arne360

We launched a new online ad campaign today and, let me tell you, it was cooked up by some extremely creative, enterprising people. Or maybe they just read NeoGAF far too much. We’ll never know. We do know that NeoGAF (kinda, sorta) still loves the cats. Several other sites, like Wii Fanboy and Go Nintendo like them too. Good show!

Grab your own Geometry Wars: Galaxies lolcats code at the GWG Cats site.

Image courtesy of John Harker (NeoGAF).

News circulated around the blogs today letting me know that Andrew “GamerDad” Bub, who ran the GamerDad and GameSanity blogs, had suffered two heart attacks over Labor Day weekend and ended up in surgery for a quadruple bypass. Ouch.

Even though Andrew and I had some friction from time to time in our professional relationship, he’s always been a great to work with. He’s a total stand-up guy and deserves — I say even commands — a whole lot of respect for what he has accomplished for gaming, gaming parents and families who play video games together.

Andrew’s wife posted a page with updates and asks for donations to help his undoubtedly mounting hospital bills — a much too unfortunate reality of this day and age. Help them out if you can, I’m sure any little bit helps.

I hope you feel better soon Andrew!

Word came out over the weekend that Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos, in a lengthy OXM interview, finally confirmed the gaming community’s fears about Rock Band on Xbox 360 — that the Special Edition bundle would not have a wireless guitar, but a wired one. Of course a wireless version of the Rock Band guitar does exist, but it will only be available as a seperate purchase for Xbox 360 owners. The salt in the wound comes from the news that the PLAYSTATION 3 version of the Special Edition would indeed bundle in a wireless guitar.

Ouch.

The reason? Joystiq quotes Rigopulos as saying, “The cost of wireless technology on the Microsoft side is higher and to be able to offer those bundles at a price point that would be reasonable for consumers it was necessary … on the 360 side we are also bundling a hub.”

The reason behind the wired guitar in the bundle is rather unfortunate. I believe this is one of the few times that Microsoft should have worked to ensure parity between the bundles across the different platforms at all costs. This is one of those times where the folks in charge of these third-party relationships and third-party accessory licensing should have been thinking about the best interests of the brand and the platform as a whole. It seems that other factors were more key — most likely not setting the precedent of reducing or subsidizing the cost of the technology for accessory makers.

I can see that being an important factor, among several others, all extremely valid. However, it’s just a shame that it provides the PLAYSTATION 3 bundle of Rock Band a competitive advantage when Microsoft should be doing everything in their power to slam the door on one of their competitors. And that is a strategy that I feel remains valid despite Microsoft’s current lead in the global marketplace versus Sony.