G4 TV - TheFeed - Other People's Misfortune

Seinfeld to Shill for Microsoft

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:44:00 -0700

Multimillionaire comedian Jerry Seinfeld will be joining a new Microsoft ad campaign set to take aim at Apple and their recent barrage of "I'm a Mac. And I'm a PC" ads attacking Vista and Microsoft in general.

And just as Dave Thomas did with his own Wendy's restaurant ads, Bill Gates, ex-Microsoft Megaboss, will appear in the ads with Seinfeld. For his part in the $300 million campaign said to be taking a shot for younger consumers, Seinfeld will be receiving a supposed $10 million. Nice. "Let's pick the guy who had a successful sitcom that old people liked 10 years ago to hock the Zune, then all the kids'll be down with buying mp3s from zuneTunes. They won't be able to resist."

Also up for the starring $10 million role were Chris Rock and Will Ferrell who would seem to be a better choice for bringing in younger folks to the Microfold. Seinfeld, we're not so sure.

Hit the jump full speed for a sample script of the first ad.

SPOT ONE
INT. WHITE ROOM - DAY

JERRY STANDS NEXT TO BILL EQUIDISTANT FROM THE EDGE OF THE FRAME.

Jerry: Hello, I'm Jerry Seinfeld.
Bill: And I'm a PC.
Jerry: Ha, but seriously. What's the deal with Apple?
Bill: Yeah, it's almost like they want to make everything easy.
Jerry: Yeah, what's the deal with user-friendly interface, UNIX architecture, and not getting viruses, like ever?
Bill: I don't know Jerry. But check this out.

BILL REMOVES A ZUNE FROM HIS POCKET.

Jerry: What is the deal with that?
Bill: It’s the new Zune and you can download all your favorite Black Eyed Peas, Insane Clown Posses, and Timbamans mp3s for 98 cents a download.
Jerry: 98 CENTS? What's the deal --

BILL PUNCHES JERRY IN THE LARYNX.

Bill (mocking): What's the deal with "the deal?" (turns to camera) zuneTunes. Get the hippest. Get the dopest. Get the zunes!

LOGO SPLASH WITH SLOGAN "Get the Zunes!" :: CUT TO BLOW

EXT. STREET - LATER ON

JERRY SLUMPS ON A CURB IN A SPRAY-PAINTED AND COOL-LOOKING URBAN AREA, HEAD IN HANDS. BILL APPROACHES.

Bill: It hurts me to hurt you, Gerald. Don't make me do it.
Jerry: I'm sorry, Billiam. I honestly just want to know the deal. No one ever tells me the deal!
Bill: I know. BILL SITS. We'll find the deal… (to camera) while America and select international markets find great deals at zuneTunes!

LOGO SPLASH :: FADE TO BLACK

Source

Warner To Potter Fans: 'We Share Your Love'

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:45:00 -0700

To all the disappointed Potter fanatics, Warner Bros. share their sympathy for you. After pushing back the anticipated Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince movie to July 2009, studio president Alan Horn released a statement today regarding their decision. Here's an excerpt:

"Please be assured that we share your love for Harry Potter and would certainly never do anything to hurt any of the films. Over the past 10 years, we have nurtured and protected each film, and the integrity of the books upon which they are based, to the best of our ability. The decision to move Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was not taken lightly, and was never intended to upset our Harry Potter fans."

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was directed by David Yates.

But don't worry Potter fans, the video game counterpart is still set to hit stores this November.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince the video game, published by Electronic Arts, will arrive in stores this November 11 for the Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, PSP, PC, Macintosh and Nintendo Wii. The DS version will arrive earlier on November 1.

Nugget From The Net

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 07:56:00 -0700

The Blue Screen of Death can hit anyone, anytime. Above are rock band Nine Inch Nails having some...technical difficulties.

Source

Kevin Gets Overshaved

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:50:00 -0700

Ever have one of those moments when you're hosting a live cable show when you wonder that your co-host may be going a bit too far? Happens to us all the time. It starts with the beard and then things get out of hand.

And what about you, dear reader, would you let O-Munn come anywhere near your beautiful mane with live clippers?

Watch Larger Version of this Video

Tecmo CEO Yoshimi Yasuda Resigns

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:35:00 -0700

The company behind Ninja Gaiden 2 and the Dead or Alive series announced today that Yoshimi Yasuda, CEO of Tecmo, has resigned from his position.

Citing "personal reasons", the company said that Yasuda's request was confirmed in today's board meeting. Tecmo chairman Yasuharu Kakihara will now take Yasuda's former position. The recent troubles with former Team Ninja leader Tomonobu Itagaki weren't mentioned in connection with Yasuda's departure.

