Anton Mikhailov explains why they let Microsoft have the Kinect technology. Skip to the 9:00 mark if you want to see that. They talk about how Kinect has trouble tracking people with varying heights, for example 5′ 7″ vs 6′ 4″. How they need to be far away from the camera for it to see your whole body. With the PlayStation Move just the “orb” need to be seen by the camera. Near the end of the video Anton talks about the PlayStation Move and the XMB. He basically said it’s not the best option to control the XMB with motion. It would be tiresome going threw hundreds of songs and would have to be reworked if they where to control the XMB via Move. I agree with him on that. What do you think? [ Source ]

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Sony Let Microsoft Have Kinect

No matter what Xbox fanboys say, Microsoft can never top Sony in the ad department. Most of the ads for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2 were rather creepy or revolting. And this post will highlight (or lowlight) the best (or worst) of them. No. 6: “You’re saying that the PlayStation is Jesus? I’m so confused.” The Vatican did object to this ad, which only circulated in Italy, where 90% of the population is Catholic, and most of the people who saw it were deeply offended. But, in all honesty, this looks like the MySpace profile pic of a creepy priest. Too be honest, I have no idea who Sony is trying to appeal to. The caption,  PlayStation: 10 anni di passione, translates to ‘1o years of passion’. A seemingly innocent caption. But, when coupled with the crown of thorns, and the film ‘ The Passion of the Christ ‘, which was published by uber-Catholic and uber-prejudiced Mel Gibson, it’s revealed that the ad is saying that the PlayStation is Jesus. And that’s not cool, especially in Italy. It’s also, incredibly creepy. No. 5: A Scottish teenage alien-human talks about mental wealth Since when do weird alien-human hybrid teenagers talk with Scottish accents? I know one thing, and it’s that this ad does not help with mental wealth at all. The ad was directed by Chris Cunningham, a director who studied under Stanley Kubrick. There’s something about this ad that’s incredibly disquieting. Like, you’ve just seen how insane the mind can be, and now you’re on your way to that level of insanity. Or something. It’s creepy, let’s just leave it at that. No. 4: Thumb-Penis This might be one of the single most ill-advised gaming ads not involving John Romero and the word ‘bitch’ . I’m not going to show the ad on principle. NSWF (not safe for work) You can search for it on Google if you really want to know. No. 3: Weird Sex Possibly NSFW . Nothing says ‘Hey, let’s buy a PlayStation 2′ like a hot woman having a five-way with hairy, fleshy shapes. No. 2: Stalker NSWF . This looks like something out of a movie where the main character gets raped by this dude. ‘How is this supposed to convince me to buy a PlayStation 2?’ ‘Will a PS2 turn me into a stalker?!’ ‘Will this guy come and get me if I don’t buy a PS2!?!’ These are all questions that come to mind when I look at this ad. No. 1: Creepy Baby Sweet mother of God, that’s horrifying. I remember when these ‘White Room’ PS3 ads came out. They didn’t make me want a PS3. If anything, they made me want to hate the PS3. I even thought that Microsoft had come out with these insane ads in order to keep people from switching over from an Xbox 360 to a PS3. This is by far one of the creepiest commercials ever to appear on prime time television (I think it debuted during the World Series in October). And the reason why this commercial is so creepy is because of the baby’s laugh. I still have nightmares about that.

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The Six Weirdest PlayStation Ads

Microsoft officially revealed the pricing and details of their motion tech, Kinect, yesterday and compared it to Sony’s Move and the Nintendo Wii. According to the Microsoft when compared to the Wii and Move, Kinect is the overall winner when it comes to affordability. ( Note how Microsoft used the original PS3 “PHAT” model for their price comparison.) Well, Sony wasn’t going to take this lying down and have released their own comparison chart which shows that Move only does everything. What do you think? Did Sony prove Move to be worth the price when compared to the competition? Images courtesy of Kotaku  &  Dual Shockers

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My Motion Tech Is Better Than Yours!

Talk is starting up again about Sony’s next home console, but according to Sony Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida, they likely won’t be the ones to kick the next generation off. Speaking to Develop, Yoshida said he believes either Nintendo or Microsoft will release their next generation consoles first. “Looking from the outside, it was Microsoft that released the first of this generation of consoles. Naturally, in my opinion, Microsoft will make the first move. “Or, because Nintendo’s approach was not to upgrade much on its basic hardware – Wii doesn’t even support HD resolution – so they might be the first to move. “Probably the watch should be on these companies, in my opinion. Because PS3 was later than Xbox, and is more powerful, so it has a longer lifespan.” “Because PS3 was later than Xbox, and is more powerful, so it has a longer lifespan.” I can honestly say i agree with Yoshida, I think the PS3 is going to have many more strong years. What do you guys think? Who’s gonna step into the next generation first? Nintendo? Microsoft? Or will Sony surprise? Via [ Develop ]

