Universal Exceeds Expectation with HD DVD

HD DVD is having a rough time of it in the media, but a problem some consumers have run into is discs that just won't play. It seems to be mostly HD DVD/DVD combo discs, and appears to be a slight film that doesn't come off the disc in manufacturing.

A copy of Smokin' Aces that I bought recently had this problem, so I contacted Universal to get a replacement. They offered to send me a postage-paid envelope to send back the disc ... just the disc ... and they'd mail a replacement.

In six to eight weeks. How annoying.

In a couple of days, I had my envelope and mailed off the bad disc. In just two weeks, I had a replacement in a brand new case! Now I have an extra case should I ever need it, and they beat their shipping estimates.

This is how you delight your customers ... by handling problems promptly and by exceeding expectations. It would have been great to have the disc work right the first time, but this was the next best thing. Universal is clearly embracing the format.

As for the movie ... Buy It.

Comcast Can Bite Me ... If They Ever Show Up

I just moved into a new apartment over the weekend. I made sure to call well in advance (last Tuesday) to make sure they'd be able to install on the Saturday that I moved in. After getting a confirmation number, pricing, and a time and date, I showed up Saturday ready to get the new service up and running.

And I waited. And waited. Finally, I called Comcast to find out what was up. They scheduled me for Saturday the 11th, not the 4th. No where in the call record did it show that I needed it on the 4th, and the support rep was completely unsympathetic with the fact that I would be both TV and Internet-less for an entire week.

I'm super-pissed about it, which probably led to my getting a cold, which only made it worse when I'm stuck home Tuesday. Luckily, I have a fairly sizable DVD library, although I mostly ignored them while I slept off the cold.

Fortunately, it looks like Verizon is tearing the roads apart in Kenmore to roll out their FIOS fiber-optic service. I'm not sure when it'll be available, but it'll be nice to be able to play the two companies off of each other. Competition is almost always great for the consumer.

More Wii Details

Planet GameCube is live-blogging the Nintendo press conference today. Apparently Wii Sports will indeed be included in the package (it wasn't in Japan, so there was some confusion), and will inclue Tennis, Golf, Baseball, Bowling, and Boxing as well. I hope you have the option of using a second controller (or the nunchuck) for two-fisted boxing action. It's not a new PunchOut!! or Fight Night 3, but it'll do. Additional Wii Remotes (the official name, despite Nintendo's apparent facination with the idea of calling it the "Wii-mote") will be $40, and the nunchuck attachment is $20.

The other details are still valid, launching November 19th for $249.99. I don't understand the late launch, given that Nintendo had assured everyone that they'd launch before PlayStation 3. The price is higher than I expected, but given the inclusion of Wii Sports and the nunchuk controller, it's a decent value. However, I'd like to remind everyone that may have forgotten ... Nintendo dropped the price of the Nintendo 64 from $249.99 to $199.99 three days before the launch. While it's doubtful they'd repeat that stunt, it's certainly a possibility.

Sadly, the unit will ship in white only at first. I was hoping for a Nintendo Red model.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Excite Truck will be the only first-party launch titles. Mario won't be out until 2007. 15 total games at launch, and 30 by the end of the year. The Trauma Center remake for Wii will be a launch title.

The most interesting part is the idea of a "Mii". This is a virtual charicature of yourself or someone else, which you can then transfer to your controller and take with you. Clever idea. Any game with support for the "Mii Channel" can use your charicature in-game. including Wii Sports and Wario Ware.

Much like Xbox Live, Nintendo will be using a point system for Virtual Console purchases, and it's fairly straight-forward ... 2000 points for $20.00. NES games are 500 points ($5), SNES are 800 points, and N64 games are 1000 points. Unfortunately, the much vaunted Opera browser for Wii will NOT be included, and must be purchased with points.

No mention at all of DVD playback, so the rumors of DVD support being dropped must be true. Damned shame ... while I don't need another DVD player personally, it's certainly a "nice to have".

Sony PR Goes From Worse to Brain Dead

Update: OK, and killing all of your brand-positive advertising in Europe (where you're going to need a lot of it) isn't what I had in mind either. Apparently, SCEA's hired a new PR guy after Molly Smith bolted from the company, which certainly explains part of the company's complete disfunction. It'll be interesting to see if Dave Karakker can translate his experience shilling for Kahlua into getting people to buy the PS3.

Of course, when I suggested below that Sony needs to fix their PR image, I in no way indicated that a good way to do that would be to have Ken Kutaragi (the head of Sony Computer Entertainment America) tell everyone that the US is only going to have 400,000 units at launch, and Japan? Yeah, they get a paltry fourth of that (for a machine that should be far more popular in Japan than Microsoft's Xbox 360).

So who's going to be standing in line waiting for a PS3? Before any of you Europeans raise your hand, you'd better re-check the calendar, because none of you will be seeing a PS3 until March 2007.

Sony needs some good news, and pronto. At this point, I'd suggest that they either start making things up, or start paying bloggers like myself to start writing nice flowery prose about them. Anything to stop the bleeding, because there's only so much more of this that people will take before they just give up and either buy the console that's already out, or the one that will cost just a third the price of PS3.