This is looking more like a movie than a game, even more so than the first one. If you have a PS3 and haven’t played Drakes Fortune go get it now. It’s the best game on the platform (in my opinion)

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It was hard not to be impressed yesterday with some of the things microsoft showed off at their E3 press conference but their demo of their new controllerless controller was pretty mine blowing. The add on to the xbox 360 is essentially a real time motion capture system. For some bizare reason though they’ve decided to call it “project natal”, possibly one of the stupidest names for anything ever.

Still, though, the technology was very impressive. People are already calling it a wii killer although how much of this is actually real is yet to be seen. What looks good on a video demo may not translate into the real world. Some of the things demoed for sony’s motion eye looked cool but the novelty wears off extremely quickly. Then again, if this can do half of the things in the demo then it’s going to be a huge success.

Either way though it was an impressive demo. Sony’s keynote is on today and will at least feature a new psp. What other surprises are in store remains to be seen but they will be hard pressed to top microsofts demos.

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From Macworld UK:

Metal Gear Solid Touch comes as a bit of a surprise to long-time fans of the Metal Gear franchise; it was recently hinted at on the Web site of Kojima Productions, the developer responsible for the best-selling game series, headed by famed game designer Hideo Kojima.

[Read Konami announces Metal Gear, Silent Hill games for iPhone]

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According to VGChartz.com the Xbox 360 has sold 25 million units and the PS3 has sold 18 million units. If you consider the fact that the PS3 is a year younger than the 360 then this puts them on pretty even footing on a per year basis. (In fact vgcharts has a handy graph that shows sales from launch, and from that respect the PS3 is actually selling faster than the 360)It’s even more impressive when you consider the price difference. Of course the numbers in North America give the 360 a strong advantage, but then, despite what some pundits might like to think, there is a world outside the USA and Canada.

Another thing to consider is, what is the measure of success. For some of the pundits out there, the only measure of success is market share, and only if you’re in first position can you consider yourself successful. But we’ve been down this road before with Apple. No one considerers the mac a failure any more despite its market share compared to Windows. For years people called on Apple to lower their prices to gain market share, but Apple instead chose a more quantifiable measure of success – actual revenue, which when you think about it is what a company is there for.

I find it amazing that people want Sony to lower the price of the PS3 when the system already sells at a loss, and the company is suffering the effects of the economic down turn just like everyone else, all for the intangible benefit of having more market share. Again, going back to the numbers, I’m sure if you worked it out, based on average selling price, then in terms of revenue the PS3 and 360 would be even, or the PS3 might even be ahead. Unfortunately though technology writers seem blinkered to only think of technology success in terms of market share.

Interestingly enough too, if you look at what Microsoft has done in the last few months, slashing the price of the 360, and obviously sales have taken off. But this is not surprising given the extent to which they’ve slashed the price. But then less price means less, if any profit. Microsoft seem determined to take on the Wii, as clearly evidenced by the recent NXE update to the system. The increasing sales of the 360 have not come at the expense of the PS3. The PS3 is still selling at the same level and is actually showing year on year growth, so you have to wonder where Cnn and others are getting their highly dubious * information from.

* I’m not saying the Macworld article is dubious- but it points out how dubious cnn’s stats in this case are

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Why have Microsoft been hyping the crap out of their xbox 360 sales numbers over the last couple of weeks. It seems like every other day they’re putting out a press release saying how great they are. Could it be that they know that the price drop on an aging system will only work so long and they want to make the most of it while they can?

And what’s with the need for Microsoft to compete with everything. If you look at the new software upgrade, the so called “new xbox experience” it’s clear they’re targeting nintendo and the wii. Sure the wii is selling like hot cakes but it’s a cheaper product aimed at a different segment of the market. While Microsoft and nintendo go at it it leaves Sony with the high end of the gaming market all to themselves, and Sony have stated repeatedly that they are not interested in the low end casual gaming market.

and another thing…

Just what is going on at Adobe? I’m not talking about the fact that they’re not exhibiting at Macworld expo or that they’re laying off 600 employees. I’m talking about camera raw and Lightroom. It’s been a while now since they upgraded Camera Raw with support for some newer cameras and so far no sign of an update for Lightroom. Considering they both share the same engine and that they are pushing Lightroom as “the” workflow tool for digital photography, surely they would have added support to lightroom first? Could it be that slower sales of CS4 have forced a re-think of priorities? Given that at the moment only CS4 supports new cameras like the 5DMKII are adobe trying to send a message?

