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As promised, I am here to share my thoughts on this year’s E3. I’m not going to address every game that was talked about, but more of my thoughts from the main press events, so here we go.

Lets start off with Microsoft. This event was mind blowing! I found myself sitting in my chair several hours after the event still saying “holy crap!” The past couple of years have been a rather big disappointment from all of the major companies but this even alone makes up for all of it. Before I address Project Natal, which was the main “holy crap!” moment from the event, lets talk games and Xbox functionality. There were a ton of great titles that were announced at this years Microsoft press event, including Forza Motorsport 3, Halo Reach, Left 4 Dead 2, Crackdown 2, Metal Gear Solid Rising and even a Beatles version of Rock Band. These were great announcements as many of the major titles including Halo Reach, Left 4 Dead 2 and Metal Gear Solid Rising were completely unexpected. In terms of games, it looks to be a very bright year for the Xbox 360. They also announced some great new additions to Xbox Live including Last.fm, Facebook and even Twitter integration. This will do wonders for making the 360 become apart of your social network life. They also announced better quality video streaming which is awesome too. Finally, the biggest announcement was Project Natal. This is Microsoft’s one-up on the Wii motion controller. When this is released, you will be able to interact with your 360 and games with no controller at all, just by moving your body. If that wasn’t cool enough, it can react to voice commands. I cant say enough about this, so head here to check out the demo of it.

Nintendo was the second person to present at this years E3 and it made for a great opportunity to take a nap. After the stellar event from Microsoft, Nintendo could have put just about anybody to sleep. The major problem with Nintendo’s press event was that it was largely old news and not the announcements that people were hoping for. They spent a fair bit of time talking about the Wii Motion Plus which they announced and showed at length last year but doesn’t come out until this week. Nothing spectacular was shown with this, just another demo of Wii Sports Resort which was also announced last year. The Wii Fit was also talked about at length and they announced a new expansion for the Wii Fit with some new exercises and stuff for those that still use the Wii Fit, all 2 of you. Other than those disappointments, this year was the year of Mario. A number of new Mario titles were announced including a new Super Mario Bros which allows up to 4 people to play at once and Mario Galaxy 2. Other than Mario which didn’t seem to overly excite many people, the only other major announcement was a new Metroid game. While it looks interesting, I am not a Metroid fan so I can’t say it had my jumping up and down and it didn’t seem to get that big of reaction from the crowd. There was no news about a Zelda game or anything that people were expecting other than after the event, one of the Nintendo people said one was in the works. Generally, it was a complete snooze although a 4 player Mario does look interesting.

Finally, the last to present was Sony. Unlike Nintendo, this one was pretty exciting too although just slightly below the Microsoft event. They demo’d a bunch of major new games that nearly all look amazing including Assassins Creed 2, Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker and even my personal favorite, God of War 3. There were a ton of great looking games announced but they took a back seat to the two major announcements, the PSP Go which I have already blogged about here and here, as well as their own version of motion control that looks like the Wiimote’s uglier, more powerful cousin. While it kicks the butt of the Wii motion control, its not quite as impressive as Project Natal. Overall, they put on a great event.

Between Microsoft and Sony, this was an amazing year at E3 which Nintendo gave everybody a great nap opportunity. This certainly looks to be an exciting time for gamers over the next year and I can’t wait to play the many games that are coming out. What did you think of everything that happened at E3 this year?

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-Jeremy “pcnerd37″ Bray

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Global Geek News Podcast #26

Jeremy Bray — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:32:29 +0000

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Here are the shownotes for episode #26 for the Global Geek News Podcast.

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Hosts: Jeremy Bray and Wesley Faulkner

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The pain of the PSP Go, the necessity of new accessories

Jeremy Bray — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:00:33 +0000

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Greetings Readers!

Over the years, I have managed to collect more gaming platforms than I can keep track of. With only a couple of exceptions, I have owned or still own every major gaming platform to be released. Some of them, I have multiple of, especially Gameboys which I seem to collect for some strange reason. With the thousands of dollars that I have spent over the years on new consoles and handhelds, there is one thing I always dread the most, having to buy new accessories. In this case, I want to talk specifically about the PSP and the PSP Go. This applies to pretty much every system with a few exceptions but I am going to focus on these two for now.

Like every year, I pay extremely close attention to the E3 coverage. I have even been known to take most of a week off of work just so I can sit and watch the wall to wall coverage that all of the major gaming sites have of the annual event. While I didn’t take any time off of work this year, I still watched nearly all of my usual coverage thanks to being alone at work. I will write another post or two about my complete thoughts from the event but right now I want to focus on the PSP Go. Much has been discussed about the PSP Go going completely digital with its content, something I will discuss further in another blog post and on the next podcast, but it seems that the main thing people are talking about is the price. People seem to be complaining that $250 is too much, but clearly they need a little history lesson, so here it is.

