Playstation 3 owners rejoice! Kratos is back to offend the gods even more.

At their E3 '08 press conference, Sony released the God of War 3 trailer. This ALMOST makes me want to get a PS3...ALMOST.

Finish What You Start...

I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the game Little Big Planet since it was annonced last year. I'm almost captivated by it. I obssess over every screen, youtube video and demonstration of the game that I see. I'm not a huge "The Sims" fan, but do enjoy the majority of simulation game titles available here in the US.

What grabs me first about a sim-game is the level of control it gives me over my environment. When I can affect the world I am about to play in it let's me explore areas of my imagination the I would otherwise avoid during my day job. It gives me a free pass on being constrained to a single plane of thought and ultimately let's me be a kid again. When you add to that the ability to create the people/creatures/things that will then live in that world or explore them, I get even more excited. Creativity to me is one of the most undervalued traits that a person has or can have. That being said, it should be no surprise that games like LBP or Spore never drop off my radar.

The problem I have is that I lack patience. Severely. Anyone in my family can attest to this. So to have to wait until October to get my hands on this game, and right now I'm having a hard time with it. Sure, I've had the Spore Creature Creator to keep my company, but I find that the Creature Creator has become a poor substitute for the full title, and of late does not quench my thirst. Here and there I play another round of Sid Meier's Civilization: Revolution, but like Creature Creator, Civ:Revolution is a demo, easily completed or timed out and I am left alone again clawing at my own flesh trying to tear my mind away for the unbridled desire for this game. I'm sure that Sony is tired of getting my emails about this game, but right now we are barely starting July... October is three torturous and agonizing months away. I mean, look at this stuff I found on the LBP Wiki, and from a Sony press release I got a while back:

"There are limitless ways to play. Players craft their own individual experience based on their own creativity.

Unlimited possibilities for user-created content – players can customize everything: their characters, the landscape around them and their own patch on LittleBigPlanet.

Players learn new skills and discover new items to aid them on their creative journey. Explore the massive single player game or go online to find user-generated content.

LittleBigPlanet will change every day as players contribute their own levels.
Online and offline multiplayer modes – play alone, work as a team with up to four friends or get competitive.

LittleBigPlanet global community for players to get involved with: includes player comments, rankings and easy communication with new and existing friends."

C'mon, look at the main characters... THEY ARE SOCK PUPPET PEOPLE!!!

I'm going to have to call out sick from the day job when this game finally comes to market.

Finish What You Start...

Yesterday SCEE (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe) announced the new online features for the Playstation 3 that will be available on July 2 along with 2.4 enhancements, in the form of an automatic firmware upgrade that will deliver some of the features requested by gamers.

Press Release:
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe today announced new online gaming functionality for PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™), which will become available on July 2, 2008 with the 2.40 enhancement, an automatic firmware upgrade that delivers several of the features most requested by gamers. Combined with PLAYSTATION®Network’s unique service of free* online gaming, the enhancement makes PS3 an even more attractive platform of choice for the online gamer.

Firstly, the 2.40 enhancement allows XMB™ (XrossMediaBar) access in-game. This means that you can access the PS3 menu at any time while playing most games, simply by tapping the PlayStation button on your controller. With 2.40, you can check if any of your friends are online (thanks to their own user profile), read and send messages, change some settings for games, all without having to quit the game you are playing. While you can’t pause an online multiplayer game involving other people, you can rejoin play at any time when you’ve finished browsing. Along with these enhanced communications features, the Friends list capacity will double to 100 Friends.

2.40 also delivers trophies to recognise players’ achievements in the online arena. Other competitive activities recognise winners with trophies – so why not gaming on PS3? Many online games will have gold, silver and bronze trophies – with platinum available for those who snag all three – all displayed on the XMB for everyone to see.

Super Stardust™ HD, a PLAYSTATION Network-exclusive released last year, will be the first game to leverage the Trophies system and will offer a variety of trophies**. The following first-party games are also slated to offer Trophy support:

• BUZZ! Quiz TV
• LittleBigPlanet
• MotorStorm Pacific Rift
• NBA 09 - PS3
• PAIN**
• PixelJunk Eden
• Resistance 2
• SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation
• Warhawk**

The 2.40 enhancement is just one more reason to join PSN, the online network for PS3 users that lets you game online for free*. All you need to do to join is connect your PS3 to broadband and register, or go to the connection guide at www.eu.playstation.com to find out more.

