back again......
[Submitted by watupnooka]

E3 wasn't didn't really have the huge wow factor that previous ones have had. There were some good things there but not much that we didn't already know about. If you ask the everyday punter they'd tell you that Sony had a lacklustre performance, Microsoft was ok, showing Kinect and the new 360 and Ninty probably ruled the roost with everyone desperate to get a play on the 3DS.

If you ask the so called professionals they'd tell you something very different. Amazingly EA and various *cough* journalists seemed to be viewing a different E3 to everyone else. EA are suddenly best mates with Sony, saying much the same thing that they did about Microsoft last year - especially mentioning how the PS3 is selling so well now and they're making huge profits of the games which is why they're releasing exclusive content on the platform. They forgot to mention, of course, that the PS3 still lags waayyyy behind the Wii and 360 in all countries except Japan, and that the 360 is still outselling the PS3 in both hardware and software in all those regions.

Then it came to the various motion detection systems presented, MS had Kinect - a truly revolutionary camera based system - Sony had Move. Of the two Kinect interests me more, it interests me because it's such a different tech. Anyone out there mumbling about EyeToy needs to realise that it's nothing like that, other than including a camera the two techs work differently, EyeToy was a hack (don't get me wrong, it was a good hack) based on the existing hardware, Kinect has been designed in hardware and software from the ground up to achieve it's goal.

Move is just a copy of Nintendo's Wii. It doesn't matter how you argue it, or how you position it or the flowery words you use - it's a blatent copy of an existing product.

Both companies are reacting to the Wii's unprecedented success and they have both targetted motion control as being the cause for the success, I think they've got it wrong personally and it was more a mixture or the Motion Control mixed with the family friendly games and a very good price point.

Neither Microsoft or Sony can match the price point here, Kinect is looking like it's going to retail for £129 with the games at £49 on top of the price of the 360 and Move is another £90 for the base product on top of the price of a PS3 - the chances are you'll need to spend at least another £50 to get the 'nunchuck' controller.

That all seems straight forward to me, except when you start reading the articles from certain gaming sites:

'Move is revolutionary and shows how motion control should be done. There was literally no lag.'
hmm, except of course - it's a long way from being revolutionary, it being a carbon copy of the Wiimote. And there were plenty of reports of lag from less, shall we say sponsored?, sources.

'Kinect turned out to be laggy, frustrating to use. The games were just not there. The rumour is you can't use it sitting down.'
These comments are, as you might have guessed, a contraction of different comments from different sources, i've tagged them together because they shared the same sentiments - pretty much exactly the same when you remove the writing styles. It also happens to be Sony's company line whilst attacking Natal/Kinect - which i'm sure is a coincidence.

In the real world - if you look at those sites you'll see videos of the reviewers playing on Kinect, they seem to be enjoying it and unless they have superhuman reflexes they don't seem to be suffering from the lag. These are not the scripted demos that MS were accused of (confusingly because Sony DID mostly show scripted demos), the lag seems perceptible but not unreasonable - it looks like the kind of lag you'd expect from a motion control system, in short - it looked fine.

The sitting down thing is a little trickier. Certainly early in Natal's life there were demos with people sitting down, but there haven't been any recently and everytime someone at MS talks about it they push the conversation towards using the Kinect to control the dashboard, and how you can sit down to do that. That isn't proof that it works in games, and it worries me - i'm fairly (read: very) unfit and don't feel like standing up all the time while using it.

Reading the above your probably thinking that i'm trashing Move - i'm not, it looks intriguing and I know that Sony will produce some incredible software for it, they are pretty much the kings of easy, family play games. In fact I can't wait to see what they dream up, especially London Studio. It will definately be better than the Wii, unless Microsoft put the hammer down they will produce more compelling software than Kinect.

My problem is with the way it's been handled by the press. The amount of contradictions and the regularity of the message that came from so many different journalistic sources show that there is an agenda. And the fact that the message is near identical to Sony's message shows that it's Sony's agenda. We trust these people to tell us what's happening, we trust them help us sift the bad from the good.

