On Tuesday the HDTV I order eventually arrived. It took around 10minutes or so to set up once it was removed from the packaging.
As you can see in the picture above there is an Xbox 360 Elite, HD DVD Drive, Playstation 3, Sky and a Windows Vista PC connected to the TV.
So far, I’ve played a few Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 games on the new TV and I’m impressed with it. The picture quality is awesome and the TV features smart sound technology which works really well. I’ve got a PC connected to the HDTV and later on today I’m going to boot up World in Conflict to see what it looks like on the big screen. I’ll post pictures and video when I get a chance.
I was out of the office most of today as I had a meeting with Ubisoft. It was my first time down to their new offices but where they’re based is practically in the middle of nowhere. Chertsey looks like a nice place but it just seems like its one long road with shops and that’s about it. Nice properties though.
Anyhoo, I went to see Ubisoft about V2 of the book and I’m very pleased with the outcome. It was good to see Chris 3ast0n on his home turf and he showed me some really cool titles Ubisoft is releasing later this year. Jam Sessions looks awesome as does Assassins Creed, Haze and the ‘Games for Everyone’ titles.
Oh yeh, when I walked into Ubisoft’s offices I saw King Kong’s twin brother… the other twin is in my back garden.
I’m an avid watcher and reader of the BBC’s Click show and I just came across this article about Game consoles’ web strategy. The article is pretty interesting as it covers the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360’s online offerings… the other interesting thing is that the reporter has got a number of quotes from John Houlihan, of Computer and Video Games.
I had lunch with John at a Prey press event many moons ago and I think, Gareth worked with John a few times.
I totally forgot to post this during the week but I published my Spiderman 3 preview via: News0r.com and on license to Totally360.com and TotallyPS3.com. I hope that once you’ve read the preview you’ll be inclined to go buy the game and watch the new movie on Friday.
Since I started working in the games industry I received a lot of cool things over the years but I think 2K Games have really capped it off with this Darkness assets case:
Ben posted about this on Friday and I forgot about it until I spotted the case lurking in the darkness.
I’ve just got back from the Spiderman 3 press event, it was awesome. It was a mission to get down to Activision’s offices but it was good to catch up with Leo. I took a few photos’ using the N95 but they wouldn’t let me take any pictures of the game in action. I’ve posted the pictures below:
Thanks Leo @ Activision.
I had some time to mess around with the PS3, I finally managed to set up a wireless connection to the Internet and my PSP. The process was somewhat tedious and painfully slow but once it is connected it is pretty cool. As I hooked up the PSP to the PS3, I’m not 100% sure what else I can do with it because all of the games on the PS3, including the downloaded demos are not compatible with the PSP. However, browsing the internet was simple. I took a few pictures which you can view below:
There are some more pictures on my flickr site.
Earlier today, Sony delivered the PS3 and they included five games with it. The games are Formula 1, Motorstorm, Ridge racer, Resistance: Fall of Man and Genji. I’ve only managed to set up the console and try out the games but so far, I really like Genji, Motorstorm and Resistance: Fall of Man. Here are some photos:
It is a nice looking console, a lot bigger than the Xbox 360 but it gets extremely hot after a few minutes. Also, I’ll post up some photo’s from the Norwegian trip later… you’ve got to see gameXplore’s office.
The PS3 was launched last night/this morning across Europe and so far, it looks like Playstation 3’s are available to buy from most major High-Street retailers which is actually a good sign. I say it’s a good sign purely based on the lack of disappointment from Sony fans as they are actually able to buy the console on the launch day unlike the Xbox 360 which at it’s launch had a lot of disappointed people not able to buy one.
At the time I gained access to the launch figures i.e. the amount of Xbox 360 units available to buy via retailers such as ASDA, Tescos etc. I called my contact at Microsoft and spoke to them about it, they were surprised that I had the information and couldn’t really confirm anything but the numbers added up as each store received in-between 5-10 consoles - which seems like the launch was rushed, planned well in advance to ensure the console was sold out on day one. (A friend and ex-Microsoft employee actually confirmed this to me shortly after the launch).
I just read the Microsoft crashes Sony PS3 launch article on the BBC’s site and while this may be funny to Xbox fanboys, I think it’s rather disappointing because Sony did not attempt ruin the Xbox 360’s launch but hey, if your company can afford to spend billions to dominate a market then good luck…
I’m actually very really tempted to go out and buy a PS3 now but we’ve had a PS3 developer, retail kit in the Oslo office for ages so for the moment the PS3 can wait until the end of April. I did think about going down to Virgin Mega-stores in Oxford Street last night and I should have because Sony gave away a number of HDTV’s but then I may have run into certain person that would have got a slap. I’ve got to get ready for a dinner engagement so I may not be around tonight but please do leave your thoughts in the comment box below.
Sony announced a new virtual community called Home at this years GDC (Game Developers Conference). The concept is very interesting and I like the idea of the showcase cinema for downloadable content and the ‘Hall of Fame’. The other interesting announcement at GDC was LittleBigPlanet which kind of reminds me of Viva Piñata. It is unique but fun at the same time and I’m actually more enticed to go buy a PS3 on launch day now.
