It's fun to imagine that we do not traverse the Land Of Isolated Phenomena, but are instead bending the wild wheat of trend country.

Dan "Shoe" Hsu's manifesto of sorts and his somewhat brutal interview with Peter Moore seem to be coming from a similar place:  what he thinks the role of  the gaming journalist is.  Dan actually went in there and asked the sorts of questions you see every day online, in the indecorous language of the hardcore forum.  I don't know if the industry is actually rigged up to handle this kind of interplay.  Watch them spar over whether or not Peter Moore actually called for a re-review of Kameo.  See the crazy setup they build that leads into the backwards compatibility concerns.  You simply haven't read anything like this.   

Absolute as the barrage is, it doesn't really penetrate the fortified enemy position.  Moore is on message the entire time, and as the Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Retail Sales and Marketing for Microsoft's Home and Entertainment Division it's his job to create and project brand messages so I suppose he can be forgiven.  It genuinely appears to be candor, until you hold it up to the light.  I'd like to know the actual answer to a question like "what worries you about the PS3" without hearing about how he's growing marketshare or something.  It is my assumption that he wants to grow marketshare. 

He is in marketing.  

The idea behind launching the 360 months before the competition was, of course, to stake out a claim.  While that did happen, what has also taken place is that the entire burden of the next generation - the perception, the promise, etcetera - rests on those sports titles that developers could get ready for launch.  I know people who only play Geometry Wars on their box, and they seem perfectly happy with this state of affairs.  I've no urge to rouse them from that state. 

The machine is going through a kind of adolescent period at the moment, a chain of events exacerbated by the rigors of next-gen content creation, and in two or three months none of this will matter.  There's nothing to compare the Xbox 360 to, except hopes and wishes I guess, ideals to which physical objects have historically fallen short.

(CW)TB out.

'til she got her hooks in him

Well ThinkGeek sold through more than 1000 of our books over night. That’s all they actually had so they are sold out for now. They have another 1000 on the way though and they are accepting orders for those. They will ship on Wednesday of next week from what I’m told. They’ve ordered even more from Dark Horse and it looks like that shipment will be available online around February 2nd.

Apperently tons of you are also purchasing the book through Amazon which is just fine by me. Amazon is saying that our book is ranked 261 in sales which I’m super proud of. As a side note, Jack Thompson’s new book is ranked 127,855. Feel free to ZOMGLOL.

We’ll be at the Comic Stop in Lynwood on Wednesday the 25th for a book signing. They’ll have about 400 copies on hand. Here are the details.

January 25th | 6pm-8pm
The Comic Stop - Lynnwood
3333 184th St. SW, Suite G
Lynnwood, WA 98037

We’ll be doing another signing on Saturday the 28th. Here are the details for that one.

 Saturday, the 28th.
Barnes & Noble In Crossroads Mall
Noon to 2 PM
15600 NE 8th St.
Bellevue, WA

We’ll actually be giving away 25 copies of the PA card game and 25 copies of the PAX 05 DVD at this signing. Those will go to the first 50 people to show up so keep that in mind if you’re interested in either of those things.

We’ve been fighting to get this book out for years. Plenty of you are aware of the legal bullshit we’ve had to deal with regarding our print rights. It’s been a five year fucking battle to get this book made. But we did it. The book is out there now and you guys are buying it. This calls for a fucking celebration. Lets all go to the Olive Garden! Someone make reservations for a hojillion…and a high chair.

-Gabe out

The open beta for HOMMV got pushed back it looks like, all despite the rituals performed and the auguries...  Well, I guess you would augur those.

(CW)TB

We put CDs from a couple bands we like up on the store, right now that means Optimus Rhyme and MC Frontalot.  Probably be a few more up there eventually. 

(CW)TB