Silliness

There is silliness afoot.  Silliness that is almost painfully stupid to encounter, and yet so inherently polarizing that it is just one of those things that you will never, ever be able to discuss without a vehemence showing up on at least one side.  It is a stupid argument, it is apparently big news lately, but that is the most I'm going to mention it.  Yes, I realize passive-aggressively talking about it is still talking about it and it's rather self-defeating, but we can't just brush this sort of thing off.  Neither, though, can we let ourselves be taken in and taunted with this obvious bait from folks who just don't know any better, unfortunately.  We can't play into the obvious traps and, at this point, the smart play is simply to express the correct amount of disgust and annoyance and simply move on for now.  As a diversionary tactic (which is what this is), all it requires is that it takes the heat off the point for long enough that everyone just moves on with nothing different because of it.  So, let's just move on.

I'm fairly sleepy tonight because of various things and that certainly doesn't help matters.  Following work, I lay in bed for an inordinate amount of time, worrying that I'm going to catch the thing that is going about.  I snoozed a little, but ultimately woke up once more, eager to actually do something.  Which means I debated whether to play Persona 4 Golden (as I have yet to beat it yet) or pop in Assassin's Creed 3:  Liberation to get a rough approximation of its charms, as Game of the Year voting time is upon us.  I have a couple games that I need to crunch with yet, despite the slight 'cheating' air I feel about it, and AssLib is one of those titles.  At the same time, however, I still really like Persona 4 Golden, and want to finish it, lest I fall out of the groove I've pleasantly run myself into.  I only have a little bit left, so I believe powering through it is what I will do, and hopefully I'll be enjoying stabbing mans before the weekend is up.

I briefly considered sharing a couple new songs I've been listening to as of late, but that will be a thing for another night.  For now, I'm simply going to enjoy said songs while looking over my notes for a short story I'm writing.

Oh, right.  I didn't mention that.  I am writing a thing.  It is probably going to be pretty good.  Depending on how it turns out, I might turn a few excerpts into posts here to share, but that too is a thing for another night.  This night is for the wonderful sounds of foreign pop music and yawning, apparently.  Because goddamn if I am not really still tired.

Bonus Post - Things To Do If You Can't Play a PS1 Game on Your Vita

So, it seems like you are one of the folks that have a Playstation Vita, apparently solely for the purpose of playing PSOne Games and the 1.80 Update has infuriated you because how dare they sell you something that won't play something that you bought in the past, but only in digital form, of course, since it would just be silly to buy a physical game and expect to own it on all formats forever and ever, right?  Well, since everyone is incapable of thinking of anything to do beyond playing PSOne games currently, I have taken the liberty of compiling a nice, handy little list of things you can do, perchance while you await your chosen game to become compatible through means that are befitting your tastes.  So, by all means, take advantage of this, because clearly this is a big deal.

• You could always take to Internet forums and complain about it incessantly!  The fun part of this choice is that you get to feel good about yourself afterwards, of course.  Make sure to point out how you hate feeling like a Second-Class citizen, because that's not disingenuous at all when you're talking about Video Games of all things.  And don't forget to constantly insist that Sony has absolutely no idea how to do anything while you're scrolling through the pages of your Vita, possibly looking through pictures that you can set as your wallpaper, listening to songs and looking for other sites to complain to through the use of the browser.  All at the same time.
• If you're looking to be entertained regardless, you could always bring up the Youtube app to watch some lovely videos.  Some recommendations would be Kaseius, Helloween4545 and Klyka1 for a rather full range of hilarity of different origins and different game coverage.  While I may not be fully happy with the Youtube app, it serves well enough, which I can attest to from being glued to it near constantly.  Of course, since you are so mad at Sony, don't forget to point out that it's just stupid that you can't play youtube videos in the browser, and if there's any videos that you just can't watch, well, that's their fault too, nobody else's.  I mean, it's not like they designed around Flash Mobile and then Adobe pulled out of supporting that just months prior to the Vita coming out or anything.  No, nothing sensible like that.  Just allllllll Sony.  Their bad.  Totally.
• Make some sandwiches.  Why?  Because sandwiches are delicious.  Also, apparently a lovely way to pass the time.
• Play something else.  Sleeping Dogs, for instance, is fantastic, and I'm told Darksiders 2 is pretty great as well.  Maybe even play your PSOne game of choice on your PS3 or PSP if you have one.  Yes, this is assuming you have another console of some sort, but how many people out there only have a Vita?  I'd suggest not many.  Many others will as well.  Of course, they will be a lot snarkier about that fact than I.
• Take up a hobby.  Might I suggest writing a Blog?
• Play something else from the past on your Vita.  Sure, PSOne games of your choosing might not work, but there's a very respectable PSP Library out there.  If you need some suggestions, perchance to take a look at this picture for what I have currently downloaded.
• Alternatively, and I understand this is a wild suggestion, but I'm just throwing this out there:  Play Vita games -on- your Vita!  There are games for it.  This may surprise some of you out there, but I have photo proof of this above.  Were I richer man, there would be more bubbles, but I am not and thus must wait to grab some other games I want.  Games that exist.  Are tangible things.  Right now.