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Sony: Microsoft or Nintendo Will Kick Off Eighth Console Generation

Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida has confirmed that Sony is indeed already working on some new hardware. “Yes, we are undergoing many activities that we haven’t yet been talking about in public,” Yoshida told Develop. “Some future platform related activities.” Yoshida didn’t specify if it’s a new portable or a new home console. What Yoshida did explain however was that Sony’s next line of PlayStations will be more developer-friendly, thanks to input from SCE president Kaz Hirai. “When Ken Kutaragi moved on and Kaz Harai became the president of SCE, the first thing Kaz said was, ‘get Worldwide Studios in on hardware development’,” Yoshida said. “So he wanted developers in meetings at the very beginning [of the concept of the new hardware], and he demanded SCE people talk to us [developers].” This closer collaboration between the hardware and software development teams is also reportedly what helped spawn the PlayStation Move motion controller. “Move is one of those new ways of developing platforms,” said Yoshida. Via [ Develop ] 

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Sony working on ‘future platform related activities’

It been a while since a game developer has caused a stir when trying to sum up the differences of next gen systems.  Four years ago  Metal Gear Solid creator, Hideo Kojima, described the PS3 as a “movie theater”, and the XBox 360 as a “DVD player”. Sony proudly boasted their HD system was “Fillet Mignon while anything else was a McDonald’s hamburger.” This week, Platinum Games’ Atsushi Inaba jumped in with their own comparison of Sony’s and Microsoft’s machines. S peaking to VG247 at E3 , Platinum’s Atsushi Inaba, producer of the upcoming Vanquish, is quoted as saying: “The PS3 is kind of like a sports car that’s very high-performance and specific in its usage, whereas the 360 is more like a car that everybody’s driving,” “It doesn’t have the same range as a sports car, but it has more versatility.” “It’s about adapting your game to those two sorts of different frameworks,” Inaba added. “That’s where we’re focusing. Fundamentally, the game play experience itself is the exact same game.”

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Platinum Games: “PS3 Kind of Like a Sports Car”

  Since Sony and Microsoft both showed off their motion control tech at this years E3, we’ve seen little public demonstrations of Move. On the other hand Microsoft ’s Kinect has been on the move with it’s first public appearance to a live audience on NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon . Even with the noticeable response delay with the demo of Kinect, it seemed like a lot of fun was had. Kinect wasn’t the only motion control game featured on the show. This week kicks off  Fallon’s first ever “Video Game Week”. Kinect was showed off on Monday followed by a Tiger Woods demo for the Wii on Tuesday. Tonight the only PS3 exclusive game that’s going to be in the spotlight on the show is Killzone 3. I’m no fan of all this motion tech nonsense but if Sony plans on getting the word out about Move, besides at scheduled events, then they need to step up their game..literally. Get Move on Oprah or CNN, Sony! To be fair,Move has had a public showing in Sony’s home country of Japan after E3 2010 unfortunatly Japan makes up 1/3 of the world gaming market. Quite frankly I don’t think that’s enough. Japan is already considered Sony and Nintendo country when it comes to gaming.  Of course noone can be certain if/when Sony plans to push Move advertising into full throttle. Perhaps as the release gets closer? If that’s the case then by that time, the only people who are interested, outside of those who already own a PS3 for gaming, will know more about Kinect than Move.

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Sony Already Falling Behind Microsoft When it Comes to Marketing Move

Over at the Official Blog , Susan Panico, Sr. Director of the PlayStation Network has gone into a little more detail as to what the features for PS+ are. To begin, most of us are already away that a 3 month subscription is $18 and a 1 year subscription is $50. For a limited time, you get 3 free months with the 1 year subscription as well (15 months in other words). You can pay for the service the same way you pay for anything in the store, through PSN cards and credit/debit cards. During a given month, you can download free Minis, PSOne and PSN games. The titles available will change each month and replace the previous month’s. Once you download a PSN title, it’s yours as long as you are a subscriber. If your subscription lapses, you won’t be able to access them again, but you can get a new subscription and the titles you had previously will become playable again. If you delete the title, you can also re-download it, too (as long as you downloaded it before, and the title doesn’t show in the PS+ part of the store because it’s a new month, you can find it in the regular store and still get it for free). Dynamic themes, avatars, premium game elements (that’s new), etc. will be able to be kept forever, even after your subscription. Some of these items will only be available to PS+ members. You also get steeper discounts than regular sales, and these discounts range from 20 off. Discounted purchases are yours to keep. Check after the bump for a few more details on the full game trials and automatic updates (as well as a few other bits of information) Full game trials are only for select titles (the first month will be InFAMOUS). These trials will usually last an hour (it says “unless otherwise stated” so some could, theoretically, last longer). If you decide to purchase the game, you won’t need to re-download it. Just purchase the key, and continue where you left off (and trophies and the like will be unlocked as well, even ones you may have unlocked during the trial period). As for Automatic Updates, while your PS3 is in stand-by mode, it will automatically patch the games you have played, it will download demos and betas, and download firmware updates, day or night and whenever they become available (automatic downloads will not go into effect while you are playing, though). As far as firmware updates go, you will still need to install them yourself. As far as other stuff? They’re still looking at Cross Game Chat (I still don’t know why you’d want to talk to people who are playing a different game than you), but not necessarily as a PS+ feature The master account is the only account that can purchase PS+, but all games and features will be available to the sub accounts as well The free minis and PSOne games will be playable on the PSP still Sony plans on expanding PS+ during its lifetime, adding new services and features as time goes by Qore is also free to PS+ subscribers Given the more in-depth understanding and explanation of the service, who is going to hop on board and subscribe to PS+? Personally, it really seems to pay for itself multiple times over in a year. Yeah, you won’t be able to continue playing PSN titles you got for free, but that’s a part of the service; a service that made them available to you in the first place. If they allowed you to keep those games after your subscription ends (or you canceled it), you’re ripping them off. You didn’t buy the games, after all.

