Netflix Launches in Canada–With the Cupboards Bare

This week, Netflix launched its long awaited and much coveted Netflix Canada service. Unfortunately, the content selection cupboard is mostly bare. The limited offerings (and lack of DVD service) explains the $7.99 Cdn per month price. The minimum monthly fee that Americans pay for their Netflix service is $9.95 U.S.. For that they get a …

Cost Components that Make up a Typical Video Game’s Retail Price

What are the cost components that make up the retail price of a typical video game? Put another way, how much does each participant in the video-game development / distribution chain get? I get this question all the time. In this presentation to Columbia University students, Steve Perlman, OnLive’s founder, both demos the OnLive system …

Silent Hill Homecoming is Unplayable – No Y-Axis Inversion

Reviews: Metacritic 73%| Game Rankings 77% Reference: Achievements| Walkthrus:  WikiCheats | GameFAQ   | Mahalo Developers: Konami | Double Helix Games Genre: survivor – horror Status: Abandoned after escaping hospital As explained in my “Video Game-induced Nausea, Dizziness and Headaches” post, I had to abandon Silent Hill Homecoming due to nausea caused by the inability to …

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames – Abandoned Due to Nausea

Reviews: Metacritic 73%| Game Rankings 72% | zero punctuation Reference: Achievements| Walkthrus: Mahalo |  WikiCheats | GameFAQ   Developers: Pandemic Studios | Pi Studios Genre: Third person shooter Status: Abandoned after first level As a shooter fan, I was looking forward to Mercenaries 2: World in Flames. Unfortunately, I had to abandon it after the first …

Star Wars: Force Unleashed

  (3.5/5)  Reviews: Metacritic 72%| Game Rankings 72%  | zero punctuation Reference: Achievements| Walkthrus: Mahalo |  WikiCheats | GameFAQ   Developer: Lucas Arts Genre: Action-Adventure Engine: Ronin, DMM, Havok and Euphoria Pros: engaging story – music – excellent auto-save points – genuinely fun – first rate physics – achievable achievements – fair Cons: some camera issues …

Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black (2000)

  (3/5) sci-fi, thriller While I enjoyed Vin Diesel in Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Boiler Room (2000), I became a fan after watching his unexpectedly good performance in xXx (2001). In 2004 I discovered, Vin Diesel’s cross-media Chronicles of Riddick franchise after playing the terrific Xbox video-game Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher’s Bay …

E3 2008 Sony: Movie-TV Service Launch – Not Much More

  Sony Movie and TV Service: The biggest ‘news’ of the Sony press event was the U.S. launch, today, of the previously announced (see here) video service. Sony, Fox, MGM, Lion’s Gate, Warner, Disney, Paramount and Turner Entertainment have partnered with Sony to provide movie and TV content for the on-demand download service. The system …

E3 2008 Nintendo: Wii Music, Wii Speak, MotionPlus, Wii Speak

And nothing happened. Nothing captured my interest and certainly nothing was announced to satisfy the hard-core gamers. New Products Wii Speak: A microphone that sits atop the TV that picks up all the sounds and voices from a room. This will be used in games in lieu of a headset. But the Wii doesn’t have …

E3 2008 Microsoft: New Dashboard, Netflix, Final Fantasy XIII

(Click image to watch abridged version of Microsoft’s 2008 E3 press briefing) [Full Microsoft E3 2008 coverage is here] A new Dashboard Interface for the 360: It’s coming this fall. [ Watch demo here]It’s nicer than, but seems influenced by, the PS3 ribbon. It looks like it will be easier to use than the current …

Battlefield: Bad Company – Diary #1

Diary: Entry #1,  Reviews: Metacritic | Game RankingsReference: GameFAQ | Developer: EA DICE, Engine: FrostbiteStatus: Finished “Welcome to Bad Company” (the intro level) Pros: Boat load of shooter fun – Immersive – Humorous – Destructible environment – Terrific death/penalty system – Save points therefore a non-issue – Very good graphics/character models – Difficulty Level is …

Wimbledon Live – Stream or Download Wimbledon 2008 Matches

Wimbledon 2008 starts this Monday June 23 and runs to July 6.  I just discovered (ironically through an adsense ad on The Daleisphere) that Wimbledon provides a two week ‘Wimbledon Live‘ service where, for a flat fee of $24.99 (approx.  £12.65) you can stream live matches to your PC or download up to 250 matches …

iTunes Movie Rentals Come to Canada

Starting today (press release), Apple Canada is making movie (and some TV show) downloads available to Canadians through the Canadian iTunes store. Apple says 1200 titles are available at launch, including 200 ‘high-def’ titles. Despite Canadian dollar parity, as usual Canadians will pay more per rental ($4.99 for new releases, $3.99 for older titles) than …