Change or lose the console wars. Gamespot reports on DFC Intelligence analysis:

DFC begins by saying that Sony is currently the “king of the video game market,” but with the PlayStation 3, it is clear that Sony is “handing its competitors a golden opportunity.” The firm believes that the premium PS3’s $600 price tag will put off potential consumers, hurting the overall gaming market and possibly putting Sony dead last in terms of installed user base.

It’s not just the launch price that DFC believes could hurt Sony. Sony CEO Ken Kutaragi has gone on record as saying that the PS3 is more like a computer than just a gaming console, and, according to DFC, could see upgrades such as a writable Blu-ray drive or improvement to the system’s memory.

While this may appeal to gearheads, DFC believes it will mean the price of the PS3 won’t drop at the rate of normal consoles. “By fixing its hardware standard for several years,” DFC argues, “video game console systems have been able to significantly lower prices over time by not having to upgrade to the latest technology.”

“We believe that under Kutaragi’s techno-elite PlayStation 3 strategy, the PlayStation 3 could end up with a market share more resembling Apple products [in the PC sector] as opposed to the dominant PlayStation 2 market share.”

As for the other consoles, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Nintendo’s Wii, DFC sees scenarios where both of them could become the leader in installed base.

Even though the firm doesn’t see an end to the 360’s woes in Japan, it sees its strength in the North American market as reason why it could be the market share leader. The Wii, on the other hand, has “the biggest opportunity” because of its low price and potential to “expand into a much more mass market audience.”

The keen-eyed Drew McWeeny just kills the new M. Knight movie:

LADY IN THE WATER is metafiction, fiction that comments on the very nature of fiction, fiction where structure and symbolism can comment on the story being told, even within that story. By building his film this way, he’s hoping that he’s bulletproofed it. After all, he says in the film that the only way you can truly understand a story like this is to approach it like a child, with your heart wide open, listening with innocent ears. And if the film fails, then that’s because you didn’t watch it right. And when he includes the character of Mr. Farber, that film critic played by Bob Balaban, and when he kills him, that’s his way of guaranteeing that any critic who hates the film hates it because of that scene. In a way, I admire his effort and the crafty nature of that. It’s ultimately a shell game, but it’s a smart one.

Pretty devastating.

In comic-book form anyway. What’s a comic book, you ask?

I have no idea.

I was going to remark on Will Haygood’s recent essay on Frank Sinatra Jr. in the Washington Post, which captures well the fortune and misfortune of being the Chairman’s son (from a singing career point of view). Then, last week, the elder Sinatra’s long-time pianist, Bill Miller, died at the age of 91. Haygood interviewed Miller and relates this anecdote about him and his relationship with ol’ Blue Eyes:

The pianist was born in 1915. He’s slim and the body is bent. The bent body looks almost courageous, as if he’s been pummeling things mortals can’t see. His fingers are long and pink and elegant. He likes a little vodka in the evenings. He likes Key lime pie. He’s never done his own album. “It never came about,” he says. “It’s a little late now. But”–and he lifts a hand like a bird’s wing rising slowly up from a nest–“who knows?”

Big Frank replaced everything for Bill. “The old man, he was good to me,” Miller says.

In Gay Talese’s famous essay for Esquire, “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” the author also mentions this incident though he doesn’t mention Miller by name:

When a musician friend’s house was destroyed and his wife was killed in a Los Angeles mud slide a little more than a year ago, Sinatra personally came to his aid, finding the musician a new home, paying whatever hospital bills were left unpaid by the insurance, then personally supervising the furnishing of the new home down to the replacing of the silver ware, the linen, the purchase of new clothing.

Of course he could also be a terror.

On a sidenote: Galley friend A.F. says that Miller’s stroke of genius was convincing Sinatra to sing “One For My Baby” in the key of D, not A. This made him sing higher, making him more emotional, more vulnerable–and sounding better than in the saccharine original.

If you photoshopped Mandalay Bay out of this photo from the Daily Mail, it would look like a scene from Stargate.

I’m confused. What are Batman and Wolverine doing in the same movie? And why is Alfred doing the voiceover narration? And why isn’t Scarlett Johanssen in the water box?

The Fug girls have a transcript of the unforgettable encounter.

AICN reviews Michael Mann’s Miami Vice, the only movie capable of redeeming this summer horribilis, and has this tidbit:

I worried that the whole thing was going to feel sort of small-screen, especially given Mann’s decision to shoot everything on HD again, primarily using the Viper camera system that he used on COLLATERAL. During the scenes at the club and on the rooftop and in a few parking lots, there’s a definite grain to the image, and for some people, that won’t look like a “movie.” Personally, I think Dion Beebe deserves an Oscar nomination for his cinematography. I think it’s brave, visually extreme in even the quiet moments. There’s an immediacy to the way Mann uses his camera, putting you right in the middle of things, and it’s a perfect match for the way his script works. Even better, once the film breaks free of the nighttime and Mann plunges you into the brilliant Miami daytime, all that grain disappears, and suddenly, this is a film of stunning color and brightness. It’s beautiful. Mann’s showing off the full range of what that Viper camera can do, and this doesn’t look a thing like SUPERMAN RETURNS, shot on the Genesis camera. That has a sort of candy-colored artifical feeling that the Viper doesn’t. This camera, especially in bright light, seems to be capturing the world as it really is. There’s a depth of focus that captures the Florida sky in a way you’ve never seen before unless you lived in Florida.