. The retailers held back a few weeks of Wiis so that they could have enough in each store to run an ad for the Wii this week. Most likely about 120,000 Wiis or so sold on Sunday, so the 15000 or so that ended up on eBay represent 12-15% of the total number sold. The eBayers are hoping that the other 100,000 or so didn't soak up the rest of the demand, but even though the Wii is a 'hot' item at the moment, I doubt it's that hot. A lot of folks will be willing to wait to mid January or February to get their hands and one, and find some other propitiation for their sweet little offspring during the Winter Solstice Festival of Consumerism (aka Christmas).

I bet there will be thousands of Wiis still available on eBay as of this Friday, December 21st. Some sellers will just give up and give it to somebody they know, others who bought multiple units in hopes of big profits will take them back to the retailer and lose nothing but their time, others will hold out, hoping that the Wii will remain undersupplied compared to demand for quite sometime, and hope that people didn't go for the auction out of fear of missing Christmas delivery.

But however you slice it, the eBay phenomenon and the ability for private parties to act as more effecient middle men on a national scale has been a great thing for people looking for goods, and has been great for the economy, only a commie would think otherwise (or an exasperrated parent who waited in at Target for hours and still wasn't able to pick up a Wii this Sunday).

Random Bloggeriness . . .

Some random non-sport related thoughts (this hasn't become a sports blog, just seems like it), for no reason in particular presented as bullet points.

• Yes, I'd hit that (pardon the vulgarity, but that would seem to be the consensus amongst straight males when confronted with the photos in question).
• So Iran stopped actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program around the same time we invaded Iraq, but those on the left are insistent that it was European finger wagging and tut-tutting that lead to the Iranian reversal and not US military might. A mostly infuriating discussion on the matter can be heard on this edition of To the Point, Victor Davis Hanson can be heard briefly, while a slightly more fleshed out version of his thoughts can be found on his website. The host of To the Point, Warren Olney, likes to pretend to be unbiased, but conservative commenters tend to get short shrift and the received wisdom of liberal MSM-land rarely challenged and is often presented as accepted facts, even when the 'facts' aren't facts. How Hanson is handled in the linked program is one example if you pay attention.
• Surfers are crazy, though once every few decades high surf in the area is an awe inspiring sight.
• The Futurama direct to DVD film, Bender's Big Score (really 4 episodes strung together to be shown on Comedy Central next year) is a huge disappointment. Call backs in TV shows are a time honored tradition and are, in moderation, a way of rewarding fans. But when you construct an entire 4 episode story arc that amounts to one call back after another, it feels like a clip show rather than new material. Rather than rewarding longtime fans, you're just boring them with stuff they already know. Also, I hate, hate, hate time travel as a story hook. It's always a bad idea.
• I was in a Best Buy in the morning and they just received a shipment of Wiis when I walked in, the rush to pick them up was impressive and shocking. It's the 'hot' present again this Christmas despite being out for better than a year. Who knew "fun" beats "graphics" as a selling point for a gaming console (and a lower price helps). I blame Nuts and their topless birds playing Wii clips (a safe for work Gizmodo link to the NSFW clips at the link).
• I upgraded my phone and got one of those silly bluetooth headsets in anticipation of the new Hands-Free mandate for CA drivers that goes into effect next year (the law doesn't go into effect till July 2008) so I might as well get used to looking like a total douchebag. I pledge here to not yell loudly into my headset while walking through the supermarket, or sitting next to you in a restaurant, or while waiting to order at a coffeehouse, or while using a urinal. All bets are off if I find myself near Larry David, I'd pretend to have a loud and bizarre conversation just to see if he'd really do what he did on his show.
• Are you making a list for Festivus, and are you checking it twice?

More British Birds Without Much Clothing On . . .

. . . this time it's in the form of a little game.

Daily Mail had an article written by an improbably named woman who used to edit Esquire (Rosie Boycott), and she was complaining that the depiction of scantily (or completely unclad) clad women in the current generation of "Lads' Mags" was more demeaning and reinforcing of inequality between the sexes than her more tasteful and equality affirming depictions of hot women with little covering. Her article doesn't just attack the mags, though, she's also critical of young women for willingly exploiting themselves, and confusing freedom with sluttiness (or is that sluttiness with freedom?).

I'm not going to argue the merits of her argument, I'll just link to it. Reading the article I noticed that one of the most popular (and raunchy) of the "Lads Mags" NUTS, has just started a TV channel. They also have a website at Nuts.tv.

There's a variety of video and content aimed at the young male Brit audience. They've got lots of discussion regarding "footie", some stuff about "gear", and of course, plenty of young women, plenty uncovered.

Speaking of largely uncovered women, this series of videos featuring two well endowed women playing Wii topless is fascinating. There are four (NSFW) videos (part 1, 2, 3, 4), in each you are supposed to guess which sport they are playing on the Wii. It's not too hard to figure out. Wii Sports is the pack-in game with the Wii console and has five sports represented. You can figure out four of them by watching the videos (or just follow the wiki link), but there are only four videos in this Nuts series. I guess they figured their audience wouldn't be interested in watching these two young women play baseball (even topless). Damn provincial of them, don't they know they might attract audience over the web from baseball lovers as well?

This is 'tease' rather than porn. Still rather juvenille, and silly, but it definitely has its place within the media landscape.

Also, to rate the titillation factor of each game, I'd rank boxing lowest as the guard position limits the view, and I'd rank golf the highest, as the ready position for a golf swing (at least as performed by the women in the video) is pleasingly provocative.

Another thing, the popularity and link love sites like Daily Mail and Nuts gets outside of their home market presents a challenge to marketers. The adverts (since we're talking UK, I'll use the UK word for ads) are still aimed at the UK market, even though I'm linking from a USA based ISP. If they want to leverage their non-home market traffic, they need to find a way to serve ads that reflect the home market of the viewer, rather than the content provider. The technology is there, and because of the frequent Drudge links, the US traffic for Daily Mail is high, so US based advertisers would be smart to send some dollars Daily Mail's way.

There's a big revenue stream just waiting to be exploited.