The folks at Games Radar decided to reshoot the title sequence for the movie The Naked Gun using clips from Grand Theft Auto IV.
And in the spirit of the current political season, the makers of Saints Row 2 [coming later this year] offers the following clip that compares and contrasts their product with GTA IV. Mmm...sewage trucks.
Now that Grand Theft Auto IV is out, I've been wondering what the next big video game will be. Spore promises to be big if only because the game's designer, Will Wright, has a history of making games that are massive hits [e.g., SimCity and The Sims]. I am extremely excited about Fallout 3, first because the teaser trailer was astonishing and second because the game is being designed by the same team that made Oblivion.
There is a third game I've added to my "okay, this could be cool" list: Mirror's Edge. Scheduled to be released around the same time as Fallout 3, Mirror's Edge is a first-person action-adventure video game that focuses less on shooting and more on interacting with the in-game environment. The following trailer from GameTrailers.com shows you gameplay footage of what Mirror's Edge will look like.
The second video deconstructs the trailer, pointing out some things you might have missed.
Color me intrigued.
Take one of the most beautiful video games ever made (a game that holds a particular place in my family's heart), add a soundtrack by Dvořák, and re-render the game's landscape using the absurdly powerful CryEngine and you end up with the following. I defy you not to be moved.
Fast on the heels of the online release of Nine Inch Nails' totally amazing digital album "Ghosts I-IV," NBC Universal and Fox today announced the public release of their hulu.com television- and movie-streaming website. The site lets you watch complete episodes of televison shows, both current [e.g., 30 Rock, Family Guy, House] and classic [e.g., Adam-12, The Bob Newhart Show, Welcome Back Kotter], and full-length Universal and Fox movies [e.g., The Big Lebowski, The Jerk, The Usual Suspects]. Short clips are also available for many popular television shows and movies.
While hulu.com offers full seasons of many classic television shows [e.g., Firefly, Ironside], it only has the newest episodes for current shows [e.g., the first eight episodes from The Office season four.]
For those who are afraid that the goons from the RIAA or MPAA will kick down your door and cart you away for watching hulu.com's bootleg television shows or movies, rest easy. The television shows and movies are not bootlegged. Hulu.com is owned by NBC Universal and Fox, and those companies placed their copyright-protected content on hulu.com in the hopes that you actually WOULD watch it.
Now for the really amazing part. Hulu.com is completely free. There is no charge to watch any of the site's streaming television shows and movies. How is this possible? Simple: advertisements. According to Advertising Age
Hulu is running traditional 30-second ads in long-form video -- albeit with only 25% of the ads one might have to sit through while watching TV. When it comes to short-form video, Hulu allows a 10- to 15-second video overlay, which viewers could click if they want to interact further with the advertiser. [Source: http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=125646]
In other words, if you watch a television show at hulu.com, expect to see a 30 second commercial before the show starts and then another 30 second commercial at each regularly-scheduled commercial break. Think TV, complete with ads, but on your computer screen. If you ask me, that's a small price to pay for free content.
March is turning out to be a really cool month.
News from Tokyo this morning:
Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses
Company Remains Focused on Championing Consumer Access to High Definition ContentTOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.
HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.
“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called 'next-generation format war' and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. "While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality.”
Toshiba will continue to lead innovation, in a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies. The company expects to make forthcoming announcements around strategic progress in these convergence technologies.
Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.
This decision will not impact on Toshiba’s commitment to standard DVD, and the company will continue to market conventional DVD players and recorders. Toshiba intends to continue to contribute to the development of the DVD industry, as a member of the DVD Forum, an international organization with some 200 member companies, committed to the discussion and defining of optimum optical disc formats for the consumer and the related industries.
Toshiba also intends to maintain collaborative relations with the companies who joined with Toshiba in working to build up the HD DVD market, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation and major Japanese and European content providers on the entertainment side, as well as leaders in the IT industry, including Microsoft, Intel, and HP. Toshiba will study possible collaboration with these companies for future business opportunities, utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD.
Back in January I wrote the HD DVD/Blu-ray format war is over and Blu-ray won. It looks like Netflix agrees. Netflix just announced that they will "move toward stocking high-def DVDs exclusively in the Blu-ray format."
I have two predictions:
Stay tuned.
Videos like the following make me thankful that the Internet exists.
If you missed yesterday's Macworld keynote, or if you would rather not spend 90 minutes watching the full video, the folks at Mahalo Daily have condensed Job's presentation into a much more time-efficient 60 seconds [well, one minute and 49 seconds if you include the intro and outro]:
