We’ve all heard of starving arts. Well what about starving game developers? It looks like that may be the new phrase in the UK. The French already have a tax credit of 20% off the total cost up to $3.91 million a year for a game with a cultural value. It looks like there are more to come in the UK.

My question, is this a good thing? Could we see games change over time, if the government is able to get their hand in on the action? Who knows we may even see a game where the French save London.

You can find the article at Businessweek.

Hey all of you in Xbox land! Any of you guys considering purchasing the Elite? If so, there are a few things that haven’t been mentioned very much that you need to know.

Remember when your original Xbox 360 died on you, and when you got a replacement, the arcade games or videos that you had purchased would only work when you were signed into Xbox Live? I’m afraid we arent out of the woods just yet…

Go to www.majornelson.com to see a walkthrough for the Elite, kindly presented by Major Nelson, Albert, and the always lovely Jen. Albert mentions that transferring your data will in fact cause the issue of requiring internet connection to get access to the full version of those old files. This isn’t a problem for most of us, being as we always want to be connected, but sometimes, there’s an exception. A Friend was talking to me about this a couple weeks ago, and brought up that he’ll let his kids play his 360, but doesnt want them going online. This is understandable, considering some of the jerks we come across online. The only trouble here, is that his kids wont be able to play the games he had purchased on his original system.

Is there a way for Microsoft to fix this problem, maybe through a system update? Nothing is impossible, I just hope there isn’t some wormhole preventing this solution from becoming a reality.

-The second thing you should know, being as it is integral to the comment above. The Elite system does not include the transfer cable that you need to transfer your data. I would say that this is a major problem, however, Microsoft is going to make this cable available to owner’s of the Elite, for free, from their website. “Why couldnt they have just included it in the package?” you say. Three reasons I can come up with off the top of my head.

1. Lack of free space in the box.
2. The majority of Elite adopters will be first time users, so this is presented as a useless throw-in.
3. If they only release the transfer cable to those who need it, they can save money.

The fortunate thing is, while we do have to wait for the cable to arrive in the mail, we can still use our 20 gig harddrive. Thanks again to Larry, Albert, and Jen for finally debunking the mystery that is the Xbox 360 Elite. It has at least given us a guide to help us determine if we should upgrade, or if we should stay with our trusty Premium and/or Core system.

-Cypher

EMI Group will soon sell digital music with better sound quality and no digital rights management restrictions through Apple’s iTunes Store.
EMI’s entire digital music catalog will be available in premium DRM-free form via iTunes in May, the music label said Monday at a press conference in London.
Higher-quality music files, which will play on any computer and any digital-audio player, will not replace the copy-protected EMI music currently sold through iTunes. Rather, they will complement the standard 99-cent iTunes downloads and will be sold at a premium: $1.29 per song.

Consumers who have already purchased EMI tracks containing Apple’s FairPlay copy protection will be able to upgrade them to the premium version for 30 cents, EMI said. Full albums in DRM-free form can be bought at the same price as standard iTunes albums.

“We are committed to embracing change, and to developing products and services that consumers really want to buy,” said Eric Nicoli, chief executive of EMI. Nicoli cited internal EMI tests in which higher-quality, DRM-free songs outsold its lower-quality, copy-protected counterparts 10-to-1.
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Premium black console includes 120GB hard drive and line of new accessories.

REDMOND, Wash. — March 27, 2007 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the upcoming availability of Xbox 360™ Elite, a new model of the video game and entertainment system that will include a 120GB hard drive, a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) port, a high-definition cable, and a premium black finish for the console, wireless controller and Xbox LIVE® headset. Xbox 360 Elite has enough space for a library of Xbox LIVE Arcade games and thousands of songs, as well as downloadable high-definition TV shows and movies available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace. The new 120GB hard drive also will be sold as a stand-alone accessory to give current Xbox 360 owners greater choice and flexibility in their games and entertainment experience. Additional Xbox 360 Elite accessories, such as the black Xbox 360 Wireless Controller, Xbox 360 Play & Charge kit and the Xbox 360 rechargeable battery, will be available separately. The Xbox 360 Elite and its accessories are expected to begin arriving in U.S. stores on April 29.
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When the Zune first came out I did a review on it, it was a pretty favorable review, with nothing really bad being said about it, and if your interested here is the link. But after a few weeks of owning it and screwing around with it, I started to notice a disturbing trend, it was shutting off on me for no apparent reason out of no where. I even has it shock me through the ear buds once while listening to podcasts at work, wasn’t to thrilled about that. So what I did was I wrote another post about that to see if anyone else noticed a trend like this and this was what I got. But that was the last Zune story that I have wrote and I had a lot of people ask me what has happened with my Zune, so I figured I would write an update on it.So I stuck with my Zune for a couple months because I really wanted it to work but all I was doing was delaying the inevitable, I ended up returning it. It was a several reasons and now I’m going to go into them. First 3*3, the 3 plays 3 days thing is retarded, it really is, if I own the rights to something, ie The XBL Radio Podcast, I should be able to share it as much as I want with the receiver getting to play it for as long or as many times as they want, for MS to put there own drm on my music is a bunch of crap. The fact that I couldn’t share videos was another thing, why does the Zune have Wi-Fi if we can only use it for certain features, the Wi-Fi capabilities was way to locked down. Another Wi-Fi thing that sucked was I couldn’t find anyone else with a Zune to share music with in the first place. Nobody I knew had a Zune except for some MS employees, that was it, everyone I new either had a iPod, Zen or a Sansa.