Once in, you’ll find online matches and leagues for all of your favourite games – whether that’s MotorStorm™, Resistance™, Warhawk™ or Gran Turismo™5 Prologue – absolutely free (although users are responsible for paying their broadband fees) and at any time of the day or night. You’ll also find PLAYSTATION®Store, where you can download entire games as well as extra levels, content for your existing games plus internet browsing, video chat thanks to PLAYSTATION®Eye and much, much more.

There’s never been a better time to join PSN. Sign up now to make the most of the 2.40 firmware enhancement - see www.(website).com to find out more.

* No subscription required, broadband fees apply

Finish What You Start...

Did you ever wonder if there was a reason to own a PSP? Well, they might have actually found one.

I found this information when doing one of those web surveys. It's identical to the GPS add-on promoted by Sony for the Japanese market at CES this year, shown in the color photo here from Joystiq, except for that little thing sticking out of the top of the PSP.

A Global Positioning System for the PSP would be just what the doctor ordered for the long-failing portable gaming system. There still aren't any decent games for the thing, and that UMD movie fiasco has been a bust for everyone concerned.



The survey I filled out was mainly concerned about pricing the thing. At what price point would I consider it too cheap? What price point would I consider it just right? What price point would I consider too much? Basically, the Three Bears school of surveys.

Well, apparently the Japanese currently pay the equivalent of $51 U.S. for the thing -- which I think is probably too cheap for the American market. Anything under $89 on this side of the continent is considered a toy. And more than $139 is probably too much.

And I would probably have hopped on this thing last year -- until the iPhone came out. I've found the pseudo-GPS in the iPhone fits my needs very well. The iPhone triangulates the positions of multiple cell phone towers and WiFi base stations to determine the current location. On a recent trip halfway across the country, along I-40 through Arkansas and Tennessee and then up I-81 through Virginia, I was able to determine my approximate position most anytime I wanted (except when I was in the most mountainous regions of Virginia).

Sure, true GPS is better than faux-GPS, but I wasn't hunting for lost treasure -- I was just trying to get a fix on my current position along a major interstate so I could find the next Jack-in-the-Box restaurant down the road. In concert with Google Maps, my iPhone directed me to the fast food joint just fine.

According to the survey, the PSP unit has most of the features you'd expect in a GPS: turn-by-turn navigation, 3D clity maps, voice prompts, detour recalculation and route redirection. It even has a pedestrian/bike mode for those who aren't necessarily restricted by off-ramps. In addition, it has a holder you can install in your car.

But that satellite receiver plug-in unit will probably be prone to problems of being lost or destroyed, and without the receiver, there will be no way to use the GPS software loaded into the PSP. They're going to need a more solid connector/holder/sleeve for the thing. And just how much juice is it going to take to keep the GPS operational? It might be OK in a car, connected to power via the cigarette lighter, but it's just not going to cut it on foot.

It would have been a great idea 18 months ago -- or a pretty good idea a year ago. But in 2008, it's the same old story of Sony being too little, too late.

Finish What You Start...

Ok, get ready for a mouthful... Namco Bandai Games recently released a new trailer for Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress for the PSP system.

WHEW! I got through it.

According to Namco Bandai the game’s

"...unique combination of one-on-one combat and interactive storytelling, the new trailer gives gamers a taste of the extreme handheld ninja action the game holds in store for them."

The game lets players experience a new interactive storyline through a wide range of fun mini-games that will put their ninja skills to the test. Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heros 2: The Phantom Fortress boasts a roster of more than 20 characters, the Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2 also supports frantic wireless multiplayer action with game sharing capabilities.

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress for the PSP system will be available in stores nationwide on June 24th.

Peep the video here Windows Media Player Required

Finish What You Start...

Ok, so I saw this trailer over at GameTrailers and I just had to share it. The game is called Patapon, and it almost makes me want my PSP back.



Ok, yeah, I want my PSP back.

Finish What You Start...

As the rumor mills continue to churn for the possibility of Sony's repricing of the PlayStation 3 to $399 for the holiday season, analysts were shocked today when Sony representatives announced that they instead would be selling U.S. $500 bills for the unprecedented price of $399.

