EBGamestop' s big yearly show is over, and boy were managers left in a tizzy afterward. I' ve had the chance to talk to a few managers I trust on condition of anonymity, and their words don' t inspire confidence about the system launches coming up.

" I asked the regional manager about PS3 preorders," one told me " and he paused and then said he can' t answer the question. He said there is a plan, but they can' t talk about it; we should know in a week to two weeks." He started to sound tired. " Sony just didn' t seem like they had a plan with the show. No plan at all. Barely a mention of the PS3, and almost nothing playable. On the other hand, I waited two hours for Gears of War. There is a feeling that Nintendo and Microsoft really set out to wow us, and Sony didn' t have much to show. There was a PS3 under glass you could look at, and that' s about it."

The difference between HD DVD and Blu-Ray was striking as well. " Blu-ray had a tiny presence in the very back of the show floor, while Microsoft had large displays and surround sound systems in their hospitality suite so you can take a look at what their HD DVD drives would look like. It was impressive, and gave the feeling that HD DVD was real and Blu-ray wasn' t ready for the show."

I asked him his feelings going into the PS3 launch with no word on allocations or preorders, and no news on what will happen towards the holidays. " It' s going to be ugly, there is no way this launch is going to go well."

I dont think Sony is liking how they look these days! Its not good for them.

" Bad news after bad news: The Tale of Sony' s Demise"

Critics are raving it is the must see downfall of the century.

" Two thumbs up!"
Hails Ebert and Roeper.

" The best decay of a powerful company since Enron"
Raves some guy on the street.

" Worst movie, EVER!"
Claims Comic Book guy.

" Riddddddgggeee Raaaaaaacceeerr"
Screams Sony Fanboy as he is hauled away to the asylum.

" Finally a movie that touches into the very essence of a billion dollar company and comes up with a penny."
Says random Canadian

" Death to all"
Says Lex Luthor and Co.

" Fuck, it' s a PC, MORONS!"
Yells Ken Kutaragi as he is hauled away by officials.

" The End is NIGH, THE RAPTURE IS COMING REPENT"
Exclaims guy on Soapbox.

Coming 2008.
The son will fall, with a Why?

Alright, there is your intellectual stimulant and comedy for the day :)

Link VX?!

Silly me

Opposable Thumbs!

Just came back to post the link after I was perusing the Xbox Forums :)

Good thing you got here first VX :P

It' s true, oh GOD is it true. I work at a GameStop here in the states, and my store manager was NONE too pleased with Sony. He actually decided to pick up a 360 after the conference (apparently, there was never-before-seen Halo 3 footage at the conference, and he got to play GoW AND Rainbow Six, lucky ****er!!!).

So, PS3 is really not mentioned too much around the store anymore....

Everybody is having link forgetting syndrome.... Is it because of impending
releases?

Ack! I am sick and tired of bad news from Sony, I want some friggin good news
man, seriously... It was all one big joke when I said it would be funny to see them
collapse and fall, but if someone tells you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?

Come on Sony, announce something amazing like:

" Shenmue 3 is fit for Blu-ray, and that is why Sony have partnered with Sega
to produce episodic content on our brand new machine for 5 years... That' s
correct 5 years, not 5 months after the PS3' s release..."

Recently, an electronics company was able to create a HD-DVD and Blu-Ray player into one; currently in patents.

Until I get an online article than the one in the newspaper (cos I don' t want to retype from the paper), how do you think a 2-format player would affect Sony? The 360 doesn' t have to worry since it always let HD-DVD be optional (prolly so MS could also offer a Blu-Ray addon if need be), but Sony touts the Blu-Ray player as MAJOR selling point of the PS3.

But if this combo player which handles the two formats comes out, then there really isn' t a console way, is there? Since the technology WOULD eventually spread to other comapnies.

If the 360 manages to do well enough to steal a good portion of Sony' s marketshare I hope Microsoft pay attention and learns from the past mistakes of Sega, Nintendo, and now Sony..

I wouldn' t be quick to call MS a market leader, but it is certainly going to be closer then it has ever been. Its going to be a great generation.

every other day its " more bad news for sony" , why dont they just say, " Sony has just schedualed a press conforence about its death" , or " Ooooops, Sony lied again, what were the chances[:' (]."

If the 360 manages to do well enough to steal a good portion of Sony' s marketshare I hope Microsoft pay attention and learns from the past mistakes of Sega, Nintendo, and now Sony..

MS doesnt really need to worry about sega, nintendo, and sony' s upcoming mistakes, Its a trillion dollar company the odds are like,the amount of its money to 1

Recently, an electronics company was able to create a HD-DVD and Blu-Ray player into one; currently in patents.

I heard about that! I was leaving a friends house, and I saw the article for a breif moment, and I thought I had misread. Apparently the article I saw delved in detail about the adaptable laser they' re using.

Yeah it wouldn' t be that hard to do, it would just cost near their combined prices. btw I just checked how much Blue Ray players cost, $1000 while HD-DVD players only cost $500. Pretty ridiculous. I also saw you could buy a Blue Ray/DVD burner drive for a PC which costed $700.

Is anybody truly surprised by this? I mean, MS started developing the 360 shortly after the original Xbox came to market. They' ve been planning to release before anyone else for a LONG time. Sony, on the other hand, have been steadily trying to increase the life-cycle of their consoles. It may be better for the consumer to have a system that lasts longer, but the market will gobble up new video game systems when they' re brought to market (except Dreamcast, that is).

I sincerely hope that they' re going to start the development of a new system (ps4) ASAP, even though they' re touting the " 10 year life-span" of the PS3.

As for the hybrid drive, that' s something that was looked at a while ago, as well. Probably like a year and a half or something like that. It was given the death knell from one of the camps (either HD-DVD or Blu-ray) early on. It' s stupid, anyway. I want to see a clear cut winner come out of this, and FAST!! I don' t want to have to buy TWO dvd players!!

It may be better for the consumer to have a system that lasts longer, but the market will gobble up new video game systems when they' re brought to market (except Dreamcast, that is).

I agree with you but i thought it was worth to add that at dreamcast time everyone i knew was tired of 32-bit era graphics but Dreamcast game line-up wasn´t impressive at the time ( even though Soul Calibur was great but you can´t make a console succeed with only one great game) and took too long until they started to give gamers a decent amount of fantastic games like Shenmue, JSF, Code Veronica, etc.

So PS3 doesn´t seemed to fail on that aspect...they will deliver a decent amount of must have titles which will make the fans happy for a while.

Dreamcast had plenty of must haves it was more that the sega as a console brand reputation was very very bad at the time.

.....and de-void of any decent advertising.. I don' t even remember any Dreamcast
adverts I went to a few Dreamcast based events though! I got to see the japanese
voice actor from Shenmue that played Ryo, I also saw some really lovely females
dress up as Sophitia and Seung-Mina from Soul Calibur.

There was also a giant SOnic running around, but then again, there always is..

I hardly think the DC was released here in denmark, iv never seen a stand for it anywhere, but i tihnk its been mostly about PC games here in denmark!