Google and Microsoft Invade Each Other’s Wheelhouse

by Carlos Portocarrero, WeSeed Writer

Google (GOOG) is coming after Microsoft (MSFT), and they’re not being shy about it. Next year, Google is going to launch an operating system based on Chrome, their brand-spanking new web browser.

Google claims Chrome OS will start up in less time, and take up fewer resources, than anything else on the market. Translated: Google has got Microsoft Windows in their sights and they’re about to pull the trigger.

For its part, Microsoft isn’t just sitting around. Earlier this year, the massive company launched Bing, their new search engine. Google’s search had been the 900-pound gorilla in the search world and crushed its competition (remember Altavista? Ask Jeeves?), but a recent New York Times article suggests Microsoft’s new Bing has some skills of its own.

This means both companies are going after the other’s jugular: Windows is Microsoft’s cash cow, and search is where Google makes its green.

At first glance, a new operating system that claims to be faster and better than Windows could be all hype. But if you attach Google’s name to it, it becomes a pretty big deal. Besides, we’ve already seen what Google can do—their Chrome browser is noticeably faster (at least for this Google user) and less taxing on a computer’s resources than Internet Explorer or even Firefox.

That’s why I installed Chrome on my new Netbook—it runs a lot smoother than the other browsers out there. Google claims Chrome OS, which is based on the Chrome browser, will practically turn your OS into an Internet browser that runs your computer.

This is all part of Google’s overarching plan: their other applications (Gmail, Google Docs, etc.) are all meant to run in “the cloud”—which means they run off the web and not off your machine. Google is also going to give the new OS away for free—all they want is for more people to see the search ads they service.

Google fanboys—and there are many of them—shouldn’t get too carried away, though. This is still Microsoft we’re talking about. They’ve overcome countless accusations of doing shady stuff in the PC industry, and they’re still making huge bucks.

But all told, this is pretty fun to watch. If Bing was Microsoft’s uppercut at Google, then Chrome OS is a haymaker aimed straight at Bill Gates’s jaw. Can he bob and weave away from it, or will it be a knockout blow?

Content Spotlight: Hardcore Wii Gamers Want Games

Every so often we’ll pluck a piece of content we like from WeSeed.com and throw it on here. Why? Because we can. Now stop telling us our business and enjoy our brilliant copy. This one comes from the Gamers WeSeed Page:

by Carlos Portocarrero, WeSeed Writer 

Ask any serious Wii gamers what’s missing in their library of games, and they’ll probably all give the same answer: hardcore.

So far, Nintendo’s promises of bringing games to the Wii that don’t involve carnival games and yoga boards haven’t come true. Even Far Cry Vengeance, a wildly popular first-person shooter, fell flat in the transition to the Wii. For those seeking a bit of the ultra-violence, Manhunt 2 and its stabbing motions might have whet your appetite, but even then the Wii didn’t show as much gore as the PS2 version.

So is there any hope on the horizon?

The answer is a little complicated, but the good news is that there are a couple of titles that might quench the hardcore gamer’s thirst for some shoot ‘em up action.

Dead Space Coming to the Wii

This EA (ERTS) action-horror game came out of nowhere to become a huge hit on the PC, PS3 (SNE), and Xbox 360 (MSFT). Now there’s word that the game, which came out at the end of last year, will be ported over to the Wii. That’s the good news. The bad news: we don’t know if the game will be carefully ported over, or if EA will just bank on the game’s popularity to sell itself. In other words, it might turn out to be another Far Cry Vengeance—a crappy port of a great game.

If that happens, it’ll be a huge blow to Wii fans who want to blast away at more than cartoon chickens and ducks.

An Ice-Cold Contender

Then there’s the story of Winter, an adventure game set in a snowstorm that was originally pitched to publishers around two years ago. It’s centered around a cool premise of not freezing as you try to figure out why the world seems be going through some kind of big chill. And the control scheme fits the Wii to a T: For example, you open drawers by pulling on the remote as if you were actually opening a drawer.

Scope out the sweet trailer thanks to IGN:

Turns out the early build of the game got fantastic feedback… and yet they still don’t have a developer to publish it. Why?

Because prospective publishers think it’s “too hardcore” for the Wii.

That’s what we call ye olde Catch-22. If you want to read the whole story on Winter, check out IGN’s sweet write-up of the game. They also have some cool videos of the game in action. Very atmospheric and mysterious.

To read more about the game, check out The Hardest Level and their link to a petition to keep the game alive.

To me, this is a huge opportunity for a developer to step up and fill what is a clear void in the Wii market: hardcore games. Beside the graphics limitations, it’s probably the biggest complaint people have with the system.

Maybe if we’re lucky, we’ll see Sega, Activision Blizzard (ATVI), Take-Two (TTWO), or Nintendo themselves stepping up to the plate.

Until then, stay warm and enjoy the already-one-year-old bloodfest that is No More Heroes.