"We know people are going to be calling us crazy," said Kazuo Hirai, President and Group CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI), "but, hey, we're Sony. In the past year we brought out an HD DVD player that nobody wants, some batteries that spectacularly set some computers on fire and a game system for which there are no games to play on it. We know we're crazy."

The $500 bills, which display the picture of former U.S. President William McKinley, who was shot at the 1901 Buffalo World's Fair and later died, were last printed in 1945 and withdrawn from circulation in 1969.

When asked why anyone would want to own a $500 bill that they cannot use as legal currency, Hirai said, "Hey, they already own a PS3 that they can't use. A worthless $500 bill is a conversation piece, just like that PS3. And it isn't half the fire hazard the PS3 is.

"Sure, a $500 bill can catch on fire, but it won't explode in the middle of the night and kill your whole family like a PS3 might."

Hirai added that the $500 bill costs much less to ship. "Just pop it in an envelope and stick on a 41 cent stamp," Hirai said. That compares with the PS3, which weighs approximately 38 pounds (288 pounds when you add the weight of the postman who hauls it reluctantly to your front porch).

Although selling a $500 bill would mean a $101 loss for Sony on each bill sold, Hirai said the price is much less than Sony would lose on selling the PS3 at the same $399 price point. "Think of all the money we're saving just on marketing," he added. "Heck, $500 bills practically sell themselves.

"Nothing says Christmas more than a crisp $500 bill. It's even green on the back."

Finish What You Start...

Monday brings with it yet another new episode of the ESH podcast. This episode I have to say, was kinda a weird one. Good, but weird.

It's just the two sistahs Pandalicious and NinJaSistah holding it down for episode 68. Pandalicious tries to help NinJaSistah wrap her mind around the anime series Nerima Daikon Brothers, and I emphasize the word tries. Then on the flipside of the hour, NinJaSistah glosses over some of the news from the Tokyo Game Show and shares her first impressions of the PS3 title Heavenly Sword.

Yeap, it's a fun, and weird hour this week, and if you don't believe me, just check out the rejected titles for this weeks episode:

• Don't Take Her Shoes, She Needs the Height
• It's Not The Size of Your URL, It's How You Use It
• We Were Sharing Bodily Fluids LAST Week
• Why Is The Radish Throbbing?
• The Words, "Big Throbbing Daikon" Scare Me
• The Most Forbidden Love: When Man Meets Panda
• What She Did With a Fishcake: On The Next Maury
• Sony made Me Go Dutch Then Tried To Rape Me
• The PS3 Controller Was A Pain in the SIXAXIS
• Hopefully, This Will Be the Last Sexually Oriented Wii Joke
• The Inevitability of the Response to "What What?"
• To Gank or To Frag? The Question Endures

After reading that list of rejected titles, I'm sure you want to dive into this weeks episode. So, sit back, get your a cup of joe, and enjoy episode 68: Caffeine Plus Pandalicious Equals Bad Idea

Finish What You Start...

At the end of September last year, ElectricSistaHood published a post asking the big question of the day: Will the PS3 cause Sony to go broke?

The story was a massive hit. More than 55,000 people read the story the first day. That's more people than read a front page story of many mid-market daily newspapers. Since publishing the story, it's received 87,595 page views through yesterday.

Last week the story started getting attention from a new source: the forums at eu.playstation.com, the European Playstation site. Then, suddenly, the attention stopped. After a little investigation, we discovered the horrid truth: The Sony fanboys are censoring themselves!

Before I continue, a few caveats are in order. First, the folks at ElectricSistaHood aren't Microsoft fanboys. I personally own five machines with Apple computers inside (three Powerbooks, an Intel iMac and an AppleTV). We have two iPhones. We're not Microsoft haters, either. We have one Vista laptop, but we didn't have to pay for that. We own a couple of copies of Microsoft Office for the Mac. We own a copy of Windows XP that we run on the Mac in Parallels. We own an Xbox and an Xbox 360 -- and the 360 recently spent about a month or so in the shop. We have a Nintendo Wii with four controllers and a DS Lite.

And we own our good share of Sony stuff -- a couple of PS2's, a 20-gig PS3 and a PSP. The only trouble we've had with any of them is that the first PS2 had difficulty playing some CD's when it was standing on its side. We use the PS3 mostly for its Blu-Ray movie-playing capability, but we find it a good, solid platform for playing games.