When you think about it, with the economic slowdown (recession, crisis, armageddon etc) the companies digital photography strategy has to have the execs in a bit of a pickle. On the one hand Lightroom must be taking sales away from CS4. I mean if you already have Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom 2 you probably couldn’t be bothered upgrading to CS4, especially when budgets are tight, and especially if you live outside the USA where the cost of Adobe products is simply ridiculous. On the other hand they’re kind of locked into Lightroom now. They can’t discontinue it because there’d be virtual riots and they’d turn the whole “photography workflow” market over to Apple. Yes, certainly a pickle.

Speaking of photography, I’m glad I wasn’t one of those who pre-ordered the 5D. I’ve been going back and forward over whether or not to get one, but now that the initial enthusiasm has died down, and people have stopped thinking of it as the jesus-cam, forums all over the place are starting to overflow with some of the problems people are having such as stuck pixels on video (apparently canon said to someone that the 5D should not be used for professional video and you should only think of the video as a bonus feature! – nice one Canon) or worse the discovery that under certain conditions the camera is putting black spots beside highlighted areas. What’s worse is the problem seems pretty widespread so it’s looking increasingly like a design flaw rather than a manufacturing bug with early units.

I’ve been saying for the past couple of weeks to people that I had a feeling something was up with the 5D2. There was just something suspicious about the way Canon rolled it out. They were supposed to start shipping in early November but that seemed to get pushed back, but more than that they were being super secretive about a camera they had already announced and hyped to death. Apart from Vincent LaFloret very few people had gotten their hands on one before the official release date. No magazines or websites got their hands on a review unit before the camera was released as a whole. It seemed very odd. Supposedly there was one unit sent out to all the canon suppliers in the whole of the Uk and Ireland and dealers were under strict instructions not to let anyone keep any photos. Know this could be bull but that’s what I was told. And it would make sense if Canon were aware that there was some issues with the sensor.

Anyway, I think that’s enough conspiracies for tonight.

Oh, and one last thing. I just spent the last several hours trying to undo my attempt to hack my AppleTV box, which resulted in an endless Apple logo loop, so unless you really want to hack it……don’t.

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Sony Europe has announced that universally acclaimed social platformer LittleBigPlanet has seen a whopping 84,000 user-created levels uploaded since the game’s release earlier this month, with a total of 27 million level play throughs logged.

That’s pretty impressive. I’m a huge fan of this game but I haven’t yet made any levels as I’m still going through the level making tutorials, but It’s well worth a look if you have a PS3
[Read LittleBigPlanet sees 84,000 user levels uploaded :: PlayStation Universe (PSU)]

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Appleinsider has an article about Apple improving MobileMe syncing in 10.5.6. There isn’t much detail but I’m sure anyone who uses MobileMe will appreciate the touch.

Engadget HD has one of their typical flame baiting articles asking which is better as a Media Centre: A PS3 or an XBOX360 ? What’s interesting about the article is the comments. Normally the hysteria of xbox fans would put the worst mac fanboy to shame, but the conversation is surprisingly even handed. Personally I haven’t turned my xbox 360 on in months. I think the PS3 is a far superior product. The fact that Microsoft sees fit to charge you for their online service and then push ads for it onto the console’s desktop to me is a bloody disgrace.

Incidentally, speaking of the Playstation, LittleBigPlanet, really is the best game I have ever played. I’ll try and put together a review soon, but if you have a PS3 you have to get this game.

An interesting blog post describing how best to set up a Drobo for time machine backups. There are some more suggestions (and in my opinion better solutions) in the comments.

Lego looses it’s trademark battle to protect the copyright on it’s iconic brick. I don’t know how the Judge came to this conclusion. I hope Lego continues to fight on this.

I suppose this had to happen sometime.

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n its latest issue, Xbox World 360 reports that its own sources have “confirmed” that both the 360 motion contoller and Rare-helmed Xbox 360 ‘Mii’ project are real, and will be out before the end of the year.

In other words, Microsoft is continuing its strategy of innovation through bare faced copying. In case you haven’t seen the rumors about this thing, apparently it’s an almost exact duplicate of the wii controller. It’s shocking that they continue to get away with this crap.
[Read News: 360 motion controller is real, says ANOTHER mag - ComputerAndVideoGames.com]

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