It reminds me of The Sun's campaign for David Cameron during the election. The arrogance exhibited, the fact they dared to use that trust to push someone else's message.

After reading the reports from E3 I immediately had a strong reaction against Sony, but I can't blame them. This is PR, it is advertising. The people who need to shoulder the blame are the people who let us down, the people who used their position to line their own pockets.

I purposely haven't linked to any of the sites in question. I refuse to push traffic their way from this website. It won't be hard to find the articles, I suspect you'll have read many of them already. The worst thing about this is it includes some of the very biggest tech sites on the internet.

-- moose


We showed the rumour yesterday about the new format xbox, but it turns out it was completely true. The new 360 (in nice shiny piano black) is a fair bit smaller than the current beast but comes with built in wireless (a/b/g and n) and a new format hard drive which slides inside.

The new box also comes with 5 USB ports and a super special Nat.. sorry Kinect port which both acts as the USB connector and drives power to it for one wire use.

The buttons on the front (ON/OFF and Eject) have been made touch sensitive ones (ala PS3). This makes them more annoying but should help reduce mechanical failure.

The machine is covered in fan holes and has one huge fan inside. Both the machine and the DVD drive (yes, DVD - not BR) are near silent in operation.

It will be available within the next month and is looking to retail for about $199 for the 250GB device (probably about £139 here)

Yet another rumoured 360 sighting has been announced. This time we have a rather fetching italian press leaflet to go with it. We've got a picture of the leaflet below, but it looks like a very HALish styling with large vents on the side. Personally it's smacks of Photoshop to me - but we'll find out soon enough:




Source: CVG

Looks like MS will try to kick start Kinects growth by pricing the games in the lower (almost budget) price bracket. It's probably a necessary move seeing as the hardware itself is looking to be over £100.

Microsoft have kicked off E3 by announcing the retail name for Project Natal - it will now be called Kinect. Stony silence.

Well, it's not the first time the project name has been better than the retail name, but possibly the first time when the project name was lame as well.

It's also looking like there will be two bundles one for $149 and one for $189. My guess is the cheaper one won't have any bundled games. This price range also makes it an easy target for Playstation's move, which is rumoured to be retailing for less than $100


Source: Engadget

We've heard it before, now Microsoft's Syed Bilal Tariq is repeating the October launch date for Natal. Speaking to GamerTagRadio, Microsoft's marketing manager for Saudi Arabia says that the Natal launch,
"is going to be somewhere in October and we will be in a position to confirm the date at E3, which is in June, but definitely it is going to be October 2010."
So there you have it. While we'd prefer to see an official press release on the topic, there's little reason to doubt what you can hear for yourselves after the break.

Source:Engadget
[Submitted by vintagemooose]

If you load up ODST now you'll find a Play the beta link on the main menu - click on this and wait patiently for the 1.15GB download and get ready for some Reach action

Several sites such as Kotaku and Eurogamer are now reporting more key personel have left the troubled Infinity Ward studio
In addition to the 4 previous leavers we now have
Jon Shiring (Programmer)
Mackey McCandlish (Designer)
Steve Fukuda (Designer)
Zied Reike (Designer)
Rayme Vinson (Programmer)
Chris Cherubini (Lead Artist)
[Submitted by Pinkeye69]

Originally Codemasters marked it as a mistake - but now they've officially hit the list of companies being wound down. Obviously this isn't the end of one of the oldest British game developers to stay free, but it's still the end of an era

20556 /2009 Codemasters Group Limited
20565 /2009 Codemasters Holdings Limited
20569 /2009 Sensible Limited
20587 /2009 Codemasters Software Company Limited (The)
20588 /2009 Codemasters Limited
20715 /2009 Codemasters Group Holdings Limited

Source: HMRC Listings (about a third of the way down the 10:30am list)