When I wrote the story last September about Sony going broke, it was well researched and fully documented. And I wasn't the only one having severe questions about the company. The very same day I wrote about Sony, the Wall Street Journal published a similar article.

In the story, I posited that under the circumstances, if the stars fell into a certain alignment, there could be the possibility that (a) Sony could find itself in a position to ditch the gaming division and (b) Microsoft could find itself in a position to purchase the Sony gaming division. It's not an impossible notion. Who would have thought a few years ago that Daimler would suddenly toss Chrysler into the dust bin?

Besides, at the time ElectricSistaHood was barely attracting 300 people a day to the site.

How did a little blog like ElectricSistaHood get such a big response? We were Slashdotted. If you're unaware of what that means, we were mentioned in a blog post on the website Slashdot.org. In addition, we were Dugg -- mentioned in a post on the website digg.com.

As a result of those two mentions, blogs and websites all over the world found out about the story and linked to our post. That post single-handedly put ElectricSistaHood on the map. Today we attract more than 60,000 unique visitors a month and we're aiming for 100,000 by the end of the year.

My story got kudos from some and flames from others. My head didn't swell from the kudos and I didn't cry myself to sleep from the flames. I just liked being able to get so many people involved in that important topic.

Since September, interest in the story has continued. We generally get a few dozen pageviews of the story every day, and people still comment on occasion -- usually with harsh opinions on one side or another.

Then on Friday, the page got hit with a few hundred readers. Comments heavily weighed toward Sony's side of things. What had suddenly made people so excited about a story that was written almost a year ago?

To find the answer to that question, I searched through the server logs of electricsistahood.com and discovered hundreds of people coming to the site from a forum at eu.playstation.com -- the European Playstation website. I tried clicking into the page from which they came, but the page -- http://community.eu.playstation.com/showthread.php?t=124977 (Click here to try it yourself) -- was no longer there.

Someone had removed the page. Was Sony censoring its fanboys? What could they have been saying on the forum?

I did some more digging. I knew that the words "Sony" and "broke" would have to be on the page, so I did a Google search on "site:eu.playstation.com" and "sony" and "broke". The search found the pages, but clicking on them resulted in the same error page -- the comments were simply gone.

Of course, the nice part about looking up stuff on Google is that it also caches the pages as it crawls them. All the original forum pages were still there and available by clicking the "Cached" link on Google.

So I read through the postings. It was the usual mix of Sony fanboys and Microsoft fanboys trading shots with each other. There wasn't anything controversial there. Nobody threatened to do bodily harm to anyone. No reason for Sony to pull down the pages.

Then, near the end of the posts, the Sony fanboys started getting cold feet about the whole thing. There just weren't very many people coming to the defense of the topic, which was called "Microsoft to buy Sony? ha".

About a day after making his first post on the topic at the eu.playstation.com forums, MPower wrote, "Ok, I only posted this to show how absurd the article was. So if anyone thinks I took it seriously hence the 'has anyone got a gun' [comment]. Anyway, this topic is really irrelevant and ANOTHER bloody flamewar is starting so lets move on shall we ladies and gents?"

The next poster, Rider2006, agreed, writing, "This thread should be deleted as it's off topic." After a couple of more posts, the topic was deleted from the website in the early hours today (Sunday, Aug. 12).

I think this is what happened:

MPower learned of a story proclaiming the possibility that Microsoft was going to grab Sony's gaming division. He saw that the story was on a girl-gaming website, which he must have thought was particularly funny. He probably thought, what could girls possibly know about gaming?

After a few congratulatory posts from his Sony fanboy friends, others started making disturbing comments about the realities of PS3 sales vs. the sales of the 360 and the Wii. Then the discussion degenerated into unrelated asides about sales of Sony TVs and Walkmans.

I think the Sony fanboys started realizing that it wasn't the year 2003 anymore. The Playstation 3 is not the PS2. There aren't any substantial games for it yet, and with the absence of Grand Theft Auto IV this Christmas, it will be mid-2008 before a marquee game arrives for the platform. Even then, they will have to share the stage with Microsoft, which will have the game for the Xbox 360 at the same time.

