Saturday, April 04, 2009
At Last (Take Two)
I had hoped to spend the afternoon enjoying some beautiful pink cherry blossoms with some friends, but it turned into a nasty, rainy day. So I bought an Xbox instead.
"what, what WHAT?" you say? No doubt you recall the near panic Mako flew into earlier this year when she thought I was playing too many games. Perhaps you also remember my repeated laments about Mako all but forbidding me from buying an Xbox 360 because we already own a PS3. Well I'm not sure how it happened but today she abruptly caved.
Whenever we go to the electronics store I always kid her that I'm going to pick one up. I do it just because her reactions are so funny. Sometimes she does a double-take, sometimes she just says "OK, right after we sell the PS3." Either way we both end up giggling. But when I made the joke today, she looked at me and said it was OK. I needed to negotiate a little bit (promising not to buy a new phone or PC this year) and I had to convince her that the base model which lacked a hard drive was not suitable for my needs, but otherwise she let go of all her past complaints with surprisingly little resistance.
When I decided to buy a modern gaming console last Spring, egged on by the shininess of Grand Theft Auto IV, I chose the PS3 over the Xbox because it offered free DVD & Blu-Ray playback as well as free online play. I was also encouraged by its general absence of region-locking, a practice that essentially ruined what little fun I was having with my Wii. I do not regret making that choice as I continue to play my PS3 regularly. Indeed, I played it this afternoon and managed to earn two more silver trophies in Resistance 2. Yet the more I read about the world of video games, the more I came to covet the Xbox as a means to access a greater variety of experiences. In particular, Left4Dead and Braid were two games I had briefly gotten my hands on and I knew I wanted more.
I bought the console at our local electronics outlet (the same place where I bought my PS3) and I was surprised to learn that the unit included two free games. Not just throw-away kiddie software either like in the US, but games I've actually heard of. I got Ace Combat 6, a game I can recall from the old PlayStation 1 days, and Beautiful Katamari, my first chance to play a Katamari Damacy game. Of course, even with the freebies I still bought Braid right away.
Which brings me to my next point: I was immediately impressed by how easy it was to set-up the Xbox, register my gamertag and start buying games online. It seems the system was not as hampered by region-locking controls as I once feared. I was able to set my country to "United States" and enter my US banking card information (complete with New York City address) without any silly restrictions or roadblocks. I was then able to visit the US Xbox Marketplace and browse the English-language software. So far the process is even easier than using Steam, a PC gaming platform that refuses to accept payment in dollars or even sell me certain games because they are not available in Japan. The Xbox is all too eager to accept my money, which I guess I should be worried about if I weren't so happy to just get what I want when I want it for a change.
It remains to be seen what problems may occur when playing disc-based software as it is no doubt more restrictive, but if the Xbox is at all like the PS3 I should be able to buy Asian-version games with full English support and a lower price tag. However, I did get to play the Katamari game in English even though the disc is Japanese. It seems that it smartly detected my language settings and simply booted up as such.
So i had a pretty good day. For the first time in years, I have a full set of video game consoles so I don't have to worry about exclusives anymore. In the end, I think it's sad that the system I bought first and was the most excited about is the only one of the three that isn't even hooked up anymore...yet the Wii is far and away the most popular video game console in the world right now. Weird.
"what, what WHAT?" you say? No doubt you recall the near panic Mako flew into earlier this year when she thought I was playing too many games. Perhaps you also remember my repeated laments about Mako all but forbidding me from buying an Xbox 360 because we already own a PS3. Well I'm not sure how it happened but today she abruptly caved.
Whenever we go to the electronics store I always kid her that I'm going to pick one up. I do it just because her reactions are so funny. Sometimes she does a double-take, sometimes she just says "OK, right after we sell the PS3." Either way we both end up giggling. But when I made the joke today, she looked at me and said it was OK. I needed to negotiate a little bit (promising not to buy a new phone or PC this year) and I had to convince her that the base model which lacked a hard drive was not suitable for my needs, but otherwise she let go of all her past complaints with surprisingly little resistance.
When I decided to buy a modern gaming console last Spring, egged on by the shininess of Grand Theft Auto IV, I chose the PS3 over the Xbox because it offered free DVD & Blu-Ray playback as well as free online play. I was also encouraged by its general absence of region-locking, a practice that essentially ruined what little fun I was having with my Wii. I do not regret making that choice as I continue to play my PS3 regularly. Indeed, I played it this afternoon and managed to earn two more silver trophies in Resistance 2. Yet the more I read about the world of video games, the more I came to covet the Xbox as a means to access a greater variety of experiences. In particular, Left4Dead and Braid were two games I had briefly gotten my hands on and I knew I wanted more.
I bought the console at our local electronics outlet (the same place where I bought my PS3) and I was surprised to learn that the unit included two free games. Not just throw-away kiddie software either like in the US, but games I've actually heard of. I got Ace Combat 6, a game I can recall from the old PlayStation 1 days, and Beautiful Katamari, my first chance to play a Katamari Damacy game. Of course, even with the freebies I still bought Braid right away.
Which brings me to my next point: I was immediately impressed by how easy it was to set-up the Xbox, register my gamertag and start buying games online. It seems the system was not as hampered by region-locking controls as I once feared. I was able to set my country to "United States" and enter my US banking card information (complete with New York City address) without any silly restrictions or roadblocks. I was then able to visit the US Xbox Marketplace and browse the English-language software. So far the process is even easier than using Steam, a PC gaming platform that refuses to accept payment in dollars or even sell me certain games because they are not available in Japan. The Xbox is all too eager to accept my money, which I guess I should be worried about if I weren't so happy to just get what I want when I want it for a change.
It remains to be seen what problems may occur when playing disc-based software as it is no doubt more restrictive, but if the Xbox is at all like the PS3 I should be able to buy Asian-version games with full English support and a lower price tag. However, I did get to play the Katamari game in English even though the disc is Japanese. It seems that it smartly detected my language settings and simply booted up as such.
So i had a pretty good day. For the first time in years, I have a full set of video game consoles so I don't have to worry about exclusives anymore. In the end, I think it's sad that the system I bought first and was the most excited about is the only one of the three that isn't even hooked up anymore...yet the Wii is far and away the most popular video game console in the world right now. Weird.
Labels: Braid, PS3, Resistance 2, video games, Wii, Xbox
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