My Xbox 360 finally experienced the dreaded Red Ring of Death (RRoD). Over the last few weeks my 360’s been randomly freezing-up while playing Dead Space. It crashed/hung more and more frequently until I couldn’t run the console for more than 10 minutes without locking up. Many times it froze on the boot screen and initially I didn’t get the classic Red Ring of Death.

I called Microsoft support, expecting to have to pay for a warranty repair. Happily, while the support rep walked me through his trouble-shooting script, the console displayed the Red Ring of Death for the first time. I was able to boot the 360 a couple more times after the first RRoD, but it inevitably failed to the Red-Ring-of-Death state within minutes or seconds.

The reason why I’m happy about this, is because I was one of the ‘lucky’ ones that acquired the 360 at launch  – November 22, 2005. Microsoft’s extended RRoD warranty lasts three years from the date of purchase. My 360 RRoD’d just days before the third anniversary of my purchase date. As a result, I qualified for the free replacement.

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A few days ago I pulled the power cord on my TiVo Series 3. As I’ve done several times recently, I was taking my Series 3 to a friend’s house to see how many over-the-air HDTV channels TiVo could receive in his neighborhood. Embarrassingly, when I got to my friends house, plugging the S3 in yielded only a a soft, staccato tick, tick, tick. Later, at home, I removed the cover and isolated the ticking as coming from the power supply. Happily, a quick Goggle search lead me to this Weaknees trouble shooting page where I identified the sound as a classic sign that the TiVo’s power supply was caput. A few emails back and forth with Weaknees support and I was off - ordering the replacement power supply for $99 USD and having it shipped overnight via UPS to Canada for another $49.52 USD. Replacing the power supply was simple and took only 5 minutes. Anyone can do this.

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Below are the fall 2008 video game releases that I’m most looking forward to:

• Max Payne 3 – Only Rumoured, but the Mark Walberg movie comes out Oct 17. Max Payne 1 and 2 were two of my all-time favourite games. (Oct 17?)
• LittleBigPlanet (PS3) – Who isn’t looking forward to this one? (Oct 21)
• Resistance 2 (PS3) – I enjoyed Resistance 1 much more than I expected. (Nov 4)
• Gears of War 2 (360)– What’s not to love? Can’t have too many COGs. (Nov 7)
• Mirror’s Edge – Looks like pure platforming fun like Crackdown was. (Nov 11)
• Tomb Raider: Underworld – I hope they finally get frame rate issues resolved, every Tomb Raider to date has made me nauseous within a half hour. (Nov 18)
• Prince of Persia 2008 – This one is looking like its getting back to its excellent PoP: Sands of Time roots. I wasn’t a fan of the intervening PoPs. (Dec 2)

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The biggest ‘news’ out of Sony’s E3 press event earlier this week was the U.S. launch of the previously announced Playstation video service. Sony, Fox, MGM, Lion’s Gate, Warner, Disney, Paramount and Turner Entertainment have partnered with Sony to provide movie and TV content for the on-demand download service. The system uses progressive downloads so users can watch as a movie/TV show as it downloads. Sony says content is playable a minute or so after ordering. Purchased content only plays on PS3 and PSP. No PC, iPod, iPhone or other device support was announced. No word yet on whether rentals will be available for viewing for longer than the usual 24 hours.

Note: While the previous announcement stated that a service like this would be made available ‘world-wide’, I checked my PS3 in Canada and there was no such content available. Note the “video” button circled in red in the picture above (click for larger view). If it isn’t there, no movies for you!

[Update from Dave: Blogsphere chatter indicates the PlayStation video network won't hit the UK until 2009.]

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Rogers has announced its (and its subsidiary Fido’s) long awaited Canadian 3G iPhone data plan pricing. Unlike AT&T and other carriers around the world, Rogers is not offering an unlimited data plan option. Rather it is tying rather stingy tiered data plans to tiered voice plans at considerably higher prices than charged in Europe and the United States (see here). Here’s the details:

• Minimum 3 Year Contract (AT&T requires only a 2 year contract)
• $199 for 8GB 3G iPhone; $299 for 16GB (same as U.S.)
• No Unlimited Data Plan. Rogers offers the following mixed monthly voice/data plans:
  • $60 - 400 MB Data - 75 outgoing SMS - 150 minutes*
  • $75 - 750 MB Data - 100 outgoing SMS - 300 minutes
  • $100 - 1 GB Data - 200 outgoing SMS - 600 minutes
  • $115 - 2 GB Data - 300 outgoing SMS - 800 minutes
• $6.95 monthly system access charge on top of data plans. (AT&T does not charge a monthly access plan but does charge a one time $36 activation fee)
• All Rogers plans include unlimited:
  • evening and weekend minutes
  • access to Rogers and Fido Wi-Fi hot spots (typically coffee shops)
  • incoming SMS messages.
• ‘Subsidized Only’ There is no option to purchase the phone at full value to avoid the 3 year minimum contract (something prohibited in some European countries and under review by the U.S. FCC)

*Minutes are weekday minutes. Rates do note include $15 or $20 a month for options such as Caller ID, more text messages and call forwarding.

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As beautiful and cutting-edge as Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3) is, after making it past the laughing Octopus stage in the second act, I abandoned the game, at least for now. This surprises even me. I have been waiting for years to play this game, but the lack of a decent checkpoint system and endless cut scenes turned me off.

Poorly Implemented Checkpoints

You cannot save MGS4 when you want and it’s checkpoints are few and far between. Adult gamers do not have endless hours, nor the desire, to replay extremely long portions of even a great game over and over.

When I play stealth games I want to be stealthy and play it right. This means taking my time, exploring every nook and cranny. Being sneaky. But when I sneak around for 30 minutes, successfully execute difficult maneuvers and then die, I do not want to play through the whole 30 minutes again. No game should ever force a gamer to replay more than 5 or so minutes. Period.

Yes, I could have cheated and run through sections with abandon, gunned down everyone until killed, thereby learning where all the baddies are and what their tricks are, to avoid them on the next play through. But I refuse to do that. That’s gaming the game and not playing the game. It takes all the fun out of it.

Stealth games, by definition, are designed to be played thoughtfully and slowly. The player should have a realistic chance of beating a level if they play that way. But, when they die, as they will, they shouldn’t be forced to replay the last thirty minutes or an hour to get back to where they were.

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Wimbledon 2008 starts today and runs to July 6 and I discovered that Wimbledon provides a two week ‘Wimbledon Live‘ service. For a flat fee of $24.99 you can stream live matches to your PC or download up to 250 matches in .wmv format after the match is complete. Matches will be available until May 1, 2009. Day passes will also be available but so far I haven’t found pricing details.

As usual, my TiVos are queued to record as many matches as TSN and NBC air. But, all too often, matches that I want to watch are not broadcast. Or, too frequently, certain channels have exclusive rights to particular high profile matches with the result that they are not shown on the channels that my cable provider, Rogers, makes available to me!

All video is in 384 x 288 with a 4:3 aspect ratio. I took a quick look at the free streaming demo of the 2005 Federer vs. Roddick Wimbledon Final. The quality wasn’t great (see pic above), but it wasn’t bad either. Because the service only works with Windows Media Player, the it’s not available to Apple users and, presumably, not available through AppleTV.

Note: In addition to the free streaming demo, I tried the free downloadable version but it would not play without having to first sign up and give them my credit card. This kind-of defeats the “free” part of the ‘Download (FREE)’ offer.

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