The discussion got irrelevant all right. But it was the Sony fanboys who made the discussion irrelevant. Nintendo sells every Wii it makes and PS3 boxes are stacked to the rafters at Best Buy -- even after a $100 price break. There's no defense to that little argument, and the Sony fanboys know it.

That's why they halted the discussion and made it unavailable for anyone else to read it. They simply couldn't face the truth anymore.

Want to read the posts the Sony fanboys don't want you to read? Click here for a PDF version of the entire banned forum topic!

Finish What You Start...

I didn't get invited to the Sony E3 briefing, but I did get to watch the stream as many of you that are stuck at your day job did not get to do.

What follows will be my accounting of the live feed that I watched with the few other soldiers of game reporting truth [meaning other non-invitees] today.

I wish I could tell you that the stream was awesome, and made up for my not (1) not being invited to the real festivities, and (2) make the gamers not able to attend to feel in the loop. This was not the case. They glossed over PS2 info to jump into building up the PSP to showcase some upcoming titles for the platform. I was actually kinda looking forward to them, except the view of the trailers was all in widescreen, so you couldn't see squat but some of the text of the titles. Yippie freakin' skippy!

They did announce a new PSP [flogging a dead freaking horse maybe?] that was lighter, thinner, and supported video out, and will be in Black, Ice Silver, and then a really bad Chewbacca came out onto the stage to announce the StarWars Battlefront Renegade Squadron PSP edition. Oh, it was painful to watch the fake Bacca try to pantomime to the canned Wookie vocals.

The next step was the Playstation Network. Phil Harrison popped out to lead the cheer about the PSON. The first game they showed off was a black and white puzzle game that featured a stick like figure navigating some weird geometric shapes. It sounds weird, but looks damn cool.

And now on to home... the only Sony PS3 technology that has piqued my interest enough to possibly need a towel. Home looks to be even more expansive that I first imagined. The environments that they showed as under construction looked great, but the entire walkthrough it just kept looking like a gigantic Sims title to me and I don't know if that's good or bad. I will leave the proof to be in the pudding. The ability to launch a game title from within home gives me more hope that it won't suck out loud, and should give you hope as well.

I could tell you about the montage [BECAUSE YOU GOTTA HAVE A MONTAGE!!] but you've already got the idea that the video montages have been par for the course. What I will tell that struck me as odd was that there was no mention of Final Fantasy games at all. Nearly all of the game titles and enhancements to the system were all making their debut in 08'. Heavenly Sword didn't even have any real game play to show and it's supposed to hit for holiday.

What did look and sound amazing was Metal Gear Solid 4. And if the hot sweet sexiness that was the MGS4 footage didn't get your heart pumping, the promise that it is the final title in the series that will answer all of MGS questions should. The MGS4 trailer should be hitting GameTrailers.com should be dropping soon.

I don't know if it's because I went to the MS event last night so a lot of the 3rd party games didn't seem as impressive to me having seen them the night before, but many of the titles shown at the Sony briefing just felt like slightly tweaked versions of existing game titles. Haze looks like Halo. Infamous looks like Crackdown and Grand Theft Auto had a one night stand, and Crackdown wound up preggers. Oh, guess what game KillZone2 looks like? Yeap, you guessed it, Halo. It's obvious that Sony wants to declare war on XB360 in the FPS genre. KillZone if the game runs like the video they showed today [which they SWORE was actual gameplay] they may stand a chance of wooing some Halo players over to the darkside of the floss.

Again, I'll wait for the pudding to cool before I eat it. NinJaSistah... OUT!

Finish What You Start...

What are the three most important things in retail sales? Location, location, location. That is, unless you're Universal Music Group.

UMG announced this week that some artists it currently promotes will be denied availability on iTunes. Supposedly, this is to punish Apple for making iTunes the overwhelming No. 1 way to buy music online.

So who will it be, Universal? Will you ban the Black Eyed Peas from iTunes? I saw Diana Krall perform in Vegas last month. Will her records be stricken from the iTunes library? Or how about the Pussycat Dolls? Maybe you should forget about putting those girls on your iPod.

Will George Strait find himself straight out of the iTunes library? Or Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Eminem? Could be Eve or Gwen Stefani or Melissa Etheridge or Mariah Carey or Sheryl Crow or Shania Twain or Reba McEntire? I'd suggest Universal refrain from keeping Reba off of iTunes. She's from a rodeo family. She could beat them up.

