January 2014

There are reports that Microsoft is going to be releasing a $399 1TB all digital version of their latest console, Xbox One. Apple has already phased out optical drives in their computers, but are we ready to go fully digital on a console? Microsoft announced the Xbox One with a lot of unpopular features which were later changed, but if you look at those unpopular features and the fact that the Xbox One was originally not going to have a disc drive at all, you can see where Microsoft was headed.

An all digital console would mean that used games would no longer be possible. It would also mean that there would no longer be services like Gamefly. You could probably still buy games from stores like Walmart via a QR code, but then you would also be able to get it from Amazon and enter the code, it wouldn’t make sense to do it that way. You would no longer be able pick up games that are on sale on Amazon or during a Black Friday sale either. Unless of course, Microsoft positioned themselves in a way that gave Amazon and other retailers the ability to make their own Marketplace.

We all know games that weeks after its releases, while Gamestop, Microsoft, and Sony still list a game at $60, Amazon has it around $40. Imagine if Microsoft gave Sony codes for games that you could go on your Xbox and choose to buy it from Microsoft directly, or look on Amazon and download it right from an Amazon app to your Xbox. Imagine if you paid $8.95 a month and you got 1 game a month on Gamefly through an online rental app. Sound far fetched? Maybe, but it is what Sony and Microsoft would have to do if they were to go all digital to prevent a significant crash in the video game industry.

Gamestop couldn’t/wouldn’t stay open if all they sold were consoles and accessories, games are their bread and butter. How many people would be repeat customers there if all they sold was consoles? Close to none. Bring them to the digital age and give them a game store similar to the Microsoft Store and you’d be able to buy a code in a physical store then take it home and download the game. You could even give Gamestop the power to buy game codes back and deactivate the code under your account and resell it. Microsoft could then make money off of used games.

With Microsoft making money off used games and developers not having to manufacture discs or packaging, then the price of games could be driven down. If game prices drop then players will be able to buy more games and that is a win for everyone involved. Cheaper manufacturing would also mean Steam like sales on consoles.

Are we ready for all digital game consoles? Right now, absolutely not. If Microsoft launched with an all digital console in November without any of this prep work in place it would have been disastrous. If the reports are true and Microsoft is releasing a digital only version of the Xbox One, then we should be seeing some of this come to fruition. Amazon already offers digital game downloads for Sony, so if Microsoft is serious about pushing us to the next level, they will need to get to the same point with Amazon as Amazon is at with Sony, if not closer to the perfect digital partnership.

In any case this is most likely the last generation of consoles with an optical drive, so it is hard to imagine that ideas aren’t being thrown around by department heads about the best way to approach an all digital system and which partnerships to make. Only time will tell if it will pan out, though.

We kind of took a step backwards with the house. We are back in the negotiation stage, but it is the last one. We had to renegotiate the price due to the appraisal and inspection. That should be taken care of on Monday though. Once all that is settled, we send it to the bank and get the loan closing date. The loan is fine though and can be done as a regular FHA mortgage with no repairs required for the loan.  Not having any repairs being required is great which means we can fix things on our terms and when we want to.

Of course we will take care of the major issues as soon as we can, but instead of replacing the whole roof within 6 months, we may just patch it, then put a new roof sometime in the Fall. The first thing we’ll be doing is sealing an unsealed sewer pipe to prevent sewer gases from getting into the basement and replacing a rotted out door. Eventually we’ll be fencing in the yard and putting up a pool too. There’s a lot we’ll be doing, but with a 6 bedroom house that we will be in for 30+ years, we have time to figure it all out.

In reality, we could close weeks before February 28th, but the sellers need time to get out. They said if they get out before then we could close sooner. Once we have the official approval from the bank, I think that is when we will start packing up. We have a pre-approval and pre-qualification right now, so I guess at this point they just need to make sure all of our ducks are in a row and get the final paperwork signed so that we can close. It should be an interesting few weeks, but in realty it should be pretty boring. I used to do some work for a mortgage broker in New York and once the signatures are there, I don’t remember him ever having to interact with the people again until closing. So once we have the price finalized and can get the bank the paperwork, we shouldn’t hear much except that we’re approved.

The appraisal on the house was done on Tuesday morning before the big snowstorm hit. Hopefully by Friday we will have the appraisal, the list of things they will want done, and an estimate of what it will cost. Then we can crunch the numbers and see if we can even swing it, but I don’t imagine it is going to be that bad. There’s a lot of cosmetic things, like a broken window in the basement that is boarded up along with some things in the basement that were done by the previous homeowners that aren’t up to code, but they work. The most expensive fix is going to be putting a new roof on the house and while that is a major fix, it’s a common one and might not even be as big of a deal as we think since it could still be the original roof, a new one could be laid right on top of it.

