Monthly Archive for February, 2008

Rock Band… Rocks!

Published on February 29, 2008 in Gaming. 0 Comments Tags: , .

images1.jpgMy very own Rock Band arrived this week for my PS3 and I must say its dam impressive. The set includes a set of drums, guitar and microphone and allows 3 people to… well… erm spoil a lot of very cool songs.

So far I must admit to being mightly impressed, but somewhat disappointed at the kids ability to play guitar. ;)

Check out the official Rock Band site for more information. Oh, and don’t forget to pre-order yours now from GPstore. Its highly recommended!

PS – the inside word is the New Zealand release date is looking likely for July… maybe earlier if we get lucky.

Bye Lou…

Published on February 29, 2008 in Sport. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

vincent_lou_bat_d.jpgLou Vincent yesterday joined the exodus from New Zealand cricket — he’s signed with the rebel Indian Cricket League. He joins Shane Bond, Andre Adams and Adam Parore who have joined the rebel league in the last 3 weeks.

NZ Cricket CEO, Justin Vaughan, labelled yesterday as a black day for the sport and they promptly revoked Lou’s contract. Erm? Wasn’t the day they stopped selecting Shane Bond for New Zealand pretty dam dark? Pitch black even?

Justin Vaughan also said New Zealand Cricket want players “who want to play for New Zealand”. One must wonder…. did Justin miss this recent article? The article where the NZ captain wants to join the tour of England late. Is it acceptable to be “pragmatic” for those contracted to the IPL… and not so much for ICL players?

There’s no doubt New Zealand cricket as a whole has become a lot weaker in the last 60 days. Thanks to both the IPL and the ICL. Testing times lie ahead…

Crickets answer to the goldrush

Published on February 21, 2008 in Sport. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Last night the Indian Premier League held their player auction as 78 cricketers were auctioned off to the eight teams. It was great for the players — most will be doing very well. But will it be great for cricket?

Some of the highlights include:

  • Mahendra Singh Dhoni sold for US$1.5 million.
  • Andrew Symonds (Aus) going for US$1.35 million.
  • Brendan McCullum (NZ) and Jacob Oram (NZ) “sold” for US$700k and US$675k respectively.
  • Stephen Fleming(NZ) got US$350k.
  • Scott Styris(NZ) got US$135k.

Its interesting that Australia’s old guard weren’t so popular: Ricky Ponting US$450k, Matt Hayden US$375k, Glen McGrath US$350k, and Shane Warne US$450k didn’t exactly set the bidding on fire.

This player auction highlights just how much money there is for cricket in India. Kiwi fans must wondering… if you can earn money on this scale, just how committed would you be to playing for New Zealand? Fleming and Styris perhaps have given us a hint — in the past month, Fleming has retired from all International cricket and Styris from Tests.

The IPL was established to counter the threat from the rebel Indian Cricket League… but the IPL could also be a huge threat to the quality of test cricket worldwide. What’s the difference from a Black Cap retiring to play in India and an All Black leaving to play in Europe? Not a lot. Well, except that… NZ probably has enough talented rugby players to fill the holes. Cricket on the other hand.

So is the IPL going to be a win for cricket?

It’s a win for the players (and the Indian broadcasters!)… but is it going to be good for the game in the long run?

Blu Ray wins the war

Published on February 20, 2008 in Gaming. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

hd-dvd_logo1.jpgToshiba have announced they are discontinuing their HD DVD format, leaving Blu Ray as the future format for the high-definition DVD market in the years to come.

It was a mere seven months ago that Paramount and Dreamworks announced they were going HD DVD exclusively. HD DVD was “on a roll” in October. Analysts reported things were “pretty even” in Nov 2007.

On Jan 7th 2008, Warner Bros announced they were going Blu Ray only. February 17th and Walmart and Netflix drop HD DVD. Two days later its all over. Dead duck.

What I find interesting is just how swiftly HD DVD folded as a contender. It was an incredibly fast demise once the “tipping point” was reached. All it took was one nail from Warner Bros and that was that.

Now, why doesn’t this sort of thing happen in the gaming industry? Why aren’t game console manufacturers forced to give up early? We could have one dominant game console? One gaming console ftw? Unfortunately there’s hundreds of game developers and none are powerful enough to make or break a format…

But with the consolidation of game publishers, maybe the next-generation might be more… umm interesting?

New Gameplanet coming soon

Published on February 15, 2008 in Gaming. 0 Comments Tags: , .

logo.pngThe Gameplanet team have been redeveloping the Gameplanet web site from the ground up, with a fresh new look and much improved content. As well as rebuilding the web site, we’ve also rebuilt the team and we’ve now got some very talented people working on the site.