I saw Erykah Badu in 2004 at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Surely they wouldn't strike her from iTunes. Or bands like blink-182, Bon Jovi, Fall Out Boy, Godsmack, Hoobastank, The Killers, 3 Doors Down and Weezer. No iPod access for you while you're available only in Windows format.

Ashlee Simpson! She's a UMG act! Please say it's Ashlee Simpson that you're keeping out of iTunes!

But as for Stevie Wonder, Sting, Elton John, The Cardigans and Wolfmother, UMG could seriously damage their careers by keeping them out of an iPhone.

UMG might as well go and tell Best Buy to shove it. Or maybe they should start making music discs that are playable only in a Sony PSP.

That angry noise you hear in the background is UMG's face as the company takes a knife to its own nose.

Finish What You Start...

Sony would like you to think that they have reduced the price of the PS3 today. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Remember when the PS3 first came out in November? They brought out a lame version for $499 and a better version for $599. Today's announcement simply reinstates that pricing model.

Sony dropped its $499 version a few months ago because nobody was buying it. Now the $599 version has been repriced at $499, but it's all window dressing because Sony has already announced a premium-ier version packaged with an 80-gigabyte hard drive and a racing game called "MotorStorm." Guess how much it costs. That's right -- $599.

To reiterate today's announcement: Sony has a lame version of the PS3 that sells for $499 and a better version for $599. Just like in November 2006.

And the PS3 forts grow higher and higher at Best Buy.

Finish What You Start...

Sony Playstation 3 owners are going to have their hands full in the next few days, downloading software and updating their systems. What will it mean for gamers? Pretty much nothing.

The updates aren't for gamers. You can see that right here. They're for people who want to watch a slightly better picture when they're using the PS3 to show DVD movies. They're for people who want to see bigger renditions of pictures they've got saved to their Playstation Portables. They're for people who... uh... well, that's about it.

If you're a gamer waiting for a reason to use the PS3, you'll just have to keep waiting. Sure, it can upscale PSOne and PS2 games, but from what I've seen thus far, those games simply play better on their original systems -- and the PS2 is still beating the PS3 in sales, six months after the introduction of the PS3.

Of course, you could treat the installation of the new PS3 firmware as a game itself. Score 10 points for yourself when you get the thing downloaded. Subtract a point for every hour it takes to download it properly. Score 10 points for yourself when the firmware update is installed and running. Subtract a point for every hour it takes to get the thing working right. If you're lucky, your score will still be a positive number in the end.

Then add it to your gamerscore and... oh, yeah, the PS3 doesn't have a gamerscore.

Do ya think Sony cares about gamers anymore?

Finish What You Start...

News item: Ken Kutaragi, creator of the PlayStation console, will retire from his post as Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.'s chairman and group CEO, effective June 19, Sony Corp. said.

Do you know how you can tell Kutaragi chose to retire?

By the splinters underneath his fingernails!

Finish What You Start...

I don't mind taking credit for it. I made the prediction in May 2006, and now it's all coming to pass.

Last May I wrote the following post about the pricing of the XBox 360 and the two forthcoming game consoles, the PS3 and the Nintendo Wii. According to this story, it seems that I may have been on target after all...

An executive from Sega, one of Nintendo's largest publishers, told Forbes.com last week that he expects the Wii to sell for less than $200. With a $200 price point, the Wii might not only be a video game system, but the new currency exchange unit for video game system sales. Consider this:

Nintendo Wii: 1 Wii
Microsoft XBox 360 Base: 1.5 Wii
Microsoft XBox 360 Deluxe: 2 Wii
Sony Playstation 3 Premium (retail in November): 3 Wii
Sony Playstation 3 Premium (on eBay in December): 6-8 Wii
Sony Playstation 3 Premium (retail, next May): 1.5 Wii

Sure, I got the Wii price point wrong (it was $250, not $200), but I was otherwise close to the target.

And to all those Sony fanboys who have been berating me for my disparaging comments regarding the PS3, I'd like to point out that they sold a whopping 167,000 PS3's in February. At that rate, they'll clean out the entire initial 6 million PS3 run... by, uh, June 2010.

Finish What You Start...

Oooooh, Sony's gotta be a tad peeved on this one but just in case you missed it, DMC4 is going to be on the XB 360 as well as the PC.

That's gotta smart.