Find out everything you need to know about the Tecmo/Itagaki feud.

Source

Follow-up: 'Transformers 2' Posters Fake

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:06:00 -0700

Earlier this week, we posted a couple Transformers 2 posters that we said could be real. Our commenters, because they are smart, responded with a resounding "Fake!!"

Good call, commenters. The posters are fan art made by D4rkShaDoWz, who obviously rocks at creating plausible posterage.

Brit Must Pay 30k For Pirated Game

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:14:00 -0700

How much would you pay for a copy of 3D Dream Pinball for the PC? Like eight bucks, maybe? Try $30,000. That's the fine being levied against a woman from Great Britain who distributed the game illegally. Isabella Barwinska of London was ordered to pay that fee by a U.K. court in a test case that could open the floodgates for similar suits against thousands of Britons suspected of sharing games.

The company that makes the game, Topware Interactive, first identified file-sharers with the help of British computer companies, then sent letters demanding 300 pounds in exchange for the shared game. Some users, including Barwinska, chose to fight rather than pay--maybe not the best idea.

One thing is for sure: We hope Barwinska really digs computer pinball--the game got a truly awful 63% rating on Gamerankings.com, so we doubt it's worth tens of thousands of dollars to all but the biggest pinball fans.

NeoGAF Bans 'Too Human' Creator, Denis Dyack

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:09:00 -0700

Remember when Too Human (Xbox 360) creator Denis Dyack bet the internet that Too Human would be a good game and that a majority of gamers would like the RPG game?

Seems like things have gotten out of hand over at NeoGAF since the original bet was made, and Mr. Dyack has managed to get himself banned from the gaming forum.

Will the game live up to Dyack's hype? Find out tonight on an all-new X-Play when Adam and Morgan review Too Human. Tune in to G4 at 8PM ET.

Want to see the message written by NeoGAF moderator EvilLore? It's full of anger! Internet anger!

He writes:

As Confucius once said, “the photoshop cat juggles a ball of yarn, and unravels it all over his face.” You are Baldur, Denis. You’re the poorly animated bald Norse technogod, the Übermensch with a thousand pointless book references misunderstood by the dirty proles who aren’t worthy enough to judge you.

Your favorite Nietzsche quote, “he who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster,” is one you’ve fallen victim to yourself, if your opinion of this site is to be taken to heart. In these pitiable confrontations with us you’ve proven to be the monster of gaming development, a sore on the industry and a squanderer of your subordinates’ time and effort. Through all this, through this self-inflicted PR nightmare, you’ve conquered vast new frontiers of unwarranted hyperbole and desperate pseudo-intellectual grasping. Buy an unaccredited doctorate, change your given name to Derek, and take up the reins; Derek Smart would eagerly defer to the greatness of Dr. Dyack.

What is an appropriate action to take in response to the man who continues to post here? I won’t be tolerating a second retconned “social experiment,” a second call for NeoGAF’s closing, or a second “worst forum” insult. You decided to ignore the option for real terms for your pointless tag bet, so with the majority of reviews condemning your magnum opus to mediocrity I’ll claim a suitable prize by telling you to get the hell off NeoGAF.

OUCH. Ice burn. It's always an odd day when a forum moderator unleashes this much hate on a legitimate game developer.

Source

World's Largest Record Collection For Sale

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:18:00 -0700

The world's largest record collection is valued at over $50 million and the owner, Paul Mawhinney, is trying to sell it, but no one will make a serious offer near the current $3 million price tag. The collection houses over 3 million records and 300,000 CDs.

You have to watch the incredibly sad and well done docu-short below the cut to fully understand what's going down.

The Archive from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.

A quick jaunt around eBay for records confirms further that analog is slipping away and no one cares. We're setting ourselves up for a huge cultural bottoming out if we continue to go virtual with everything and while people may not understand the importance that this collection represents now, it will become apparent in 30 years when none of our cds work and all of the mp3s we bought have been lost to dead drives and DRM.

It's like people throwing out the Roman statues because the Greek copies are newer and appear to be sturdier or burning books because everything's up on Wikibookia or Google Books (see news item from the year 2021.) What are we going to do when the sun explodes and all computers are destroyed leaving only analog music to be enjoyed? Bust out the reel-to-reel?

Source

Nugget From The Net

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:08:00 -0700

We have every reason to think the below Cash For Gold commericial is legit, but we can't quite believe it.

