The E3 "Business Summit".

It has begun. The once highly coveted mecha of all video gamers has now gone corporate media. My opinion of this transition is it's just another mass marketing ploy to get gamers all hyped up about hardware and or software they won't be seeing for probably another 6 months to a year. As you can tell, I'm all wrapped up in that hype. ;) Pretty much the only tracking point for us gamer lackeys is G4TV's and GameTrailer's coverage. Other than looking forward to the release of Halo 3 (and any media related to it), the Unreal engine v3, and the next-gen version of Ratchet & Clank, I don't really know if there's anything worth looking forward to. Hence, I have my eyes glued to G4's coverage.

I'm stuck playing my original Xbox and PS2 for the next month. My 360 has fallen victim to the gremlins that most have. No, not the red rings of death, just a simple dying DVD-rom. I don't see what all the biotchings have been about. I called their tech support; 15 minutes later, I had an RMA and a box on the way to ship it to them. Admittedly, I'm not to happy with the turnaround time (5 days shipping the box, 5 days returning 360, 7 days in the shop, and 5 more days returning it back to me). But, I can't complain too much if this 30% failure rate is true. There's no proof in that #, but Microsoft has bitten the bullet, and announced yet another extension of the warranty to 3 years. I need a bigger hard drive. Yes, there is a seemingly continuous price drop in hardware, lately, (including the console drops), but I still have no desire to drop that much for a 360 Elite. I don't have HDMI, and won't anytime soon.

Also, I'm still trying to convince myself of a good reason to get a PS3. The discounted price and Heavenly Sword (along with other seemingly empty promises) just haven't been enough to convince me to make that type of "investment". Sony probably would have done a whole lot better if they had taken their time and waited a year for the game producers to get some games made. ...Oh, this is new..... I just found out that all future PS3's will not have the emulation chips for backwards compatibility. They're using a software solution this time around (like the 360). That blows. I hope that all games are backwards compatible and not just a select few (like Xbox titles). That has been Sony's bonus, in my opinion.

Ok. I've been trying to type this for too long. Not to mention, I went link happy in this post. I'm gonna get back to the end of this E3 coverage, then go to bed drooling over the all the hopefuls I might get to see in my local store in about 5 months.



l8rs.