So how come I never met this guy? He lives in Florida, is an FSU fan, a Mac user, and a Halo player. I’m sure we’d get along famously.

My Orlando friends have some ‘splainin to do.

Apparently I’ve been living in a cave, because I didn’t know there was a Halo 3 Beta sign-up available for almost a month now.

Thank goodness for Last Boss.

Rannie is coming up on one million visitors and to celebrate, he’s giving away unspecified free stuff.

No word on whether he’s including the Nintendo Wii he got. After all, his sister got one too, so he can play hers.

UPDATE: Put me in for Gears of War. Oh, yeah!

See that chunk of granite? The big one over there with the moss on the north side? That’s where I’ve been living the last few weeks.

More precisely, under it.

Because that’s the only excuse I have for not realizing that, about eleven days ago, Bungie officially announced that they are developing, for 2007 release, the next and final installment of the Halo trilogy.

There are two versions of the trailer – one you can watch on your computer, and one you can download via XBox Live, watch in HD and surround sound with your subwoofer turned to 11.

I definitely recommend the latter. Make sure to put away all breakable glassware, and evacuate all small pets and children first. (Mine went to the store with their mother.) Oh, yeah, duct tape the sliding glass door first. Just in case.

Also, check the weekly updates at Rampancy.net.

Total Spore has a comprehensive recap of the Spore presentation at E3, with plenty of screenshots, video, new information, and a link to the newly-udated official SPORE site. Check it out.

The big buzz around this year’s upcoming E3 is for a game developed by Electronic Arts‘ Wil Wright called Spore.

You start as a spore (hence the working title, “Spore”) which grows.. and evolves.. introducing you to an editor in which you can modify each generation of creatures. But the key concept here is that you can literally do anything. Anything. Because movement, behaviors, etc are not hard coded into the system – they are algorithimically generated by the game engine. Want to evolve a three legged scorpion that takes over the galaxy?

Sure, you can do that.

Kyle Neath of warpspire fame has unveiled Total Spore, a weblog and news site dedicated to the game. If you want to find out about Spore, the game, check out Total Spore first. You’ll find Wil Wright’s interview with 1up, the full video of Wright’s presentation at the ’05 Game Developers Conference, and even a Spore-like flash game to play at home.

E3 is next week – look for some serious hype to break through to mainstream media soon, but in the meantime, keep your eye on Total Spore for updates.

This week saw some significant revelations in the comedy of errors that we all know as the Xbox360 launch. In the wake of widespread reports of defects in the console, a Chicago man has filed what promises to be a significant class-action products-liability lawsuit against Microsoft.

The proposed class action suit claims that in Microsoft’s bid to gain share in the $25 billion global video game market, the company was so intent on releasing the Xbox 360 before competing next-generation machines from Sony and Nintendo that it sold a “defectively designed” product.

Microsoft, meanwhile, is admitting that the launch-day drought was the result of a last-minute chip shortage that almost caused them to push launch back past Christmas:

We’re getting a little less, but not much less than the yields we expected, and we know that the yields we expected will probably outrun supply. We decided to go ahead and launch rather than wait until post-Christmas and get a few million units out into the hands of users. We’re doing our best.

Unfortunately, Microsoft chose to push ahead and launch anyway, despite the chip shortage. This caused the predictable shortages, predatory retailing practices, and disappointment amongst fans. One retailer has had to apologize for the way it handled its “bundling” on launch day. And those who pre-ordered from Amazon.com up to two months in advance found out that their orders were cancelled this week because there’s almost no chance those orders can be filled.

Though we had expected to be able to send this item to you, we’ve since found that it is not available from any of our sources at this time. We realize this is disappointing news to hear, and we apologize for the inconvenience we have caused you.

I’ve said before that Microsoft’s approach has been a disaster. With the benefit of hindsight, we can now see just how bad it’s been – possibly even fatal for the platform. Many factors play into the disaster. Most obviously, legions of devoted gaming fans came away empty when launch day demand far outstripped the supply. Those people, who would be playing the games, showing it to their friends, and serving as the most effective viral marketing force one can imagine, instead left bitter and disappointed. Weeks later, they’re still griping about the 360 instead of supporting it.

