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I’m eyeballing it, but I’d say there’s about 9 Nintendo DS’s here for every Sony PSP.
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Photo taken on the way in to the men’s restroom:

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I am attending this year’s Penny Arcade Expo. I was hoping to play some games (which I got to do once so far, photographed by tons of people) and chat with gamers, but I am feeling a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people here, the lines, and the events (which have so far filled near-instantly.)

The show looks like an amazing success, and this was just the first of three days. Tomorrow starts the vendor exhibitions. I hope to collect much swag, in my attempt to embrace my game-geek-ness.

If this photo doesn’t come out good, here’s an explanation: shot from above, 400 men, 3 women:

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I emailed Microsoft about the problem, and they had some suggestions — make sure the disc is clean, basically, and try other discs. Did all that already of course, but I can’t blame them for having that sort of front-line defense. Anyway, after a couple of emails with no improvement in the situation, they tell me I should call to figure out what to do next. I have a ticket number, so I should be able to bypass all of that front-line stuff and get straight to it, right? No. We go through all of the “does the disc look like it has scratches?” (which disc, since all of them I try have the same problem?), etc questions.

About 15 minutes in to it, we start talking about actual solutions. I could either a) take the console back to the store I bought it from for an exchange, or b) send it to Microsoft and get a refurbished model back in 2-4 weeks. The receipt I had said they had a 7 day exchange policy on open “systems”, but Microsoft suggested I try anyway. Turns out, GameStop must have some sort of “secret” 30 day policy, because they exchanged it for me. The guy at the store was nice enough to let me keep my original hard drive (with Oblivion save games and all). And the best part is: the new console works great. It’s a little louder, and a little older (a couple weeks), but it plays games, which is all I really expect of it anyway.

Update: Xbox 360 Part 2, the finale, I hope (to summarize, I had to get a new one, and it’s working great)

I made the mistake of picking up an Xbox 360 console before Microsoft released an updated version. When it works it is very fun, but it’s working less and less reliably every day. A couple times a day, the console locks up (while playing Need For Speed: Most Wanted) or tells me my disc is dirty (Oblivion, and the disc is very clean). Right now, I can’t even get it to start any game — it either recognizes the games as if they were DVD movies, and throws up the White Screen of Death: “To play this disc, put it in an Xbox 360 console”, or recognizes the games as games, and then sits and spins with the fans running full bore, displaying nothing on screen.

The console is not in a “hot” area; there’s plenty of room for it to vent hot air (and does it ever). The problem doesn’t seem to be heat related, anyway, since it happens when the console is first booted after at least 16 hours downtime (work + sleep, heh). I am contacting Microsoft about this, but I suspect their solution will be to send out a “refurbished” console to replace mine, so I’ll get to play with a console someone else once considered broken.

At least the downloadable games work — the Xbox Live integration is sure nifty. The problem seems to be isolated to the DVD drive.

One of the most interesting things about playing CH on Xbox Live are the notices that such and such a person donated a massive amount of money to the country, and is awarded a medal for it. If by interesting I mean tedious and boring, anyway. Come on Sega. Heh.

Everyone seems to be talking about this “game” — “Brain Age” for the Nintendo DS. It’s interesting, I guess. It tests your brain age by doing a Stroop test (mine is 59), and then offers you a few other time tests, all of which you can get through in a handful of minutes. It loads up more tests as you go — I just got the game so I don’t know the pattern yet.

I’m having to re-learn how to write the number 8. It keeps reading it as a 6 or a 0, heh. My failure rate on a couple of the tests are higher than they ought to be because of my sloppy 8′s. In Sudoku, if you write the wrong number and quickly click “Zoom out” (“confirm” basically), it counts as an error, which means a 20 *minute* penalty. My usual Sudoku times are around 8-9mins (on easy-ish puzzles I’m sure), so that’s pretty significant.

Aside from my 8 issue, I think this is neat software. It’s nice in that you don’t have to dedicate any significant amount of time to it. You can even take breaks from it if you need to, although the shortness of the tests makes that less necessary, heh. Compare that to games like “New Super Mario Bros” where you can’t save until you beat certain levels or perform some one-time-only (per area, anyway) coin expenditures.

I went to EA’s site and found some information about a 90-day return policy for defective software. I decided to give it a shot, and sent the opened game and receipt, and included a letter asking them to refund the purchase price because the game’s listed requirements were incorrect.

Turns out the policy is only for games purchased directly from EA. However, they were still very helpful. They sent me back a sealed copy of the game, within Fry’s 15-day return period. I was able to return it to Fry’s without a problem. I originally purchased it on sale for $42.99 or so, and Fry’s re-labeled it at $49.

Everyone wins. I got my money back, the retailer is re-selling the game for more than they originally sold it for, and EA gets feedback about their requirement policies.