Well, the four people on earth who didn’t know this was coming out can now rest easy – it’s true that there is a new version of the 360 coming out with:

• A 120gb hard drive
• An HDMI port that does both audio and video
• A black finish which, for some reason, is supposed to excite me.

Almost more interesting though was the announcement of 5 new Xbox Live Marketplace partners (not in Canada though) who will provide HD content. Included among the new content providers are New Line and Paramount – so HD versions of Lord of the Rings and Star Trek are actually a possibility. Hey, a geek can dream…

Naturally, this emphasis on storage space and new content deals make me wonder the usual things: what then is the place of physical media? While AV quality-whores like me will want the uncompressed audio and picture fidelity of Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, most people won’t care about the difference. As such, it seems that this a pretty damn smart move by Microsoft, as the early adopters and AV geeks who are likely to pick up the Elite are also the same people most likely to fill their new hard drives with HD movies and tv shows. What’s interesting is that a person can now choose to spend $10-20 dollars on a DVD, or $10 on an HD version of the same film – it will be interesting to see what choices people will make.

As for the Elite 360 itself, personally, I still think the lack of Wi-Fi is ludicrous, and I still like the idea of Blu-Ray drive built-in. Of course, given that my brother just bought a Premium two months ago, it’s possible I’m just annoyed. Ah well.

Alright, I’ll be straight – the Facebook derived traffic has spurred me onto a bit of a posting spree. But anyway: The Onion, those glorious people who sometimes are the only reason I get through a day, have entered the video biz.

And I for one welcome our new satirical overlords – the Onion have always been able to push things in a way that the Daily Show and similar satire haven’t. They often cut to the heart of what makes contemporary life so absurd, while continuing to remain incredibly funny. Check out this clip and see what I mean.

Immigration: The Human Cost

Ok, so I partly did this because I just wanted to see if I could be like a real website, with video and everything… But it’s also because I just can’t shake the duality of my reaction to Playstation Home. On the one hand, the idea of media sharing, 3d lobbies and virtual cinemas seems really cool – I can’t help but feel they do something to enliven the drab, depressing world that Xbox Live exemplifies. Sure, it works, but it feels oh so impersonal.

On the other hand, the idea that you can buy a fucking sunset for your virtual apartment seems final proof that we really are in the last throes of capitalism and it’s only a matter of months before we’re tying Christians to stakes and cheering when lions eat them.

Once I figure out how I feel – because it’s the same thing at all times – I’ll let you know.

“Television in disgrace
Life you get old, it’s the race,
Can you break out,
Can you break out,
Will you live at your own pace.” – System of a Down

It is likely that no intelligent person has ever started a blog entry with a System of a Down quote, but hey – I’m different. Or just not intelligent, take your pick. Anyhoo – this new AppleTV thing has been getting pretty good reviews, even from usually very tough critics. It’s even been hacked to overcome some of its more annoying quirks, like the lack of XviD/DivX playback, or the small-ish harddrive. But beyond the obvious critiques – that it’s obviously a way to get people to buy iTunes content (which isn’t available in Canada) and, yet again, tie it to a proprietary Apple product – there’s something of a cultural shift afoot in this.

My SoaD quote at the beginning wasn’t just a lark – on demand viewing frees viewers from the constraints of scheduled programming. There’s always something a little disconcerting about rushing home to catch an episode of Lost or putting off work for another thirty minutes until House has finally gotten round to the right diagnosis. While I would never deny the immense power of the collective experience that a fixed programming schedule brings, structuring one’s life according to the manner we distract ourselves is an odd choice, a classic example of the cart before the horse.

While DVRs have been around for a while now, Apple might pull their mainstream-appeal-magic again with AppleTV to push this idea more into popular consciousness. If a similar shift happens in TV that took place in digitial music after the iPod, then I can’t help but applaud such a move. Choosing when and how you immerse yourself in the silliness of popular culture seems vastly superior to sitting down at times that have been decided for you.

No, it’s not going to change the world, or even challenge the status quo of the North American zeitgeist – but it will make people ever so slightly less slaves to their TVs, something that can only be a good thing. And even beyond my oh-so-typical academic condescension, I believe this change is especially significant now that TV is actually good again. While shows like House, Grey’s Anatomy, Lost and 24 may not have the social and political awareness one might like, they do nonetheless have a remarkably sophisticated approach to the intricacies of human interaction and relationships.

For the time being, the lack of content deals outside the US means that only Americans really get the benefit of the AppleTV – they are the only ones, after all, who can watch an episode of Lost or a movie when they choose. Still, I can’t help but feel optimistic about this move away from the structure of the television schedule. What do you think? Am I, yet again, just being naive?

Continuing from yesterday’s post on the PS3 (I’d link to it but it’s like 3 inches below this) N’Gai Croal continues to be only adult voice among a sea of children with this insightful piece on the Xbox 360.

You can always rely on N’Gai Croal for gaming news and analysis that differs from the standard. How exactly is it different you ask?

Well, for one, it isn’t stupid. And that’s a fucking start.

Go here for his balanced look at the PS3′s disheartening sales numbers.

This has nothing to do with anything, but in her new video for “Girlfriend”, Avril Lavigne kinda’… well – how do I say this? Umm, she raps. There. Wow. That was hard to say. As Rex from fimoculous.com likes to say: “as if you needed another sign the apocalypse was coming…”.

Also, the fact that I find Girlfriend so damn catchy makes me hate myself just a little a lot.

Years ago, when I was a young lad, a generation of young men went to university, met girls, got laid and were shocked to discover that sex was nothing like porn. Now, a generation of young girls is going to university and is shocked to discover that it is. Chew on that one.

Globe writer Matthew Ingram gives his take on Playstation Home…

While I’m convinced Home will be huge – for all the wrong reasons – Ingram is much more skeptical in his post here, instead suggesting that Sony exert too much control for it too succeed. I can’t help but feel, however, that it’s precisely his faith that the free market is about (the the illusion of?) choice that makes him miss the point, as I argue in my comment on his blog here .

Leave it to The Onion to be the ones to properly satirise:

1) The ‘it’s obsolete in six months’ mentality of Apple’s design department.
2) The media circus that develops around Apple product launches. Really, why doesn’t everyone just save time and simply form an orderly line to give Steve Jobs head?

-Nav