Crappy Zune Site

MajorNelson.com had a bit of news about the new Zune site. For those who don’t know, the Zune is Microsoft’s attempt at cutting a piece of the MP3 market’s pie. Apple dominates said market (and for good reason), so Microsoft’s new player has a hell of an uphill battle.

So anyway, I go to the site and see a picture which encourages me to click on it to see more pictures of the Zune. I’m thinking it’ll be something like Apple’s closeup shots of their products they have on their respective pages. Nope. It’s all pictures of slackers lounging around at the local Starbucks, or on a street corner somewhere, or some other totally marketing-inspired locales. They all look like some sort of subspecies of human, with the casually tousled hair and the designer clothing, people who have it all and somehow don’t have to go to work to get it.

Somewhere in those photos might be a Zune. It’s usually stuffed in their jeans pockets, or in their purse. If you’re lucky, they’re actually somehow centrally placed in the frame. You might even be able to make out the fact it’s a Zune, too. Some product shots. Looks more like a site advertising underachievement than something legitimately trying to sell a product.

Here’s a tip to Microsoft: Apple dominates the mobile music market by creating and marketing their quality products, not an overall lifestyle image.

Wallet Abuse

Well it’s November finally, and we’re in the home stretch leading into Christmas where everyone and everything will try to dig deeply into the wallet. First up apparently is the Xbox 360, with a bunch of really nifty releases coming out this month including Gears of War and Rainbow Six Vegas. Having played a ton of Splinter Cell: Double Agent, I have to say that I now look forward to practically anything Ubisoft is set to release. These guys really know what they’re doing on the platform.

Back playing EVE with some regularity again. It’s good to be back in the nether regions of the game, making money and acquiring some “phat lewt”. With all the changes coming in Kali it’s tough to decide on what skills to train, but thankfully my character’s got the prerequisites for most of the new content already trained up.

With the EVE Fanfest right around the corner, I’m sure some tasty bits of information will trickle out from attending folks about where the game is headed. If it’s anything like the last couple of fanfests, the information should be very tasty indeed, for fans of the game.

The Joy of the Nuke

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend that you head on to Steam and purchase DEFCON. This is a brilliant thermonuclear war strategy game, from the folks who brought us the insanely great Darwinia.

The retro style and simple premise do not imply the underlying complexities of planning to kill millions of people in your opponents’ countries. The game is instantly easy to get into, but working up effective and unique strategies can be an entirely rewarding and challenging experience. It’s like Risk in a way, except at the end the death toll is usually in the hundred million plus range. Check it out, and look me up if you’re online and want a match. I’ll give you two guesses what my Steam name is.