Best Xbox 360 commercial ever

Viva Pinata is one of the most underrated titles on the 360 at the moment, but they do have some fantastic advertising. Check this out:

Pure gold.

Second only to the challenger disaster: PS3 launch in Australia

I love this stuff. Playstation 3 launched in Australia last night and I just had to laugh at the coverage. Practically no one came. Stores that opened at midnight shut up shop, a few preorders got picked up, stock filled shelves. I mean, I thought there would be some excitment surrounding the launch, but boy was I mistaken. What a dud.

Some awesome reads:
Australian PS3 Launch - Unmitigated Disaster
Playstation launch is a muted affair
Australian PS3 launch shindig

The launch party of the dodgy new bourbon McKennas (a bourbon for the discerning bogan) I was at last night had a better showing. Bad luck Sony, that will teach you for treating your market like crap. Wii and 360 FTW!

PS3s going for cheap in Japan

In an interesting compliment to an earlier post I made regarding the PS3 in Japan Kotaku is reporting that prices of Sonys new console have been slashed by up to 20% in the electronics district of Japan.

I find this very interesting. It's pretty amazing that this whole perception that the "PS3 would just sell" really is backfiring on Sony. In my opinion its for a couple of reasons:

No Good Games: Sony launched the PS3 with what could only be described as the worst lineup in history. With no good games to purchase people then turned to blue ray media to play on their machines, of which there is none.

The Sony Attitude: Sony have been quoted to say that as gamers we'll buy a PS3 because its a Sony, so it must be good. Bullshit. Show us a good console with good games at a good price and we'll buy it. One interesting quote was from sony saying that people would work 2 jobs to own a PS3. Not likely. This attitude is just alienating and pissing off their market.

Overall I just don't think that (especially for the moment) the PS3 is attractive enough for its price. Could this be the demise of a once great console franchise? Maybe, but I hope not. The competition is what has driven Microsoft and Nintendo to be so innovative with their consoles and services. To lose a major player like Playstation from the mix will mean these companies wont have to try as hard to make themselves stand head and shoulders above the competition.

Still: Xbox 360 FTW ;)

Major Nelson FTW

Major Nelson posted the latest episode of his blogcast today featuring some of his regulars from the year. It turned out to be quite an enjoyable show with a great, relaxed feel.

http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2006/12/31/show-206-the-one-about-2006.aspx

I always get a kick out of listening to Major's shows and having his mates on there really was just the icing on the cake. 2007 should be a massive year for the 360.

EDIT: added link to show's location

Xbox Live is down. Nerds around raise their heads and stare blinking into the sun...

Xbox Live went down today, an event that doesn't concern me all that much but really does illustrate something I really don't understand about this generation of gamers. Major Nelson posted on his blog news that the service was down and the team were working on the fix. Was this enough to placate the gaming masses? No. I don't know why I keep being suprised but people are just getting ruder and ruder. The service was down for a couple hours but straight away people start complaining and fretting about not being able to play. Its a couple of hours! Take a break, do something else. Is your life so boring that your entire existance is playing on your gaming system? Surely there is something you can do while waiting a couple of hours for a service to come back online other than complain on forums that the service is offline. Sheesh.