In the new house Kris and I will have our own separate offices. Mine will be in the basement and will double as a man cave. She already has her office all planned out, color scheme, desk she wants to build, everything. I can’t even figure out what I want to do with mine. I am thinking of sound proofing it as much as possible so I can blast music, scream, record videos, etc without bothering her or anyone else who happens to be over. Other than sound dampening the room I am stuck. Maybe when I am absolutely sure we have the house, then I would be able to focus and figure all that stuff out, but I am not sure.

So I started looking up all the games coming out this year for the Xbox One. I didn’t realize that there were so many that I want to play,  there’s Titanfall, Watch Dogs, the new Halo, The Division, Metal Gear Solid 5, Project Spark, Elder Scrolls Online, Quantum Break, Tomb Raider, not to mention the games not announced yet, like the much rumored GTA5 for Xbox One, and a new Call of Duty, plus games I’d love to get from Gamefly that came out last year, like Assassin’s Creed 4, Need for Speed Rivals, and NBA 2k14. It’s a lot to play and I don’t remember the 360 having this many games within 12 months from launch. I am not complaining, but I don’t see how I will have time to play all these games, work, and have a new house to take care of.

I really should explore some areas like getting Ritalin again to see if I could focus. I used to be on it as a teenager, but I have been off of it for so long I don’t even know if it is a good choice for me.  I’m not even sure who I would go to for a prescription since I don’t have a primary doctor and it takes months to get an appointment for anything in this damn state. I don’t think I can go to the hospital with a concentration emergency. “Help me doctor, I have a deadline and a game I need to play, I need me some Ritalin, STAT”, I think they’d call the police on me for being a drug dealer, or put me in the psych ward. Either way it wouldn’t be good. I was thinking about getting Onnit’s Alphabrain, but each bottle gives you 30 pills and you need to take 3 a day. A 10 day supply for $35 is a bit much.

I am saying that we have a house, but really that is just hopeful thinking. They ordered the appraisal on Friday and as of Wednesday have not scheduled it yet. Everyone is getting anxious at this point, we need to know what to tell the sellers, the selling agent is calling our agent almost everyday and my agent is talking to the bank directly trying to find out what is taking so long. It is a very stressful process, I mean getting any other type of loan takes less time, usually under 24 hours, but this type of loan is going to take 60 days minimum. The worst part is that I am not sure if that is 60 days including the wait for the appraisal, or 60 days after the appraisal is done and all the final negotiations are done. Right now with the house, just like the games, it’s a waiting game and I can’t do anything else.

I wish I could just move in and get started on some of the repairs and stuff that is not required by a licensed contractor. Being able to go shopping for furniture or supplies, just to be able to do something to be moving forward. It feels like nothing is getting done and that we’re moving at too slow of a pace for my liking. It really sucks when you’re anticipating something and you can’t do anything to speed up the process.

The internet is swirling with rumors that the PC release of GTA5 will be delayed due to updates being made to the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game. There’s only one problem with that, the PC version hasn’t even been announced yet, so how can they delay something with no release date? In short, they can’t, however what they can do is hold off on announcing a release date until the game is almost ready to ship.

Both Grand Theft Auto 4 and Grand Theft Auto 5 were pushed back, the former was supposed to be released in the holiday season, with it then being pushed to the Spring and the latter was supposed to be released in the Spring and was pushed to Fall. Even with the delay of GTA5 there were still numerous problems with the online portion of the game. It was hard to connect to GTA Online for almost a week for me and then even after I was able to finish the first race, there have been numerous problems reported. People having unlimited funds is a huge problem in the game right now. With all these problems it would make sense that Rockstar would hold off on releasing any other versions of the game until they were just right, whether that means that the online portion is working flawlessly, or just means that the textures don’t disappear when you are driving at about a hundred miles an hour or so.

The biggest question is does Rockstar need to worry about putting GTA5 on PS4 and Xbox One? The newly announced Playstation Now will allow gamers to stream games to their PS4, so even gamers who got rid of their PS3s will be able to play the game and any DLC that comes out for it. Xbox gamers won’t be so lucky as they haven’t, as of yet, announced anything to rival the service. If you traded in your Xbox 360 for a PS4 you will be fine, but if you traded it in for an Xbox One, you’d be out of luck. Would Rockstar release DLC for a last generation game if the game’s population decreased not because of people playing other games, but people getting rid of their consoles?