Pulling your gramma's teeth out for gold? That's just cold.

iPod Nano Explodes While Charging

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:53:00 -0700

It seems that iPod Nanos have been recruited by the extremists and have become suicide bombers. One Apple enthusiast was charging his first-gen Nano via his PC USB cord when shizz got serious and things exploded:

"After being plugged in for somewhere between 5-10 minutes I heard a sizzling sound. I looked down on the iPod just in time to see it explode open and start shooting sparks and spewing smoke... I had noticed that a small fire had started on the table I had the laptop and the iPod sitting on... Unlike in other cases, I've read about, my iPod continued to spew smoke and spit sparks while throwing out some kind of sooty substance from the inside of the iPod for several minutes after removing the cable from the computer. I moved the still spitting iPod from the table and placed it on a book case across the room."

Did Skynet just go online or something?

Source

Pandora Closing Music Box Soon?

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:29:00 -0700

Say it ain't so.

The uber entertaining "music genome project" website, Pandora, may soon shut down due to risks of copyright infringements and the cost of digital music distributions from big record companies.

Founder Tim Westergren said that the site's funds are constantly depleting because of royalty fees. "We're approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision," said Westergren according to the Washington Post report. "This is like a last stand for webcasting." Pandora averages about one million listeners per day and its new iPhone application (aside from being awesome) is one of the Apple's top 10 most downloaded applications.

And he mentions "webcasting" because other radio music sites are in the same situation as Pandora. This year, Westergren's site has to fork over 70% of its projected $25 million revenue for royalty fees. Although there are current negotiations happening between webcasters and music companies that could eventually lower the fees-per-song, Westergren said that his music site will be "done" if investors fail to see any profit from it. Tis' a sad tune indeed.

Source

U.S. Comes in 15th Place for Broadband Speed

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:08:00 -0700

The United States ranks 15th in average broadband speed among the world's nations according to a report from the Communications Workers Union. Japan leads the world with an amazing 63 Mbps while the U.S. averages 2.35 Mbps. Other broadband superstars include South Korea at 49.5 Mbps, Finland with 21.7 Mbps, and Canada in 8th place at 7.6 Mbps.

This means a download, such as a feature length film that takes 2 minutes in Japan, will take, on average, 2 hours in the U.S. The Japanese are easily able to stream movies in full surround sound and if that doesn't make you jealous, you're on the wrong web site.

On the money tip, U.S. users are paying more for their broadband services than in some of these other leading countries. Thanks to telecommunications companies focusing more on the flashy parts of promoting their services, they've allowed the infrastructure to fall behind and actually get slower as they cram more customers into the same tubes.

Of course part of this sad shortcoming is due to the fact that the aforementioned countries don't have nearly the rural square mileage that the U.S. has. It's harder to build up the necessary lines in spread out areas where there is less return on investment for upgrading. State to state, the best average is in Rhode Island with a paltry 6.8 Mbps while Alaska comes in at 0.8 Mbps. Ouch.

Dammit, Japan! Always cooler than us. Stop doing that!

Source

Netflix Reimburses Customers After System Glitch

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:19:00 -0700

Netflix recently had their own "late fee" issues this week. A critical technical malfunction affected several of its distribution centers, apparently caused by their own guys, which held up movie shipments for about a third of their 8.4 million subscribers.

Today, as their system was finally fixed, Netflix will be giving a 15% credit to the customers who were affected by the company's technical delay. According to company spokesman Steve Swasey, the reimbursement should be seen on the customer's next billing statement.

The three day incident was reportedly the company's longest service disturbance since its first establishment in 1997.

Source

The PS3 That Will Save A Thief's Family

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:16:00 -0700

Is there some sort of klepto-trend going on with the PS3? First, there was the dude who bought a stolen PS3, then now there's another pilfered system--this time to save a family. No really.

A man in an EB Games video game store, located outside St. Louis, pulled a gun at the clerk and demanded a Playstation 3 to save his family. According to the report, the man said his family was held hostage somewhere and the only way to guarantee their safety was to obtain Sony's hardware. Before the man fled the scene, he told the clerk to call the police and alert them about his family's situation. Umm..

Blu Ray saves the day?

Source

17% of 'GTA IV' Purchasers Were Under 17

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:47:00 -0700

According to a Nielsen survey, 17 percent of Grand Theft Auto IV buyers were under 17. Among the 17 percent that were underaged, 61 percent bought it themselves and 39 percent had a friend or relative do it for them.

