Infinite free respawns never felt so good? Kevin Tofel, of jkOnTheRun, shares his Dragon’s Lair thoughts and pics.

Ah, 1983. A time when I was waiting for my growth spurt, had no gray hair and could often be found in an arcade or pounding away on my Commodore 64. I enjoyed all different game genres in the arcade: I didn’t discriminate on which machine was worthy of a quarter. However, I was always drawn to Dragon’s Lair which was one of the first laserdisc-based games. Maybe it was the movie-like cartoon graphics that captured my attention. (Actually, it was more likely glimpses of the spunky li’l Princess Daphne, but I digress so let’s get to current day.)

Fast forward to 2007. I’m still waiting for that growth spurt, I bleach the grays and have no time for arcades these days. And what’s with these “tokens� everyone keeps trading real money for: is this Second Life in the real world? No, these days, I stay home and play games in high definition on an Xbox 360 and 60-inch Sony SXRD set. It’s all exactly as I would have predicted back in 1983, of course.

That’s why I was excited to get a copy of Dragon’s Lair in HD-DVD to review. With the remastered disc from Digital Leisure and my Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive, I figured I’d be giddy with Daphne sightings, er, I mean, ready to once again quest away as Dirk the Daring.

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Back in July, Gamefly reached out to me after hearing of my first (subpar) stint as a customer. They offered me 90 days on the house (2 games out) to test their supposedly improved service. Having received about a dozen Xbox and PSP games the last two months, I can report that delivery times have improved over my first go around. Perhaps it’s the new (closer) distribution center on the east coast (Pittsburgh), perhaps they have a better system for processing games - maybe a bit of both. Regardless, the average turnaround on game rentals has been about 7 days versus the previous 10-14. And last week we had a breakthrough… I returned two games on Monday and received two new games the very same week, on Friday. Surprisingly, they beat out the two Netflix discs I also shipped out that Monday - which still haven’t been received. (Very odd. Makes me wonder if the mail person has an ebay side business.)

So what will I do once my 90 days are up? I’m continuing on at the two game out $22.95/mo plan. The trick to finding satisfaction with Gamefly is managing expectations. I know it’ll take about a week door to door to receive a new game, so I won’t ship both games back at the same time. And while the shipping times are better, they may still be too slow to bother with Gamefly’s one game out plan ($15.95/mo). Though Gamefly tells me a new distribution plant in Tampa will come online later this year, with more in the works.

While this hack isn’t new, it’s worth revisiting… Life Hacker documents how they upgraded an Xbox into a Xbox Media Center (XBMC). I can tell you from first hand experience that once you have the required supplies (Splinter Cell, USB reader) the process is quick and easy. And when you’ve completed the upgrade, the classic Xbox is more capable, useful, and affordable than most most media extenders out there - including the 360. All sorts of multimedia can be streamed across your home network, played back from the local hard drive, or via the optical drive. Hooks into YouTube and Apple’s movie trailers are included, plus all sorts of other widgets are available.

There’s work going on to port XBMC to Linux… I realize there are fewer classic Xboxes in use these days, but given the highly capable Myth I’m not sure why they’d bother.

We hit the mall today to run a few errands (and fondle the Nano “fatty” again) and ran across a Wii kiosk with 6 stations. They’ve been here (Montgomery Mall) about a week as part of a nationwide 25 mall tour. I got some hands on time with the new Metroid… Let me tell you this requires some serious hand-eye coordination (and maybe Dramamine). If I had tweens or teens in the house, this is a game I’d want them to play. (As opposed to anything on Xbox Live, which would be banned - more on that later.) We also noticed CW banners and window stickers all over the place, most advertising Gossip Girl.

Microsoft is expanding their presence in the content delivery arena and will begin providing video downloads via Vista’s MCE interface. Unlike the iTunes fee-based service, MS is going the ad-supported route. Engadget uncovered a few details:

we do know that content will fall into Sports, Entertainment, News, Top Picks, Music and Movies categories. Additionally, the videos will reportedly be “better than SD quality, but not HD,” although HD programs could certainly emerge in the future. Best of all, this feature will simply be delivered as a normal software update, and it seems that we’ll have to wait until Digital Life before we know any more.

I gave up on Vista (rolled back to XP MCE), so I guess I’m out of luck… fortunately, it doesn’t seem like this will be a big loss. However, if the MCE update providing “Internet TV” coincides with an Xbox 360 Dashboard update supporting DivX and Xvid streaming I’ll definitely reconsider my “downgrade.”

(via Floppyhead)

I assume Microsoft is updating the back-end (Xbox Live on Monday) before they update the front-end (360 Dashboard). There’s been all sorts of unlikely wild speculation (including “support for TiVo like PVR options”) regarding what’s coming with the Fall update, but I’d be content if they just add the new extender functionality of DivX and Xvid support.

After a few year drought (just ask Chris Lanier), Microsoft is re-entering the media extender space via hardware partners with Vista-compatible devices. The new extenders will feature:

• Various form factors including dedicated set-top boxes, DVD players, and television sets
• Some devices with integrated N-flavor WiFi
• DivX and Xvid playback (!)
• HD-capabilities
• Hooks into online content services such as Napster and Movielink

Of course as soon as Microsoft adds DivX and Xvid support to the 360 (they better), they’ll end up killing their partner’s initiatives. Why buy a dedicated Linksys or D-Link extender when, for about the same money, you can buy an Xbox that offers extender functionality and much more?

I was only able to get software pics out of Microsoft’s press folks, but supposedly hardware is being demoed at CEDIA. There’s a decent contingent of bloggers attending, including Engadget and Gizmodo reps, so hopefully they’ll snap some pics for us. And I expect the relevant hardware vendors to release info/images in the next day or so.

The Wall Street Journal tips us off to the obvious: “People familiar with the situation” have indicated Sony’s getting into the video download business. Not really a big surprise considering they’re a studio and they’re selling video Walkmen, PSPs (already announced video service), PS3s, and network-connected televisions.

Om Malik writes:

While that is a good move, it also leaves Sony playing in a highly commoditized market, and its best bet to make money from video downloading is by selling hardware.

It’s yet to be seen just how commoditized video downloads are… Heck NBC (may have) dumped Apple’s iTunes and others like HBO don’t have online offerings (yet). An era of exclusivity could be upon us. Perhaps NBC is reserving content for their upcoming Hulu portal. Additionally, Sony has more leverage as a movie and television studio. Given the whole Blu-ray/HD DVD debacle, I could see Sony limiting their content to their services and hardware.

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