Grand Theft Auto 5’s DLC has been a little slow. Since launch we were promised content creator, capture the flag, and heists. Content creator and capture the flag were released months after they were promised, with heists coming sometime in 2014. Also coming in 2014 is a stock market, which now seems pretty useless since everyone has pretty deep pockets due to hacks and exploits found, along with story based DLC.

Overall it seems that Rockstar made a huge gamble releasing GTA5 so close to the console launches, but in the end the move paid off. If they don’t release GTA5 on the PS4 and Xbox One then there multiplayer presence is going to continue to dwindle down to the point where GTA4’s DLC (Lost and Damned and Ballad of Gay Tony) will have sold more copies than the story based DLC for GTA5 and considering the game’s beaten numerous records, it’s pretty sad.

Update: This image started circulating, I am not sure where it came from, but it appears that at some point it was listed on Amazon for PS4. Could this mean we are definitely getting GTA5 for next gen?

So we heard back from the lender and we have an oral estimate for the repairs from a licensed contractor. The lender said he was scheduling the appraisal today and we will have the written estimate in a day or two, so things with the house are finally moving forward. In approximately 60 days we should be closing on a house and starting the next chapter of our lives. Kris is still sleeping, but I know once she wakes up and hears the news she will be excited that progress is finally being made.

I’ve been doing really well with managing my time. I’ve done a lot on this site because of my extra free time. Riddles, jokes, and recipes are all more uniform, I have gone through and deleted and changed some of the plugins I used to use, I am even blogging more than I had been. I hope I can keep up this pace of productivity.

Working for yourself can be tiresome. Usually I spend most of the day working and then not doing anything I actually enjoy. I’ve been trying to get into a better balance with that sort of thing, I’ll work a set amount of hours per day, then have the rest of the day to do things that I actually want to do.

In the last few days I’ve played video games, worked on this site more, and been binge watching Scrubs on Netflix. The problem with that is I am not actually sure I am enjoying it. I’m so stressed out about the financing for the house and what I want to do in the house, I can’t enjoy what I do actually have now. I’m not even sure if I am going to get the loan, so I am also stressed out about this and having to go back and finding a new house is going to be heartbreaking because this house is just perfect.

I didn’t hear from the loan officer for a few days and just heard from him a few hours ago that he will be sending me a list of things that will need to be on the list to fix in order for financing to be approved. Right now we’re waiting on an estimate from a contractor to tell us the price of getting everything fixed, hopefully the bank’s list of things will be less than the contractor’s list.

The problem is that there’s a lot of little things rigged together to work that isn’t put together the way they are supposed to be. In theory it’s relatively easy fixes that we could do by just reading up on it, however if it’s on the list of things the bank gives us, then it needs to be done by a licensed contractor and the money needs to be set aside in an escrow account.

Once the list is done the next step is to see if the price of the loan, plus the price of the money in the escrow account is less than the house is worth. If it is then they can start the approval process. If it isn’t then we need to find a different house. Personally I am not that concerned about it though, the area has houses that are smaller that are $50,000 more money when they sell and this house maybe has $10,000 worth of fixes needed, the biggest one being a new roof which is going to be around $8000. Everything else is pretty minor things, like the attic fan not working, replacing screens, changing the elevation of the washing machine and dryer in the basement, simple things like that.

I’m not sure when we’re getting either list, but I hope it’s soon. We need to put in a counter offer so that we can get jump start on focusing in on just the finance portion of the deal. The financing alone takes about 60 days so we still have a long road ahead of us. I just hope everything starts going smoother.

It’s hard to believe it’s already 2014. Last year wasn’t bad, Krissy and I got engaged, we were under contract for a house twice toward the end of the year, I got an Xbox One, Mom’s been cancer free after surviving chemo, so it was a good year.

Starting the year, we heard that there are a lot of problems with the house we want and it won’t be approved for the loan we were hoping for, so we need to apply for a different type of mortgage. If we can do it great, but as of right now we’re waiting to hear back from the loan officer with the specifics. It is very frustrating to say the least, but if we can get this house, then it will be pretty much everything we could want and need right now and the forseeable future.

We need to go from an FHA mortgage to a 203K mortgage because it needs a new roof and when they finished their basement, they did some questionable things that are really no big deal, but to pass the inspection need to be addressed. I’m waiting on what specifically on the list needs to be done and then getting estimates for the work so we can just get in there within 90 days or so.

This house hunting process has been really disappointing, the first house we weren’t approved for financing due to the community and the lenders being in litigation against each other, the second house there was a lot of things wrong with it that needed to be addressed that actually were a big deal like lead in the water, infestations, etc, but this house is the best one of the three because it is so big and a great price, we just need the lender to give us a way to get a mortgage for it.

I’ve still got my head held high, but it’s disheartening all the same.