So remember back a few months ago when Capcom SWORE that it was going to be exclusive to the PS3. Like, the pinky swore to Sony and before God that it was going to never EVER going to have any other home than on the PS3. Well, they lied. They are dirty, rotten, skinky, [I mean in desperate need of a bath] liars... but that's a good thing. Why? Because, more DMC4 madness on more platforms means more likely to have an online component.

Can you imaging Dante and Nero and maybe even Virgil grudge matches over XBLive? What about those old mansion survival modes? Remember those? [I made it 35 levels once... once] Imagine rooms and rooms of those mansions filled with other Live players in a winner takes all type melee battle. Can't imagine it? I hope that Capcom does.

Finish What You Start...

I'd like to blame it on NinjaSistah. After all, she's the one who damned it in her very first post on this site. She killed it, but like Frankenstein's monster, it lives on.

The Official U.S. Playstation Magazine (that was always a tough name to swallow) died with the January 2007 issue -- killed by lack of advertising sales, the introduction of the lame PlayStation 3 and, I think, by NinjaSistah's devastating post about it almost a year ago, which you can read here.*

You can read about its death here.

But OPM lives on -- in Britain. And they're even putting Blu-Ray demo discs inside. How well they will survive the trip from Europe to America is anybody's guess, though. Read more about it here.

* -- A little postscript on NinjaSistah's experience with OPM demo discs: She cancelled her subscription to OPM last year after having been a subscriber for several years. A few months later she started receiving the magazine free through a different distributor. The discs were packed perfectly and she never received another bad or broken disc. And then OPM stopped publishing entirely. C'est la vie!

Finish What You Start...

Sony has once again recommitted itself to its claim that it will ship 6 million Playstation 3 boxes by March 31. But just where are those boxes all going? We think we might have the answer in this comic...

Finish What You Start...

With Sony's announcement of PS3 Home last week, the company's got some work to do in order for their avatars to catch up to Nintendo's avatars, as you can see in this comic...

Finish What You Start...

What would you think of a mobile gaming device with these specifications? It's only 0.46 inches thick. It has a speaker, a microphone and a camera. Held horizontally, its screen is 480 pixels wide, just like the PlayStation Portable, and 320 pixels tall, nearly 50 pixels taller than the PSP's 272 pixels. At 160 pixels per inch, its screen is the most dense of any standalone portable gaming device. It's got up to 8 GIGABYTES of RAM (compared to the PSP's 32 MEGABYTES). It's got touchscreen controls. It has 802.11 b and g Wi-Fi capabilities (PSP has only b) and Bluetooth built in.

Oh yeah, it's also a mobile phone, an internet browser and an iPod.

The iPhone, announced earlier today during Apple's MacWorld keynote speech, is a whole lotta things. Most people are going to buy it because it's an amazing mobile phone combined with an iPod. But there are a lot of reasons why it could become a force among gamers.

First of all, its mere specifications make it better than any standalone mobile gaming system. Although the screen is not physically as large as the PSP (the iPhone's screen is only 3.5 inches, compared to 4.3 inches for the PSP), it meets the PSP in pixel width and exceeds the PSP in pixel height -- the PSP's pixels are simply larger and, as a result, coarser.

The iPhone is half as thin (0.46 inches vs. the PSP's 0.9 inches) and half as heavy (135 grams vs. the PSP's 280 grams). Held horizontally, it is a third less in width (4.5 inches vs. PSP's 6.7 inches) and a half-inch less in height (2.4 inches vs. PSP's 2.9 inches).

There's just one problem: no games.

The gaming market for the Macintosh dried up when the computer's 10th operating system OS X arrived in 2000. But the iPhone is exactly the catalyst that could turn things around for gaming on the Mac.

The iPhone shows great potential in this area. It has Google Maps and the Opera browser built in. It has "push" email, provided by Yahoo, which gives it email capabilities similar to that on a Blackberry. It is able to run Apple's Dashboard widgets, which should at least allow for simple games when it is available in June. Everything else is a big question mark: How much RAM is there? What is the graphics card? Is there stereo Bluetooth support? Will third-party Dashboard widgets work? Is there going to be a Software Development Kit to allow high-end game makers access to the device?

Perhaps few people will even care. With the Nintendo DS and PSP slugging it out on the high end and LG, Samsung, Nokia and other cellphone makers battling each other in that arena, maybe no one will take a second look at gaming on an iPhone.