The short supply also threatens the dual core of Microsoft’s marketing strategy for the 360 – the game experience and the social effect. One of the forces that made the first Xbox a huge success was Halo, the “killer app” of the original Xbox console. So far, no game for the 360 has developed the buzz of the first Halo. In no small part this is because few gamers have had the chance to play any of these games. The dearth of consoles dries up the market for game developers. Those games already on the market will recover development costs more slowly than they should; developers planning future games which are not yet committed to the 360 platform have to consider whether or not the market will be there by the time the games would come to market. The lack of consoles therefore threatens the long-term viability of the game library for the 360.

The second prong of the strategy for the 360 is the social aspect of the console – the online experience. With only a handful of players overall, it will be almost impossible to have a meaningful online experience. Those players who do enjoy online, head-to-head competition will not be able to find others to play with, because the online matching pool is tiny and none of their friends have the console yet. Poor matchmaking means uneven, unsatisfying play. Combined with a possible future shortage of game titles, the reasons for buying a 360 get smaller and smaller.

The retail distribution problem amplifies the crisis for Microsoft. Anyone who didn’t get a console on Day One now knows that it’s virtually impossible to get one without paying extortionate prices on eBay or elsewhere. Days and weeks of checking supplier stocks drives home the point: there are none to be had. Eventually, that takes a psychological toll on the market’s desire for a product. Prospective purchasers will get used to the idea that they can’t have a 360 and won’t for months. They will go one gaming without it, and if the game titles come up short and and the online experience remains sub-par, they might eventually get used tot he idea that they don’t really need a 360 anyway. These are folks who would have spent hundreds of dollars on consoles, accessories, games, and online microcontent, who will now never spend a penny on 360-related products.

Since launch day in the U.S., Microsoft has launched in the U.K., Japan, and elsewhere. Microsoft could have used the components of boxes sold abroad to ramp up for the demand here, deferring overseas launches. If cannibalizing the overseas launches would not have made a dent here at home, they should have deferred the launch here as well. A late launch would have been much less of a disaster than what eventually happened. While consumers would have been disappointed at deferment due to low chip supply, they would have been much less disappointed than they have been as a result of the badly bungled launch that actually took place.

Why, in the prime of the pre-holiday gift-buying season, is it still nearly impossible to find an Xbox360? Kotaku has the scoop.

Rumor 1: Last week Microsoft began denying a recall rumor that wasn’t circulating. Many of the blogs run by Msoft employees carried the same sort of denial: Despite what you hear, we’re not doing a recall.

Sure enough, a few days after the denial, the rumors hit. It wasn’t a recall, they said, but in fact an internal recall. Some say that a bad batch of 360s were caught shortly after manufacture and pulled before they could hit stores. The catch, a good thing, led to severe and unexpected shortages, a bad thing.

Rumor 2: Employees at retail game stores are not using their entire shipments to fulfill pre-orders, instead they are buying some of the 360s themselves and turning around to auction them off on eBay. A very intriguing, though close to impossible rumor to prove.

Neither possible answer is very satisfying, and both are bad news. Either way, it’s still a colossal failure on Microsoft’s part and puts any hopes of grabbing market share in siginificant peril. You can’t gain market share if no one can buy your product, genuises.

Did you feel the pent-up fanboy tension? On November 21, the impending release of the Xbox360 was more eagerly anticipated than Jessica Alba‘s first big-screen nude scene. So far, Jessica no plans to give up the goods, but everyone with a Y chromosome knows it’ll be totally awesome when she does.

Compare that thought to what happened at 12:01 am, November 22nd. Months of hype had convinced gamers everywhere that the Xbox360 would be the gaming console equivalent of full frontal Dark Angel. It had all the potential, too: raw power, media center functionality, enhanced online gaming features, and graphics so fine you could count the pores in her cleavage when you pop in the Director’s Unrated Cut DVD.

Despite all that potential, the 360 launch turned out more like Anna Nicole Smith before she found TrimSpa. Gamers who got the console and those who didn’t all had ample reason to grumble. Launch day distribution was a disaster, quality control was seriously flawed, and the games plagued with bugs.

From the distribution angle, Microsoft badly undersupplied the overheated demand. Major outlets like Best Buy, Target, and Wal-Mart received as few as ten consoles to hand out among dozens of overnight campers. Many hard-core gamers, those who would have been the front line of the viral campaign for the console and its games, went home empty-handed and angry. Some would turn to eBay, where bids hit multiple thousands of dollars. In the meantime, no one seems to know whether more consoles are coming tomorrow or March 2006.

