Games! Games! Games!

I decided I wanted a Wii. As did, apparently, most people in North America. Sold out everywhere, I kept an eye out. I leanred the inside info (i.e. BestBuy only puts them on the floor on Sunday, etc.). I wrote .NET applications to query the Amazon page for the Wii to determine when the page changed from out of stock to in stock so I could place my order. All without success. During all of this, I was reading stories about how great people thought the Wii was, stories of people trading their $600 PS3s for the $250 Wiis on Craigs List and considering it a fair trade. I found a site that said that Best Buy would have them on the 31st. The challenge? I'd likely have to get there early, before the store opened to guarantee I'd get one.

It's two nights before Christmas and all through the house not a homebrew developer was stirring except Grimfate126. The generous guy has released the fourth installment of his Lua Animation Lib as his present for all Lua developers. This app helps users understand the ins and outs of Lua animations for the PSP.

Son 2’s presents were dealt with pretty quickly, all in the same shop - two X-box games, a Playstation 2 game, and a computer game. Then Mum and I went for a browse around, which was nice. I’m still feeling yucky and I had to go and sit on the stairs in BHS because I was feeling so grotty. I haven’t a clue what’s wrong, presumably some sort of ‘bug’.

I think Nintendo will be the first console manufacturer to successfully integrate social-networking with game-play. It’s easy to add a friends console to your address book, which also serves as a method of authentication, then transfer messages, photos, Mii’s… and play games online of course.

Woot managed to sell 80 20gb PS3s in four and a half minutes by mocking the PS3 and admitting that they were selling the PS3s to pay for Wiis. If you clicked on the PS3, you were even treated to a not so subliminal message spelled out in boxes of PS3s. How bad was the mocking?

The inevitable next step was hinted at yesterday, as Gamasutra summarizes well. The iPod is now offering casual games, and more than a few of those titles will look familiar to Xbox Live Arcade afficionados: Pac-Man, Bejeweled, Zune, and Texas Hold ‘Em. While it’s not a competitor on the true handheld gaming arena dominated by the Nintendo DS, this sort of casual gaming is where a lot of indistry attention is being focused. Assuming the hardware’s capable enough, I can’t imagine the Boys From Redmond not leveraging their Arcade assets onto the Zune. I think it’s only a matter of time before the Zune becomes a portable extension of your Xbox 360, allowing you to buy and play Arcade games with a completely integrated Gamertag.

The reason I think PS3 will win the console war requires a quick analysis of both competitors. The Wii has come out to great reviews, is cost effective and will no doubt be very successful. The problem the Wii will have is competing with the sheer power of both PS3 and Xbox 360 and their target market. Nintendo will continue to control the kiddy market as they did with Gamecube. They’ll take a step in the right direction but this battle will go to Sony.

I recently read a review in a popular video game magazine for a game on the PS2 and Xbox 360 - Phantasy Star Universe. For weeks I had been looking at the screen shots for the game, anxiously anticipating a new online universe to immerse myself in. Then, without warning, one of my favorite video game reviewers brought my world to its knees with a 6.0 out of 10.0 score.