Today is a bit weird. My young prodigy, Ben F is moving closer to London and has secured a new job. Go buy MCV as it has details of Ben’s new appointment.
When I first met Ben, he was working (I say the word ‘working’ very loosely) at a dead end site with little to zero chances of progressing within the games industry. Ben decided to jump ship by working with Tom and I at AlienPants Ltd. We’ve worked with Ben for the past 18months or so and at times things were a bit crazy but Ben has really proved that he has what it takes to be a games journalist. I’m extremely happy for him and I wish him all the best in his new job.
We’re meeting up tonight to celebrate so expect a load of drunken snaps over the weekend 
Last night I was playing Virtua Tennis 3 (TV3) and within minutes of unlocking the Rank #1 in the World Tour achievement, a long time friend and legend in the games biz sent me an invite via Xbox Live to join his game. I joined the game and we had a good few matches but while we took a break, we started talking about online media. While I’m involved with it to a certain extent the subject is slightly off-putting due to some awful experiences with two Xbox sites.
We covered a range of interesting subjects and my friend asked me for some advice, which isn’t unusual because consultants, PR agencies and games publishers regularly call/email for guidance on numerous issues - I do not have a problem doing this as I like to help people but obviously if there is a need for a detailed consultation then it would be chargeable… I didn’t expect to talk about this particular website but as I’ve worked ran online tournaments for them in the past. My view of them has changed a lot this year. However, in saying that this post should not reflect the work that they have done on the site so far, they are very aware that I praise when they’ve done something awesome or when they’ve innovated.
At present and based on my experience with them, I’m not really sure what to say or how to advise others, so I didn’t really say anything about them. I know that at some point they will read this and I think that this post will give them something to think about.
Update and correction: It was not my intention to cause any problems but Paul did not resign from the site due to any issues with the management.
Lesson learned for the day - Don’t let a woman tell you how or what to blog.
If you fancy spreading your wings and think you can write about games, then why not apply for a position at Ignition. This top online publication is currently looking for a number of staff members, you can find out more via the jobs listing page.
Good Luck 
Microsoft has announced a new Xbox 360 called Xbox 360 Elite and this version of the console is kitted out with a HDMI port. Styled in a cool shade of black which looks nice but no word of a European release.
Will you be buying one?
STOP THE PRESS!
// Gareth Williams (aka Guru Vagus) has fixed updated his long running blog by unleashing a new theme and he has added a portfolio of his work within Online, Print, Mobile and TV Media. If you’re a reader of Gareth’s previous blog then you’ll know he sucks at updating it, however he has updated the blog three times today - amazing super-sensationally awesome. (Sorry, I got a bit carried away with the lines from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). Anyhoo, check out the new blog via this linkage.
I’ve booked the flight to Oslo, Norway and I managed to find a bargain, the flight cost £169 which isn’t too bad considering it’s Easter Weekend. It looks like the chaps at gameXplore have planned a number of cool things. I’ll be staying in Oslo on Tuesday and I’ll be having a number of meetings related to Advertising, PR and Sales of V2 of The Book of Games, get some hands on time with the PS3 dev kit, retail unit and then we’ll be heading to Hamer for the start of the ‘Gathering’.
Ben F has offered to lend me his camera, so you can expect to see a lot pictures from the event, plus I will try to ‘photoblog’ the entire trip. I’m not sure how feasible it will be on my Wordpress blog but I may try photoblogging via my Pitch Tag… if you haven’t signed up to Pitch then your really missing out on the fastest growing mobile social networking community.
After the craziness of last week I had a very relaxing Friday evening with Kate and a great meal. We ventured over to Shanghai Blues in High Holborn and of course, I picked up the tab but the evening was very entertaining. It’s not long to go until we fly over to Norway to visit Hamer, time seems to be flying by at the moment. After arriving home in the early hours of Saturday I was awoken by the postman at around 8.30am as he had some parcels to hand over… I opened them up and there were a number of games for V2 of the book.
I’m really enjoying VT3 and I’ve managed to unlock a load of neat achievements. I’m hoping Gareth has got this game because after the butt whooping he gave me on Rockstar’s Table Tennis I think I owe him some payback. As for today, I’m going to take everything very easy. I’ll be playing TMNT shortly but I think I may go watch 300 - everyone that I’ve spoken to about 300 says its worth watching so I may just go do that later on.
Anyways, I hope you’re having a good weekend
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.
I’m really looking forward to getting away from everything as this week was pretty dismal. Lucky enough Kate came over earlier and cheered me up. I asked her if she’d like to join me on my trip to Hamer, Norway and she said yes.
I’m happy and excited
As soon as the funds clear in my bank account, I’ll be booking the flights but I won’t be booking a hotel as a friend has offered to accommodate us at his home, plus we’re going to be camping at the Viking ship for a few days whilst attending the Gathering 2007. (You can find out more about the gathering via this link - note its in Norwegian). It should be a fun event and I’m looking forward to promotional activities that we’ve got planned. I just hope my lady doesn’t get bored at this geek festival.
While I was playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl, the game started running really slow so I shut down the game and had a look at the computers performance. After spending about an hour configuring some settings and cleaned the hard drives again. When you install Windows Vista as a clean installation it automatically saves Windows XP as a folder on your hard drive. I didn’t realize until yesterday that the size of the old Windows XP files was so big, 47GB’s. I deleted those files from the system and the game ran fine.