Those who were lucky enough to get consoles often fell victim to predatory bundling. The major chains took advantage of the grossly unbalanced supply/demand curve to add unwanted accessories and games into “bundles” – adding hundreds of dollars to the already-high list price of the 360. Microsoft did nothing to prevent the mandatory bundling even though it easily could have limited bundling as a condition of delivery – especially on the first shipment.

Mere hours after the first consoles entered service, the first reports of system failure rolled in. Some consoles repeatedly overheated. Some games wouldn’t play properly on any console. The stories flying around the internet, reinforced by Microsoft’s already poor reputation among the neterati, only cemented 360′s reputation as a buggy mess.

So how did Microsoft find itself in this position? In a word, jailbait. The 360 wasn’t ready to meet the lusty demands of the slavering gamers market. In its annual effort to rush a hot item to launch in time for the holiday shopping season, Microsoft introduced an immature product. They clearly haven’t had time to work all the kinks out of the hardware, and as for the games… well, let’s just say that certain football titles will be needing a service pack before they become playable. In the meantime, Microsoft has done itself incalculable damage. They have alienated thick segments of their core fanboy market – those who snapped up or tried to snap up the console on launch day. They have given their numerous critics more ammunition than they could ever have come up with on their own. In the process, they may have blown their opportunity to lock up the gaming market before the other third generation consoles come out next year.

If Microsoft doesn’t quickly move to fix the problem, some of these gamers just might discover girls. And then Microsoft will never get them back.

UPDATE: Via Kotaku, this USA Today article reports:

Microsoft’s Molly O’Donnell says the company has “a weekly replenishment strategy.” The first follow-up shipment “is on the way, and it should be on retailers’ shelves by the end of the week or for the weekend.”

Now all they need is a way to install airbags in the console.

My current Xbox has a buggy DVD player – sometimes it will totally fail to load new maps, cut scenes, and so on – mostly with Halo 2. Now, there’s at least one report of a new Xbox360 flaming out and smashing into the barrier wall playing Project Gotham Racing 3. The poor guy can’t even finish a lap.

I would be enraged if I were him, but that’s one of the downsides of being a first-day adopter. I’m looking forward to getting a 360 a few months from now, after Microsoft works out all the kinks.

UPDATE: There may be only a handful of isolated incidents, rather than a global epidemic of 360′s bursting into flame.

UPDATE 2: Maybe there’s something to these crash rumors.

Another sight ont he way to work today: avid gamers standing in line, waiting for the store to open so they could pick up their shiny new XBox360 systems. The folks I saw apparently weren’t able to find any of the stores that were open at midnight, but at least they got a good night’s sleep in anticipation of a day of gaming.

The reviews I’ve read indicate that the system is pretty sweet. Screenshots of games show graphics previously unattainable in a console system. I don’t yet know whether the initial game lineup will use that raw power to take the gaming experience to the next level, but I’m sure game developers will find a way to use it sooner or later.

The online experience will be a lot richer with the new system. Customizable profiles, in-depth information about gamers, records of “achievements” all promise to keep gamers online for even longer periods of time. Downloadable micro-content, such as character upgrades, outfits, equipment, and the like, will be available for online purchase, promising to keep open the money pipeline to Microsoft from gamers’ wallets. I haven’t seen any examples of this yet; I’ll have to reserve judgment until I actually see for myself.

Others, less game-centric, have been drooling over the network-ready media features. You’ll apparently be able to stream music and even listen to podcasts via the media features. One early adopter found something for the whole family:

My wife was openly hostile to the 360 for a day or so, basically treating it like some cheap hussy I’d brought home. That is, until I showed her that we could use it to browse all of our family photos through the TV and create those adorable pan-and-scan slideshows with any music she wanted behind it. Best. Wife-appeasing. Feature. Ever.

The big question in your mind, of course, is why I’m sitting here writing this instead of blasting away on Perfect Dark Zero or punching out the competition in DOA4. The answer, although shocking, is the obvious one. I don’t have a 360 yet. I won’t get one before Christmas. And then, with the new baby in the house, it’s likely I won’t have one for some months beyond. Sure, I covet, but as a father and husband, I have more important things to spend my time and money on. Even if I would really like to take a few laps around the track.