Rating games is becoming similar to rating movies. All it does is serve to placate conservatives and people who can't help but tell you how to live your life. No one at the point of purchase cares how old the customer is and the only people who want to enforce the laws are the out of touch fools that push them through.

So, what's the point? While it's obvious that these measures are doing nothing except generating press coverage for games, are they ever going to understand that ratings do nothing except anger intelligent, discerning customers who know what's best for themselves and for their kids.

Source

Activision Fires Back At Music Industry

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:36:00 -0700

In response to Warner Music's unsatisfactory performance, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said that the company is not "respectful of how much we've done to bring new audiences into the market."

Warner Music chief exec Edgar Bronfman Jr. said that music titles such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band have a "very paltry licensing fee", that contributed to their $9 million loss last quarter. Kotick added in the Financial Times interview, "We're introducing a whole new group of artists to new audiences that is resulting in their iTunes downloads being exponentially higher than they would otherwise be, [as well as] new album sales and new merchandising opportunities."

It looks like we won't be seeing any Warner Music artists - such as Green Day, Depeche Mode, Led Zeppelin - featured in Guitar Hero anytime soon, as Kotick said, "We're going to favor those publishers that recognize and appreciate how much we can add value to their artists." There is a positive side to that though, as Warner Music is currently in charge of one "musician" we certainly don't want to see in any music game - Paris Hilton.

Source

iPhone 3G Glitches Caused By Faulty Chip? Fix On The Way?

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:56:00 -0700

Some users have been experiencing problems with the iPhone 3G when it comes to steady data connections, battery life, and dropped calls. Industry insiders believe this could be due to a faulty chip manufactured by Infineon Technologies, a German company based in Munich.

One of the biggest issues being reported by consumers is trouble hanging onto a 3G connection. This is also causing dropped calls as the phone has to transition from 3G to Edge. Some reports put the iPhone 3G's dropped call rate between 2% and 3%, while the carrier average is only 1%.

Apple and Infineon have not commented on the issue, but AT&T went on record saying, "Overall, the new iPhone is performing just great on our 3G network."

Do you think so?

There are disagreements over where the source of the problem actually lies and we won't know anything until Apple or Infineon tell us, but let's look at some of the possible causes.

The first possibility is that the Infineon chip is not made correctly for the performance that the iPhone demands. Although Infineon supplies 3G chips to other manufacturers like Samsung, experts believe that the chip is not sufficient for the iPhone 3G and the content that iPhone users are consuming.

Another possibility is that Apple's software is too strict on the Infineon chip for determining if there is enough 3G bandwidth available. Basically, Apple's software could demand a stronger signal than it actually needs, which would cause the iPhone to drop down to Edge.

Let's hope that Apple's software is the problem because it would be easily fixable in a firmware update. If the Infineon chip is flawed in some way, we're looking at a potential recall situation.

BusinessWeek: What's Behind the iPhone 3G Glitches

'Rock Band' Canceled In Australia?

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:31:00 -0700

According to an unnamed, retailer source brought to you by IGN, Rock Band may never see the light of day in Australia. It's not the content either: Reportedly, retailers down under aren't interested in stocking a big, bulky videogame with fake instruments when Guitar Hero World Tour is coming out in a few months to take up their shelf space.

Rock Band 2 appearing there is in doubt as well for the same reasons. If so: Major victory for Activision's Guitar Hero franchise. We'll let you know when/if we hear anything else.

IGN: Rock Band Dead Down Under?

Activision Lays Off Over A Hundred Employees

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:15:00 -0700

A bunch of employees from Radical Entertainment and High Moon Studios have been laid off by parent company Activision Blizzard, according to various reports. Almost 100 employees at Radical Entertainment and 60 High Moon Studios workers were stripped away from their duties permanently.

Radical human resources VP Leah Rubin said this regarding the situation:

"Activision Blizzard is committed to making the best games possible and has elected at this time to reduce the number of titles that Radical is developing from four games to two. Therefore, we will be proportionately reducing the size of our studio."

Correction: Thanks to ShackNews, it has been clarified that both Crash Bandicoot: Mind Over Mutant and Prototype titles are not cancelled by the studios. So, expect these games to still arrive.

Most of Radical Entertainment's staff were working on Crash Bandicoot: Mind Over Mutant and the open-world action title Prototype, ~~which will be imminently cancelled due to the "proportionate" employee reduction~~. High Moon Studios was reported to develop a sequel to The Bourne Conspiracy, but Ludlum Entertainment obtained the license once again last month.

ShackNews: Reports: Activision Firing Significant Staff at Multiple Studios, Cancelling More Games