Games! Games! Games!

Following up on The Diffusion Group's prediction that Microsoft (MSFT) will enter the portable gaming market in 2007/8, 1UP.com has a Q&A with Michael Pachter at Wedbush Morgan Securities "to pick his brain on the prospects of a handheld platform from Microsoft."

Seems to me like he is trying to make up for the fact that the 360 will be the only console without one such controller when the Wii and PS3 launch later this year. Gates also made mention to the failed Sidewinder controller that had motion sensing technology, stating that moving your controller isn’t mainstream for most games. Realistically the failure of Microsoft’s own controller was more due to poor technology and software support then motion sensing being non-mainstream or obsolete.

Its good to read something positive about the Sony Playstation 3 controller after so much bad press concerning the legal battle over the force feedback and Sony deciding to include motion sensor technology instead.

The latest in what seems to be a never-ending assault on the very concept of common sense by those in high places at Sony Entertainment came yesterday as it was rumored by several usually reliable sources (and not denied by Sony) that the entertainment media giant is planning to restrict sales of used copies of PS3 games.

I didn’t get an N64 or a Saturn, and the only reason I have a Dreamcast was because someone gave it to me. But I have a Playstation 2, but not an enourmous library of games. Why? Time, and I’m Fussy. I like a game that’s going to take a while, RPGs or action games that have a lot of content.

The following video shows a very detailed video-comparsion between Playstation 2 & Playstation 3, a lot of aspects for the NBA 2007 game are tested, and it looks very promising:

The Wii sounds like it will come out for a similar price to the gamecube when it was launched.

So, I’m a gamer. Not only that, I’m a game developer, which makes me part of a somewhat nonexistent constituency, politically speaking. Still, I hardly deserve to be treated like a child rapist. Of course, there are neat initiatives out there, like the Video Game Voters Network, working to counter the various legislative and political assaults on games, but in general the gamer as a political force is a non-entity. It would (and, I suspect, will) be a huge and vocal political force if mobilized. Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Joe Lieberman (D-CT), and Evan Bayh (D-IN) are idiots for underestimating the portion of the young voting population who are gamers, instead groping desperately for the scraps from the reactionary family values fundamentalist table with “The Family Entertainment Protection Act,” which would regulate the sale of certain video games throughout the country.

What's sad is that I'm apparently a bigger fan of the setting than Mitch Gitelman, studio manager of FASA, creators of the upcoming Shadowrun for the XBox 360. Mitch recently wrote in his blog, "When we decided to do Shadowrun we realized there was a ton of baggage that came with it... there are magic spells, and shamanic spirit magic, and cybertech, and metahumans like elves, and dwarves and such, and astral space, and the Matrix..."

Almost forgot the most exciting part of JavaOne the game area. My coworker and I dialed up some favorites (Mr. Do!, Joust, Guantlet) and I totally kicked in Rampart. They also have something called Xbox 360 but I don’t think that it has any real titles.

I'll be watching Capcom's booth closely for any surprise announcements tomorrow, but don't get your hopes up, everyone. Considering the announcement of the PS3's pirce, I wouldn't be surprised if Capcom's loyalty gravitated toward the Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360 for most of their future game releases, especially since Dead Rising and Lost Planet are destined for Microsoft's console.

You will be paying £145 more than an Xbox 360 (Premium). £125 more than when you bought your PS2 at launch. Start saving now, Sony fans!

Remedy, now part of Microsoft Game Studios, is bringing the psychological paranormal thriller Alan Wake to the Xbox 360 & PC. Most of Microsoft’s upcoming PC games seem to be Windows Vista-only. This teaser was shown at the Microsoft pre-E3 press conference yesterday.

E3 is now well underway; each of the three key players have finished their press conference events and revealed their new toys. Sony and Nintendo - and Microsoft, to a certain degree - arguably have a lot riding on E3 this year. Both Nintendo and Sony have new systems on the horizon, and Microsoft faces a challenging holiday season in the face of competition from their two rivals. But the average gamer must ask: Where does that leave me?

Yesterday I didn't have time to play many games as I had appointments with many companies, but I did take the time to play a few games offered at the Nintendo Booth. The first game I had the opportunity to play was Mario Hoops and as the name implies it's Mario sports game with the theme of basketball.

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After that, I want to check out I AM 8-BIT. It’s an art gallery based off of old 8-bit video games. Spencer and Kyung already said they wanted to go. Does anyone else want to go?

Doom was one of the first games to develop a real ecosystem of user-created contents. Ever since, many games have tried to reproduce its success, and games like Half-Life have brought it to the point where users have been creating completely different games from the engine. This is very analogous to the Web 2.0 user content principle. With Bad Mood, we wanted to create an open format of game files that standardizes the description of a game's world. You would have been able to run a RPG, adventure, platformer or FPS game on any engine that understood the format. There is another analogy with the Web: like web sites that have to run on multiple browsers and platforms, games have to run on multiple and widely different platforms like the PC, Xbox, Xbox 360, PS2, Gamecube, Mac, PSP, GBA, DS and even cel phones so a standardized description that abstracts as much as possible makes perfect sense.

Today Sperling's BestPlaces and Microsoft released the finding of a study that states Seattle is the #1 town when it comes to interactive entertainment.

For example, 36% of IGN’s readership claims allegiance to the PS3 compared with 28% for the Xbox 360 and 22% for the Wii and 14% undecided. Take a look at those numbers for a second. And then take a look at sales numbers for the PS2, Xbox and GameCube.

Visteon has released Dockable Entertainment, a cool portable DVD player that can be docked, play Nintendo Gameboy Advance games, use wireless headphones and game controlers and more!� This could be one of the best travel solution for both adults & kids alike.

Certainly there can be flame wars in the comment fields of blogs, but, you know, the simple power to decide what goes on the front page, and even to delete comments, belongs to the blogger and that is important. It reminds me of T.L. Taylor’s note on womens’ pleasure in exploring online games:

Some huge fans of the Playstation 2 game Devil May Cry 3 got together and made this pretty cool live-action video. Watch these stuntmen go at it Dante-style!