The relaunch is phase one for us as we strive to create a local gaming magazine that is the focal point for NZ gaming news, reviews, previews etc. We reckon its pretty important that Kiwi gamers can get a local slant on gaming content and we’ll be working hard to make sure our content is excellent.

Phase two is still in the planning stages, but its likely to involve us linking GP and GP Forums closer and making the Gameplanet site much more interactive (eg user ratings, user reviews, user comments etc etc). This will definitely be the fun stuff.

Phase one is due to go live next Friday… and the official countdown is on.

Hopefully the relaunch will go smoother than our launch way back in 2000… where we used a similar countdown that went 2 days into the negatives!

Gamers are cool. Right?

Published on February 14, 2008 in Gaming. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

51bzkoqarhl_ss500_.jpgPeter Griffiths from the Herald couldn’t resist tagging gamers as “geeks” in his article “Game geeks frag their way into record book“. The article mentions a few special gamers… gamers made it into the first ever Guinness World Records book dedicated solely to computer games. That’s quite an accomplishment. No really. These guys rock.

So, when are the media going to realise that the gamers virus has spread into the mainstream? Its gone global. It’s no longer a social slip to mention you’re a gamer. Ok, so maybe that’s not quite true. But, you don’t need to a be geek. Gamers are cool. Gamers are hip. Right?

Hey, at least Peter didn’t use “zap” in his headline… unlike Stuff.co.nz. Zap? What games are they playing?

England have dropped the scones

Published on February 13, 2008 in Sport. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

334898html.jpgWell. Won’t Ian Smith and friends be eating their words? It was less than a week ago that NZ cricket was nearing a “crisis”. England had much more “depth” and “talent”… they were going to crush poor little New Zealand.

Thankfully England have dropped the scones. And what a mess. They’re running each other out (6 run outs in two games). They’re dropping catches. They’re shouting at each other. And they’re dropping even more catches. Poor Collingwood looks like he’s the captain trying to steer The Titanic. Bugger that.

On the Kiwi side, ain’t Jesse Ryder looking rather talented? He’s got a mix of great cricket shots (on both sides of the wicket) and an exaggerated straight bat in defence. Very promising. McCullum has hit some form, the bowlers are bowling well and fielding has been excellent.

Bring on game 3 at Eden Park on Friday night. More scones anyone?

Random thought: Customer Focus ftw

Published on February 13, 2008 in E-commerce, GPstore and NZ Internet. 0 Comments Tags: , .

We always design our GPstore web pages with the customer in mind and this is becoming more and more obvious to us, as we go through the process of designing our new web store. Our new site must work for customers. Everyone needs to be able to use it (easily) and be able to accomplish their goals with as little friction as possible. Zero friction would be good.

Some of our recent experience suggests that bigger companies often think about the business model first and the customers… well, later, often much later. In the real world, big retailers can just buy a prime retail location, build a store… and “they will come”. There’s not a lot of customer focus in that process (but there’s probably a lot of traffic flow and demographic analysis).

On the Internet there is no prime real estate to buy. There’s no past building blueprint to follow. Customers are not going to just keep turning up once your store is built. There is no easy road. An online store needs to work for the customer… far more so, than in the real world.

The Internet gives us “small” guys the same opportunity as the big guys and we’re far more likely to be focused on the right stuff — our customers. The big boys will catch-on eventually, but hopefully it won’t be any time soon.

Where’s the worlds best ODI bowler?

Published on February 12, 2008 in Sport. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

images.jpgCricinfo released the official LG ICC Player Rankings last Friday and Shane Bond is now ranked the #1 ODI bowler in the world.

Now that’s a pretty damned cool achievement, but where’s the #1 bowler playing his cricket? Worcestershire. Yeah that’s not so cool. Since signing up for the rebel Indian Cricket League, Bond has been banned from playing for New Zealand.

Its very easy to work out who loses from this ban… cricket fans, cricket sponsors, cricket players and even cricket itself. What sort of sport could be so short-sighted as to ban the #1 player to protect itself? Just how good would it be to see Bond roaring in at KP, Colly, Virgil (Pietersen, Colingwood, Vaughan) and friends? It would have been great. Instead we’re treated to a ODI game and a sport that has been somewhat degraded. Not cool.

If the Indian Cricket League takes off, how many players will it take to “retire” before International cricket becomes a B-grade sport?

But hey, there is one winner out of all this. Worcestershire. Lucky them!

Hope the NZRL polled the players?

Published on February 11, 2008 in Sport. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Former Kiwis skipper Stephen Kearney was named as the new coach of the Kiwi league team today, with Brisbane coach Wayne Bennett taking an advisory role.

Wayne Bennett was expected to get the job, but either way, you have to hope the NZRL board remembered to poll the players first, as they seem to choose the Kiwi coach these days!

Anyone else waiting for Roy Asotasi and David Kidwel’s public blessing before getting too excited about the new coach? ;)