Another huge issue I had was podcasting, as a podcaster I need to have the ability to download podcasts quickly and easily like with iTunes, and that is so not happening with the Zune. I had to have 2 extra programs running for my podcasts, I used Juice for my audio podcasts, its a pretty good program which allows autotagging and a bunch of other features but it had issues with my video podcasts so then I had used the program called FeedYourZune for my video programs, you can also download audio podcasts with this one but I didn’t like the features on this one too much, plus this was a huge memory hog. So now I have to have 3 programs running at all times for my podcasts to be on my Zune, there was the slow and bulky zune program too. All this to do what iTunes has always done for me.

Now one of my favorite things about the Zune was the large screen, but what good is a large screen if its not being used? iTunes has movie and tv downloads but the Zune, not so much. If you want video on your Zune you have to go elsewhere to get it, not through Microsoft but either though things like video podcasts, direct downloads or by buying video converting programs to get videos on your Zune right. And even then its not always effective. I had many videos that would work on a iPod that the Zune program wouldn’t even put it on my Zune. And while we are talking about buying videos, lets talk about buying other things for the Zune. Lets talk about the Zune marketplace and what a disaster it is. First I friggin hate buying things with MS points, all that does is make you forget that you are wasting real money on downloads, and a perfect example of that is the marketplace for the Xbox 360. Microsoft had a perfectly good music store with there Urge store, they shouldn’t have abandoned that for the Zune, stupid move I thought.

So like I said at the beginning of this post, I returned my Zune. In fact I returned it and I picked up an iPod which I’m very happy with, ya the screen is not as big and it doesn’t have crippled down Wi-Fi, nor fm radio (so far the only thing i really miss), but it does have a brighter screen plus about 12 hour battery life, which is a lot more then the Zune. It had podcast functionality built in to the software and it also allows tv and movie downloading.

There you go, now you all know. And I will not be jumping on the Zune bandwagon again till MS fixes all the things wrong with it and really I won’t even now about it unless they also send me a demo unit because I’m also not spending money on another Zune again. I hope this will help future Zune buyers in swaying there decision as well because I do not want you guys to have to go though what I had to go though.

BTW, do you know that with every Zune sold Universal gets a royalty because they figure that you are stealing music? How crappy is that?

The video marketplace, Microsoft’s newest tool to get you to spend those MS points, seems underwhelming at best. I am an avid movie viewer. I watch 2 to 3 movies, on average, per week. Example: This week I rented and watched; How to Eat Fried Worms & World Trade Center. Both films were “New Releases”. Neither of which I could get on the 360 Marketplace. So if I want the latest releases, I won’t want to cut up my Blockbuster membership card just yet. So whats the problem with launching a service that only offers up a limited supply of past t.v. shows and month (if not years) old films? Here are my impressions of whats wrong with the Video Marketplace:

1. JACK BLACK must be the majority shareholder of Xbox media:

First it’s Nacho gamerpix. I can’t join one game of UNO without playing against 4 Nacho avatars. I wouldn’t mind but at least make a patch where I can limit the amount of Nacho avatars to 1 per game session.

Then there is the HD DVD with the special release of KING KONG. Has anyone not seen this film yet? And givin Jackson’s past DVD release schedule; by the time you watch the HD KONG there will be a newer release on store shelves with NACHO remastered as the heroin in the film.
Then the Artist of the month is Tenatious D. Hmmm are we sensing a pattern here?

2. If MS can’t get their own content on; what hope is there for us?

My kids are not big fans of Viva Pinata the game. However they did enjoy the short t.v. episode that came with the game. While scrolling through the Video Marketplace at launch I stumbled upon the Viva Pinata section. I clicked to download (for the kids) and nothing was there. Not even the premier episode. So I figured they were busy with the other content. Two weeks later (and a new 360 I might add) I tried again to get the Viva Pinata show for my kids. But now the entire Pinata catergory has vanished. I can’t locate it under t.v. shows, family, or even all shows. I guess they are waiting until Jack Black makes a voice over as one of the characters before they invest any time into the episode downloads.

So to sum it up:

Let’s hope Jack Black has a good year. Let’s keep our rental memberships. And lets remember it’s not who was 1st to do it (video on demand) rather it is: Who will be the 1st to do it right. So far it isn’t MS. Just ask a Pinata! (Don’t ask Jack Black!)