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Gamer Gifts: Faylor's Suggestions
by Chris Faylor, Nov 27, 2009 9:00am PSTBuying gifts for the gamer that seemingly has everything is a rather difficult proposition. Fortunately, there are a few things one can't have enough of, and at least one high-priced item that anyone with a respectable home theater set-up should own.
$9.99 to $45.99 with Charger
AA Batteries reign supreme in the video game console realm, powering just about every wireless accessory out there, from traditional controllers to plastic guitars.
And with more and more accessories coming out all the time--the latest Tony Hawk brings with it a wireless motion-sensitive skateboard--one can never have enough batteries, especially when they have so many other uses around the house.
While you're shopping and comparing prices, be sure to consider charge times. Depending on the charger, they can vary from fifteen minutes to six or more hours.
$19.99 to $49.99
With the abundance of games and other virtual goods being sold as digital downloads these days, a virtual currency point card is a safe bet for anyone with an online-connected console.
While it may not seem like much compared to the $60-plus cost of a retail game, a $20 currency card is enough for a downloadable game or two and something to breathe new life into one already owned--a new mission, more maps, additional songs, etc.
The trick here is get the right card. Xbox 360 uses Microsoft Points, the PlayStation 3 and PSP use PlayStation Network, with Wii and Nintendo DSi using Nintendo Points.
Logitech Harmony Universal Remote
$99.99 to $399.99
You may think that the last thing you or a loved one needs is another remote. You'd be wrong.
See, the Logitech Harmony isn't another remote. It's the remote. An online database of over 225,000 devices ensures that these babies can control pretty much anything. The days of individual remotes for each device--stereo, television, cable box, etc.--are over.
On top of consolidating countless remotes into one, the Harmony makes it ridiculously simple to control the various devices. While it used to take multiple remotes and actions to turn on your television, receiver, Xbox 360 and then flip the television and receiver to the proper channels, the Harmony can do all that with the press of a single button.
Of course, such convenience doesn't come cheap. The remotes range in price ($99.99 to $399.99) and shape (from a traditional remote to a 3.5-inch touch screen), with all but the lowest-priced model packing rechargeable batteries for additional convenience.
You'll also need a PC or Mac to set it up, and a $59.99 accessory if you want to use a Harmony with a PlayStation 3, as Sony's system lacks an IR receiver. But as someone that's been using a Harmony for years now, trust me when I say it's worth it.
Comments
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The setup software is a awful. You have to trick it into asking you the right questions in order to change settings.
The component / IR-code database is better than nothing but it pretends to have exact matches for things when it doesn't, resulting in buttons that don't always work (or don't even exist on the device) that you can only discover through trial and error.
You also cannot manually (hex-)edit or share the codes with other people. You're forced to learn the codes yourself if required (and without being able to edit them there's no way to clean up codes so they don't contain, e.g., 1.5 cycles of a button instead of a clean single cycle, resulting in less responsive buttons and sometimes very weird behaviour). If you run into any problems with IR codes you have to get Logitech's tech support to modify your config for you. (With the Pronto you could just download codes from someone's config on a forum full of helpful, knowledgeable people.)
Once you get it setup it's okay, until the volume/channel-up buttons stop working (on the 8xx models that seems inevitable). And the charging system is designed by goddamn retards who don't understand that putting metal charging contacts on the base of the unit, and the top of the charger, with no covers, recesses or other protection from dust is a really stupid idea.
And now that my 8xx model's volume/channel controls are fucked-up (like everyone else's who has had the thing for a while), I'm faced with the choice of buying another of the same model (that'll break again in a couple of years) or "upgrading" to the newer model that might have more reliable hardware but which only has three soft-buttons / device buttons per screen, rather than the eight I'm used to, and which also removes the four coloured buttons which are useful for teletext, xbox control, etc.. Gah.
I wish the Pronto line hadn't gotten so astronomically expensive as I really miss the way they were so configurable and open, and with a good community of users behind them. It's just too much money to spend on the Prontos on a device that will inevitably be dropped and break at some point.
Seems to me there's a gap in the computer-configured universal remote control market for something that fixes all these problems. Ofc. most people don't know what they're missing and find the concept amazing regardless of how poor Logitech/Harmony's execution is -- and it is brilliant compared to nothing -- but it can be done so much better.
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