The PSP launched on March 24, 2005. When it launched, it was priced at $250, the same is what the PSP Go is going to sell for. Despite this price point that people now claim is too high, that morning it still had people lined up at early openings of stores. I know this because I stood in line and was the second person in town to get my hands on one. Not long after, I purchased a second one slightly used although not noticeable for a number of reasons, but price was never a huge factor for me. If it was over $300, I would have complained, but for what you got at the time, it was a decent price point and it still is. The reason it is still a great price is because of all of the new features and the power of the device compared to the Nintendo DS or DSi. From a technical aspect, the PSP can run circles around the DS. Between being able to play better looking games to being able to play movies, music and even stream audio over the web, it not only justifies the price difference but it laughs at the DS while doing so. The PSP Go vs the DSi is no different. I will admit the DSi has some nice new features including the cameras, but it still can’t compete in terms of value with what you get in the PSP Go. The PSP Go is not only as capable as its predecessor but it now it has 16GB of internal storage and bluetooth in a device a fraction of the size and weight of the original PSP. While the DSi added some nice features like the cameras, the technical specs weren’t boosted to allow it to compete with the PSP. For some reason, Nintendo doesn’t seem to mind inferior hardware as proven with the Wii and GameCube and if you really want to go back, we can put many of the Gameboy systems in that category as well considering the Sega GameGear was superior in nearly every aspect but size and battery life. Anyway, it should be clear that I think it is worth every penny of the $250, especially when you compare it to the handhelds that Nintendo offers.

The most annoying thing about it for me is the fact that you are going to need all new accessories for your PSP Go since the ones from your PSP won’t work with it. While I certainly understand the need of new cases since the Go is considerably smaller, I don’t understand while the miniUSB that was used in the original was taken out of the Go in favor of some kind of multi-use port. The new port will still plug into your computers USB port, from the pictures I have seen, it looks identical to the plug in the Zune. I don’t see any reason to change it other than to make people buy all new accessories which really pisses me off. I am a loyal enough customer to purchase a bunch of accessories over the years in the first place, I should not be punished by having to buy all of them again just because you want more money so you change the hardware to force me to buy something new. Accessories aren’t that cheap and if you already have people complaining about the price, just how mad do you think they will be when you make them purchase all of their accessories all over again? If you want to catch up to the DS which has outsold the PSP 2:1, this is not the way to do it.

All manufactures need to heed this message. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. If it is not a necessary change, don’t make it for the sake of making money. Either use it to add value make no change so that the barrier of entry for a new device is as small as possible to increase the adoption of your device. Anyway, enough of my rant. Tomorrow, I will talk about the PSP Go’s digital download move followed by my thoughts on E3 with a few other posts splattered in between.

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-Jeremy “pcnerd37″ Bray

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Did Conan O'Brien Steal his Tonight Show backdrop from…Mario?!

Jeremy Bray — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:30:00 +0000

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Greetings Readers!

With the exception of last night, I have watched the new Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien just to give him a chance as I never really watched him before as I am a Criag Furgeson fan who airs his show at the same time as Conan. I noticed there was something oddly familiar with Conan’s new backdrop but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It seems that the guys over at Serious Lunch were able to figure out why it seemed so familiar. While it could be a coincidence, it appears the backdrop was ripped from Mario! Check out the images below to see for yourself and tell me what you think in the comments.

Did Conan use Mario for his background?

I guess video games can show up anywhere!

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-Jeremy “pcnerd37″ Bray

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E3, Another Year of Disappointment

Jeremy Bray — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:14:51 +0000

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Greetings readers!

In case you have been on vacation or just hiding under a rock, this week was the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3 convention in LA. The convention is where a majority of the major gaming announcements for the year are unveiled. While there were some interesting announcements this year, the event ended up being another big disappointment.

For those that missed the press conferences, here is a quick rundown. Microsoft showed off Fallout 2, Gears of War 2, a new Xbox Dashboard, and had two major announcements. Microsoft has partnered with Netflix to bring streaming movies to the 360 by way of your Netflix subscription, and they announced that Final Fantasy XIII will be coming to the 360. Next, Nintendo did their announcements which included a Shawn White snowboarding game using the Wii balance board, the Wii Motion Plus attachment, Wii Sports Resort and Wii Music. Last was Sony. Sony didnt have much in the way of interesting game announcements other than one of my personal favorites, a new God of War game. They showed off two new Resistance games but nothing that spectacular that hasnt been shown before. They also showed off Little Big Planet and Playstation Home. Sony’s bombshell announcements (outside of God of War 3) were the unveiling of a new video store on the Playstation 3 and a new PS3 with a $100 price cut.

Lets start with Microsoft. I will admit that Fallout 3 looks awesome, especially with the Fat Man gun and the ability to target individual body parts and shoot people with teddy bears. Gears of War 2 and Final Fantasy 13 looked impressive but not in an ‘I need to change my pants’ kind of way. The real announcement here was the changes to the Xbox and Xbox Live itself. The new Dashboard interface looks very simple and clean compared to the current version. This is nice but im not sure its something that really matters. With this, they also introduced Avatars. Avatars are the Mii’s better looking cousin. I can’t give Microsoft credit for originallity here, but at least they are better looking and more human like than Nintendo’s Mii characters. I will admit the whole Party concept is great, especially with the ability to watch your friends Netflix movies. Speaking of Netflix, that announcement didn’t suprise me in the least. Such a deal has been known to be in the works for many months and while I am glad there is finally an announcement, it didn’t have any unknown suprises with it.