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More In-Depth PlayStation Plus Info

Microsoft’s Xbox marketing boss Albert Penello made several comments on 3D , and is wrong on two points: “We have 3D games – obviously the Avatar game came out last year – and the console fully supports 3D” He is part right and part wrong on this. 3D games like Avatar require HDMI (see here , here , and here ), so it does work on newer 360 units, but it will not work on older models without an HDMI connection, and those units can not be upgraded to be 3D ready. The 360 launched in November 2005 without HDMI, and it wasn’t until the high end elite model launched on April 29, 2007, that HDMI was an option, and it wasn’t until the Fall of 2007, when HDMI was available on the lower end 360 SKUs. When you consider this for a moment, 360 can only support 3D on part of their user base, while PS3 can support 3D effects on every PS3, you can imagine why Sony is touting this so loudly, and why Microsoft is downplaying it and dragging their feet. Of course, Sony has the additional incentive of being in the consumer electronics business and selling more HDTVs and home theater gear. This also explains why so many tech pundits and journalists are so negative on 3D. It would be reasonable to expect this stereo 3D technology to divide consumers and pundits just like surround sound audio systems do: the enthusiasts and gadget types love it, and many lower end consumers don’t have the patience for it. In contrast to these expectations, the Internet gadget types and journalists have been almost universally negative towards 3D HDTVs. Why? Because they are mostly Microsoft centric and are mimicking the Microsoft cues. The second place Microsoft is wrong, is that Penello implies that consumers are undecided and haven’t voted whether they care about 3D or not: “I think that when we decide we want to jump into 3D it’ll be because the consumer’s voted. But from a technical side, there’s nothing about it we can’t do.” This is clearly not true. As an anonymous studio chief said : “You can make so much more money with 3-D that it essentially puts a tax on 2-D dramas, romantic comedies and other projects, since they just won’t project the same kind of box-office potential.” Movie ticket sales data is quite clear and the guys in charge of the theaters and the movie business are fully convinced. The movie going masses from around the globe have voted with their wallets in large numbers that they want 3D and are willing to pay premiums and drive to a different movie theater to get it. Admittedly, movie theater demand doesn’t translate perfectly to the home theater market, but it’s safe to say that there is a lot more consumer demonstrated demand for 3D than for motion control. The Wii was a huge success, but that involved many factors beyond the controller, as can be seen with the similar success of the DS.

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3D: Sony vs. Microsoft

So my fun and exciting trip to E3 proved to be profitable even for some of you. The good people at EA’s Gun Club graciously gave me 5 Codes for the Medal of Honor multiplayer Beta. The Gun Club is Electronic Arts new members only club, that will grant you special exclusive weapons and privelages for their shooters. The club is free and is found at www.gunclub.ea.com . If you join, currently own BFBC2, and preorder MOH (Medal of Honor), they will grant you acess to the beta today!! If you don’t the only way in for now is with the codes you can win here. The beta will start on Monday June 21, 2010 and run for almost a month. I downloaded my copy last night, but it wont allow me to play yet. So now onto the fun part. The following is from a mini E3 Activity Book created by IGN. To enter this contest you need to fill in the blanks in the comment section here and I will choose my top 5 favorites. I will choose the winners Sunday by 8PM pacific and PM them their codes. Good Luck!! Added: Use this if you like. Copy and paste. Thanx to Teflon It was a XXXXXX and XXXXXX Monday in Los Angeles and Microsoft kicked off E3 by showing its new XXXXXX and the crowd XXXXXX in response. After that, Nintendo’s XXXXXX conference was a spectacle of XXXXXX and XXXXXX . Nobody expected to see Wii XXXXXX and Super Mario XXXXXX . But the biggest XXXXXX came from Sony when it XXXXXX a hole in the competition by XXXXXX on the stage in front of the entire XXXXXX . Wow!

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Medal Of Honor Beta Code Giveaway Contest