There are times when you hear something 'official' and just go...."wat", because it just seems dumb in some manner. Whether because it's unnecessary, perhaps 'too early' or just plain confusing, you're left with a certain sense of dissatisfaction because you see this big company doing something so dumb. But, thankfully, they make good fodder for when you have nothing else in mind to post about.
I guess a good place to start is with Sony, who's certainly no stranger to confusing and/or awful announcements. Just today in the Comic Update post, it was announced that it would actually be the last PSP comic update, as the Comic Team is going to be focusing on bringing the comic service to 'other Sony devices'. Like, y'know, the PS3. Which isn't confirmed, of course, but come on. Now, I'm sure I don't have to point out the 'wat' here, as it's fairly self-explanatory, but I'll go ahead and single-out the 'Why'. Clearly, the comic store isn't dead, as it's branching out onto other things, like, clearly, the PS3 and hopefully the Vita. (Possibly Sony e-Readers as well? Seems logical enough, I mean.) The thing about this is that it's very confusingly written.
They point out that it's the 'final update for digital comics on the PSP', but don't say that it's the final update of the comic store, which suggests when it's on other devices, it'll update again. Is it....not going to update on PSP, but update on PS3? I would assume mentioning PSP and then going to say it'll be on other devices, suggests PSP-only meaning further updates to the Comic Store will be put out for all participating devices (inclusing PSP), otherwise the '4,000+' library ain't gonna cut it for anyone who wants in. You can buy a comic in a series hoping you'll see the rest of them up in case you like it, but there's very few people who will buy into an incomplete/fully unpublished series knowing what you see is all you get.
Perhaps I'm overly reading into it and applying a little bit too much optimism in the face of such a flub, but I'm not prepared to suggest a service that will never again see an update will be released on other things for the simple fact that there's '4,000+' things to pick from. Like I'm wont to say, however, time will tell, I guess.
Moving on to another of the Big Three, let's head on over to Nintendo, who has been letting a little bit more and a little bit more information slip out about the Wii U lately. It's not all bad, but taken together, it isn't really painting that great of a picture here. Maybe. I guess it kind of depends on a few things, most of which are your opinions, which I'll explain about after I sort things out here.
So, first off, Reggie Fils-Aime, President of Nintendo of America as we all know, went out and said that the Wii U will offer 'Flexible' online functionality to developers/publishers. He's also on-record as saying the sky 'might' be 'a color', and water 'may' be 'moist'. (I'm not going to link Air Quotes again. You all will just have to deal.) Okay, he might not have said those last things, but come on, 'flexible' is one of those "I'll be so vague so I can sort of make this sound okay regardless" terms we're all so familiar with. Essentially, the point to get out of this note is that you're not going to get a PSN/XBL situation with the Wii U, like you don't have with the Wii and you...well, you kind of have it on the 3DS, I think. So I don't know where the hell the backstep came in.
Anyways, here's the second point here that will lead into the -big- point from these two pieces of information. Satoru Iwata (I'm not going to remind you who he is, you know this) just let everyone know in an interview with Mercury News that the Wii U will support 3D through 3D TVs (And glasses), but, of course, Nintendo themselves won't be 'focusing' on it. Obviously, since they've been bleating about how Glasses-Assisted 3D is 'doing it wrong' to push the technology of the 3DS. While not a major issue in itself, I do find it kind of funny, the thought of playing something in 3D through the Wii U because of the glasses, not only because that's exactly what Nintendo doesn't want, but because what happens if you switch to the tablet? Will -that- support 3D? I'm going to venture a guess as to, uh, 'no'.
So here's where I kinda go ahead and unify the point. And this is more of a personal agenda of my own here, so you can safely skip this paragraph if you really don't care. As we all know, I love the PSP, so all the reasons people throw out as to why the PSP isn't 'worth it' or that 'it sucks', well, I remember them. And one of the big things I always hear about the PSP at some point is that 'it tried to do too much' without really 'focusing' on any of it, which I never really understood. Especially when you consider that the DSi ended up doing everything a PSP could do, more or less (took on a web browser, music/movie playback, etc, -plus- added a camera and photo manipulation). They more or less akin it to 'throwing as much shit in a box as possible for bullet points', which, hey, kind of sounds like what's going on here. Offering support for something that you've railed off against in a way especially so. Not that we have to worry about the Wii U's success, I just take issue with people grumbling about the PSP and then lapping it up when Nintendo does it.
Anyways, one other topic that'd been floating about the internet this week was regarding this new Senate Bill 978, which, from its origins, really doesn't have anything to do with us as gaming people. The law was made to target people who stream movies and/or post movies up on youtube in parts, as well as TV shows, possibly music even. Nothing that we haven't seen here, nothing we really have to contest, honestly. The problem lay with the bills wording of using the blanket term "copyrighted materials", which, as we know, is pretty much everything. There's all sorts of tenants to the new bill and, basically the hoopla was about the idea that, under the law were it altered to conform to the bill, Let's Plays and Video Walkthroughs would become illegal and punishable with prison. Which, I guess, technically could be true, I don't really know. That's the issue, really, is the vagueness.
However, Nilay Patel over at This is My Next seems to think nobody really needs to be worried. And after reading that, I'm not about to blame him, since he seems like he knows what he's talking about. His detailed break down of it, which presents the biggest point, that the law isn't making anything newly illegal and is simply increasing the punishment for what's already illegal, seems reasonable enough and the rest of the points serve only to support it. Regardless of anything of course, at this point it's merely a bill and though it has support from, well, every movie company ever, it might be deemed unfit to actually be made a law, or it could always be immediately contested. At the very least, that's one reason to love the American Legal System: nothing ever gets done because it takes forever to do something.
.....Wait.
Anyways, that's about it for this news dump. I kind of feel weird making a post with absolutely no pictures, but I hope it's not a deal-breaker. Hey, if nothing else, I can always fish out a few things to put here and there to break up the wall of text.
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