Nintendo on the other hand, was a complete snooze. Much like Microsoft, there was a bunch of boring sales data that, while interesting interesting in the past, has lost much of its meaning with monthly NPD data being released to the public. Being a Shawn White fan, I will admit it was cool to see him. Being a fan of snowboarding games since 1080 for the N64, I think this looks interesting although I’m not sure it will make me want to buy the Wii Balance Board. Wii Sports Resort looked interesting when coupled with the Wii Motion Plus, but seemed to lack the really fun games that were apart of the original Wii Sports. Wii Music on the other hand just looked terrible. Not only is it ugly and look strange, there seems to be no skill involved in the game and seems to be about as involved as playing the air guitar. I dont see this game selling very well at all. The most disappointing part of the whole Nintendo event was that they said that the Mario and Zelda teams were working on something, but said nothing more.

Finally, we come to Sony. This was probably the best event out of all of them. While they didnt have any shocker announcements like Microsoft announing Final Fantasy XIII, it was a solid confernece. Unlike the boring data that Nintendo and Microsoft had, Sony talked about their stats and Greatest Hits games using Little Big Planet, an idea that was absolutely brilliant! The movie store was a great announcement as they went directly to the movie studios rather than through Netflix in a move that I see as a huge Screw You! to Microsoft and Netflix. The pricing feels about right for the movies and even feels like a bargain when you find out you are now able to put a copy of the movie on your PSP to take with you anywhere while still having a copy on your PS3. A God of War 3 Trailer was shown off, which made me scream with joy. No ship date though. Finally, their major hardware announcement was a new, 80GB PS3 with the same features as the 40GB PS3 for the same price as the 40GB PS3. Essentailly the 80GB PS3 will now be available again outside of the Metal Gear Solid 4 bundle and for $100 less. What is still unclear to me is that if it has the same features as the 40GB, I assume that means that there is no PS2 backward compatibility that has previously existed in the 80GB PS3 units. While I would like some clarification on this, this is still a big announcement and the only major hardware announcement of the event (Microsoft made their announcemnt a day early, so im not counting that).

While there were some decent announcements and solid game demos, compared to years past, there seemed to be a major lack of excitement with the conference. There were very few major game announcements, and the major Halo announcement that everybody was expecting was pulled at the last minute. Hopefully there will be some better game announcements at other shows or this could turn out to be a very disappointing holiday season for gamers.

-Jeremy “pcnerd37″ Bray

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Nintendo Tries to Kill Homebrew, Fails

Nintendo Tries to Kill Homebrew, Fails

Jeremy Bray — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:47:53 +0000

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Greetings Readers!

If you are like me and still can’t get your hands on a Wii, this story probably won’t mean much to you, but if you are a lover of homebrew on your gaming systems, this story is for you.

Yesterday, Nintendo released a new update for the Wii (v3.3) which does two major things. One, you can now move you Mii directly from the Mii Plaza into the Mii Parade. Second, it kills the Twilight Hack which allows players to use homebrew games and applications on the popular console. Luckily, a workaround has been discovered which will allow people to continue to use homebrew although it is not yet been made public.

Much like Sony, I don’t think Nintendo understands homebrew. I will admit that Sony is doing a bit better now with the ability to run linux on the PS3, but they still seem to maintain an anti-homebrew stance when it comes to the PSP. Much like the PSP homebrew community, despite Nintendo’s best efforts, they will not be able to kill homebrew completely. If there is one thing they can learn from the PSP community its that you cannot kill that which you don’t understand.

While I understand that the gaming industry wants to avoid piracy at all costs, that doesn’t mean that killing homebrew is the way to do that. As the RIAA and MPAA know, you can never stop piracy. It is better to admit that now so you can go on to more productive endeavors.

Allowing users to do what they wish with their hardware is a big selling point for many people. The ability to put homebrew on my PSP is why I have two of them. The ability to put Linux on the PS3 is one of the main reasons I expect to purchase one very soon. If you allow people to do what they wish with their system, not only will they be grateful for it, but they will spend more time using the system! That is what manufacturers should be wanting, any edge that will keep consumers using their product more than their competitor’s product. The ability to do things like turn my PSP into a powerful graphing calculator is a huge selling point when I am faced with having to purchase a $100+ graphing calculator.

If Nintendo can recognize the potential that homebrew brings, it will be a great benefit to their console. The more consumer centric you are, the greater your position in the market will become.

-Jeremy “pcnerd37″ Bray

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Red Hat Challenges Ubuntu, Microsoft with Global Desktop Linux