Category — consoles

Sony Movie and TV Service: The biggest ‘news’ of the Sony press event was the U.S. launch, today, of the previously announced (see here) video service. Sony, Fox, MGM, Lion’s Gate, Warner, Disney, Paramount and Turner Entertainment have partnered with Sony to provide movie and TV content for the on-demand download service. The system uses progressive downloads so users can watch as a movie/TV show as it downloads. Sony says, content is playable a minute or so after ordering. Purchased content only plays on PS3 and PSP. No PC, iPod, iPhone or other device support was announced. No official word yet on how long rentals will be available for viewing - one site mentioned that it will be the usual 24 hours and 14 days to start.

Note: While the previous announcement stated that a service like this would be made available ‘world-wide’, I checked my PS3 in Canada and there was no such content available. Note the “video” button circled in red in the picture above (click for larger view). If it isn’t there, no movies for you!

Resistance 2: They showed a little of Resistance 2. It’s looking good and includes 8 player online co-op support (probably only for certain missions). I quite enjoyed Resistance 1 so I’m looking forward to this one. What is it with the ‘brown’ colour in all the PS3 and 360 games this year?

Massive Action Game (”MAG”): This massively multiplayer shooter looked interesting. MAG supports up to 256 simultaneous players with 8 player squads, ongoing faction campaigns and character growth. The trailer looked great. It’s hard to imagine that 255 players will follow a command hierarchy that goes up to one or two generals. In my experience 8 players will rarely ever co-operate in an online shooter battle. I’ll have to see this one to believe it. See the blatantly pre-rendered trailer below.

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Tags: e3, ivod, sony

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And nothing happened. Nothing captured my interest and certainly nothing was announced to satisfy the hard-core gamers.

New Products

Wii Speak: A microphone that sits atop the TV that picks up all the sounds and voices from a room. This will be used in games in lieu of a headset. But the Wii doesn’t have a system-wide voice system (let alone a decent online game strategy). This will need to be supported from game to game.

Wii MotionPlus: An add-on that plugs into the WiMote to add wrist based twisting motions to its repertoire of recognized real-time movements. One wonders how developers are going to appreciate the burden of developing titles that work with both the WiiMote alone and with the MotionPlus adapter.[gizmodo review here]

Wii Sports Resort: A new game, similar to Wii Sports, but situated at a beach resort. They demoed Frisbee throwing (with a cute dog catching it), sword fighting and lumber chopping. This game uses the new Wii Motion Plus for accuracy. Coming March 2009.

Wii Music:  A new music game featuring 50 virtual instruments was announced. A virtual piano, violin, sax and drum kit were demonstrated. Unlike Rock Band and Guitar Hero, the user doesn’t need to purchase physical plastic instruments. Nor do they follow note patterns on a screen to play. The instruments are ‘virtual’. Waiving/moving the WiiMote around in a manner similar to the instrument being played simulates the instrument. The virtual drum kit (see picture below) that uses the WiiMote and Numchuk as the drumsticks and a WiiFit board as the drum peddle was clever. But the other instruments looked like little more than air-instruments where regardless of what the user does some facsimile of music will be produced. Lame. And it sounded pretty awful. [more info here]

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Tags: e3, nintendo

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(Click image to watch abridged version of Microsoft’s 2008 E3 press briefing)

[Full Microsoft E3 2008 coverage is here]

A new Dashboard Interface for the 360: It’s coming this fall. [ Watch demo here]It’s nicer than, but seems influenced by, the PS3 ribbon. It looks like it will be easier to use than the current blade system. I question whether people will want to learn a whole new interface.

Avatars coming on 360: Looks like Microsoft is trying to bring a bit of the Wii and Playstation Home to the 360. I’m not sure if my adult friends will take the time to create their own avatars.

Integrated Netflix coming to the 360: Netflix users will be able to queue up their Internet ordered videos to be played on the 360. This probably won’t be available outside of the U.S. for years (if ever). Regrettably, it appears that movies will only be streamed through the Netflix service and not downloaded. This means (i) fastforwarding and rewinding will janky; and (ii) the quality of the picture will vary depending on your Internet connection speed.

Final Fantasy XIII Coming to the 360! The hitherto PS3 exclusive franchise is coming to the 360 on the same day and date as the PS3. Final Fantasy XIII coming to the 360 is another Microsoft coup. Other than Sony Studios first party games and Metal Gear Solid, I can’t think of any major game franchise that is a PS3 exclusive any more. Interestingly there will be no Japanese 360 version.

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Tags: avatars, dashboard, e3, final fantasy, ivod, microsoft, netflix

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I recently listened to the March 31, 2008 EGM Live Podcast (download) where Garnett Lee interviewed Aaron Greenberg, Microsoft’s Director of Product Management for the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live. Among other topics, Aaron had the unenviable job of defending the concept of Microsoft Points (time index 17:40).

Reading several articles today on Sony’s pending PS3 on-demand service (see here, here and here) and Sony’s pending Playstation cards, to be denominated in local currency (here), it occurred to me that Microsoft’s use of points alone is going to become increasingly untenable as Microsoft’s key game/movie/TV show download competitors all offer competing products denominated and purchasable in local currencies.

Below I discuss Aaron’s arguments for Microsoft Points and what, to me, are overwhelming competitive arguments against them.

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Tags: amazon unbox, apple tv, microsoft points, playstation card, tivo

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Grrr…..  Why does Sony make simple things so complicated?

I’ll start with the answer to the titular question. After firing up the PS3 with your new Dual Shock 3 (DS3) controller:

• start Resistance Fall of Man (RFoM)
• choose “Multiplayer”
• choose “online game” - the following notice will appear:

“An update to Resistance: Fall of Man is available. This update is required for online play. Download update?

• choose ‘yes’
• exit the game when the download is complete
• start it up again.

You’ll finally have 10 year old technology in your sparkly new PS3 - yeah!!!

Who came up with this clever idea? How are people that want to play the single player campaign offline supposed to know this?

Now for the back-story.

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Tags: dual shock 3, playstation, ps3, resistance fall of man, rumble

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(2.5/5)

The new PS3 Playstation store is a much needed improvement over the older store.

The Old Playstation Store:

The old store (pictured to the left) booted slowly, was unresponsive, had tiny print and was almost unusable. It relied on a ‘mouse’ like interface with a pointer that needed to be moved around the screen with the PS3 controller’s analogue stick. It was very difficult to use and imprecise.

The New Playstation Store:

• The new store boots up faster
• Thankfully, the mouse-pointer interface is gone
• The main menu now presents a grouped items column on the left
• Selecting an item group brings up a much easier to read sub-menu (see the “New Releases” submenu below).
• The submenu has a navigable list of possible selections on the right
• Selection details show up in a big, easier to read, panel on the left.

• Everything is faster and crisper (more pics on joystiq here).

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Tags: console, movies, playstation 3 store, ps3

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