But the sheer combination of all those different technologies sure is intriguing, isn't it?

Finish What You Start...

The blows keep coming for poor ol' Sony and their lackluster PS3. [Yes, I am part of the official "hatin' on PS3" club. So what?] First they get dealt a bitch slap by Time magazine, then the NY Times kicks it while it's down, Musgrove takes a leak on it, even PC World put it on their "Top Mistakes of 2006" list, and now even TheStreet.com can't come up with much positive to say about the decisions and actions Sony has taken concerning the PS3.

Oh Sony. It sucks to be you.
If you listen to our podcast on a regular basis you know that I've always had my doubt about the PS3 system. I thought that the machine was [1] too pricey for a gaming console [2] too bulky; after having a PSTWO that was soo sleek being forced into a console with a larger form factor than an XB360 kinda el-sucko and [3] had one of the worst PR campaigns I had ever seen for a console. How does one get excited about a PS3 after watching those eerie "Play Beyond" commercials? Seriously, I'd like to know. In any case, it doesn't surprise me that people are now returning PS3 that they slept overnight in sleeping bags in front of Best Buys to the stores because they can't make more than 100 bucks in profit selling the things on eBay. If you can't make twice your initial investment, might as well make your money back and call it a day. The fact that you can walk into a Best Buy, after Christmas and get a PS3 in your hot little hands even with Sony still in a manufacturing hole is not good news for Sony. Nintendo however is farting in their general direction, and in all honesty I couldn't be happier.

Why you ask? Is it because I'm a Nintendo fangirl? No, not in reality. No, the reason I take solace in Nintendo being the projected winner in the holiday gaming battle royal is because we've been proven right. I've been saying since late June that the Wii was going to be the bad mamma jamma this holiday season because it's the casual gamer that console makers need to go after. Those are the "new dollars" when it comes to profit. Hardcore gamers aren't just going to stop gaming, but they are going to tend to stick to a particular franchise or game genre which will not add to your bottom line if you are a console maker. Halo freaks will by everything Halo you can throw out into the world... but how many Halo titles worth $60 can you make a year?

So, this is my note to all the Sony fanboys and girls out there that slammed us for even speculating that the PS3 was going to suck not going to be the automatic slam dunk that Sony VP's and P's would have like us all to believe:

NYAH, NYAH, NYAH-NYAAAHHHH NNNNNNNYYYYYAAAAH!

Oh yeah, and much pwnage to all in the new year!

Finish What You Start...

Not too long ago, the Playstation 3 hit the shelves and homes of many around the world. Not long after, they were on Ebay selling for thousands of dollars. A little over a month later, are people still itching to “Pay Beyond”?

It seems that people are actually dumping the PS3 on Ebay just to get rid of them. Some of the sellers are actually losing money on them. Call me crazy, but when a newly launched system is being dumped at a loss of profit, shouldn’t that be a cause for worry? It’s almost Christmas so you’d think the bidding wars for these systems would be vicious right about now. Could it be that people are realizing that the system is something they could do without, at least until there’s a bit more to do with and on it?

I’m not hatin’ on those who were able to make a pretty penny off the system’s initial launch hype. More power to you! I’m just glad that people are starting to wise up and let Sony know that if you’re going to sell a system for that much money then you had BETTER come with something stronger than games I can play on a cheaper system, a wireless controller, and creepy commercials telling me to "Play Beyond". Come on Sony. Make me want to go in a store and buy your system, because at this rate, I’ll be able to get a cheaper one on Ebay with some included accessories and games.

Finish What You Start...

Yeah, I'm not sure what that title means either... other than it's new podcast episode day here at ESH!

Honestly, I'm not exactly sure about what we exactly discussed during the taping of this episode, but I do know that Pandalicious was fascinated by a new anime series she caught a glimpse of called Kanon and MagicMysticGrl had some beef with the feature length [or not near enough length] film Eragon.

Me? I just had a bit of "c'mon back to reality with the rest of us" Sony news, and wanted to ask the gals about some growing trends I'm noticing in anime more and more these days. Oh yeah, I talk a bit about UFO: Ultramaiden Valkyrie and let the other two try and do the closing business. It's a fun episode, enjoy.

Finish What You Start...