This will be a tough time for you, I'm sure, but I hope that my handy list has offered you a few things to do while you wait for the thing that you bought to be able to do more things than it could when you bought it, but you are still somehow entitled to.  Because there's absolutely nothing amazing on a basic level of buying something that will eventually do much more than you probably anticipated it would be able to do based on how it was when you bought it.  Absolutely not.  Take heart and be strong, however, because your time of waiting will probably be short.  Of course, if it isn't, well, that's what the list is for, anyways!

Enjoy!

Ubisoft: 'We Want New Consoles!', Won't Develop For Them

I was really really hurting for something to talk about tonight because there is just fucking nothing noteworthy going on.  I've spent all my free time today watching a Let's Play of Dark Messiah and Magic (precisely three episodes) which is fantastic, but not exactly something to write about, and there is just nothing in the news.  At least, nothing that instantly grabbed me.  It was only after I slowed down and started re-reading headlines that I got that look that you only get when you're being given something that's almost too good to be true and then you discover that it is, indeed, true despite all conventions of how it just shouldn't be so.  Like common sense in this case, which will make more sense when I get more into this, but just as an opening, I wanted to stress that this is pretty much too good to not talk about because it's hilarious on the conceptual level if nothing else.  I at least to make that point abundantly clear if nothing else before the end of this post so you can -get- where I'm coming from.

So in an interview with Gamesutra or something, Ubisoft's CEO, Yves Guillemot said that it's time for new consoles because, and I quote, "it's important for the entire industry to have new consoles because it helps creativity."  Also going so far as to say "We have been penalized by the lack of new consoles on the market," because, as inferred, new consoles = creativity flourishes, whereas long console lifespans = stifling creativity.  I'm sure there's a very elaborate diagram of this exact process and it's not Grade-A Bullshit coming from his mouth and all.  I mean, it's not like there are more things that define how creative something can be than how new the thing it's on is or anything.  Snark aside, I kind of understand what he's really saying which is no less terrible here.  Basically he's just saying that new IPs are a good thing to launch on new consoles because there is usually a vast wasteland of absolutely nothing on them so your game, your new IP, tends to get noticed by virtue of a lack of choice.  It is...shrewd at best as a statement to make, but well, it's nothing really surprising, I suppose.

Here's where it gets funny, however.  You know that thing you just read, about how they're basically hurting for new consoles at this point to get the creativity wells going?  Yeah, just fucking throw that out the window.  I like to imagine it was during the same interview, but it wasn't, as he apparently said "we don't have a huge investment in the Wii U" during an investor call.  There is literally only nine hours between the posts, I want you to realize that.  While I understand there is a process to gaining and writing about information and such, so these were likely at least statements made on different days, I like to imagine that there was just immense amounts of backpeddling going on because it is hilarious to me.  Regardless, that's not the point; the point is that he basically said, "New Consoles breed Creativity" and then turned around and pointed out that they're not really doing a whole lot with the new console that is coming out.  Pretty much just a new game in an established franchise and the reboot of a twenty-six year old game.  (Oh yeah, btw, I realize the screenshot above is from before the name/genre/theme shift where Killer Freaks from Outer Space became ZombiU, that is because there are no ZombiU screenshots that I found and I'm not going to go looking for them since it is probably the exact same game with new skins.)

So let's drop the pretense here:  Ubisoft doesn't necessarily want New Consoles, but really just the PS4 and NeXtBox (which is a lot more appealing to me than calling it the 720.  Though it might just get called the XBox 8, what with the integration with Windows 8.  Nobody cares.) which isn't too bad to want, really.  Obviously, I want a PS4 more than I want the Wii U and I'm sure plenty of people want the NeXtBox instead of the Wii U as well and it's all about the familiarity bred by this generation that could probably only be shaken by a prohibitive barrier of entry ala PS3.  Do I think that Ubisoft will actively develop -more- for the two consoles than the Wii U?  Absolutely, unless the market shifts towards the Wii U which nobody honestly knows how that's going to pan out, least of all Nintendo who don't seem to rightly know what they're actually doing with it.  I imagine smart money is on the same trend that it's been forever: Buy Nintendo product for Nintendo games, buy something else for everything else, but hey, who knows.  Nintendo might finally win over the third parties with this one.  Or they won't and it won't matter whatsoever still.

Is there anything really gained here?  Probably not.  Always fun to point out the double-talk and ultimately unfortunate statements that are made within a short window of each other, but while some things can be gleaned from these, it's ultimately not indicative of anything.  It is also kind of important to point out that Wii U ports from PS3/360 games to the system have cost something just north of $1.2 million, when Rayman Legends and ZombiU, native titles to the system, cost less than that.  Maybe.  Again, this is coming from the same guy who wants new consoles but openly admits to not doing much with said new console.  Which is just hilarious and also bad timing all things considered.  That is about what we get when there's nothing else that can be considered news, of course, so I hope the humor that I saw at least made it out to be at least somewhat worth it.  Because, really, it's just funny.