We are so passionate about our gaming that we even have a platform war, which is really nothing more than drinking the proverbial [sugary beverage] of your favorite console’s marketing campaign. We have Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all vying for our undying attention and obviously our money. Each company’s marketing campaign is a bit different, but overall they just want to get their console into your home. In reality, anyone that plays a game is a gamer. If you can sit down and enjoy a video game and want to play it again and possibly branch out to other games, then you are a gamer. Don’t believe this crap that someone playing a casual game is less important to the industry than someone who plays Halo for 30+ hours a week. Both are gamers and both are equally important to the evolution of the industry. People that fight over which platform is better are ignorant fools who have joined the cult and have stopped thinking for themselves. We need open-minded individuals to be aware of big picture and take advantage of the industry’s strengths. The industry is constantly growing and changing, mostly for the better, so you are either with it or against it.

The big three companies responsible for gaming in your home are Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. Nintendo’s Wii has the Wii-mote which allows control through motion sensing. It even has a little speaker built into it. Sony has incorporated motion control through its Six Axis Controller, which is fairly intuitive, but it still hasn’t been taken advantage of to the degree it should be. Microsoft’s XBox 360 controller is a slightly more streamlined version of their last controller. It doesn’t have any major features as far as intuitiveness goes, but it is a solid controller and can interface with a headset and a small add-on keypad. The XBox Live! service allows for decent network play and voice chatting, which has yet to be match by the other two consoles. Each system has its weakness, but they are fun to play nonetheless.

This brings me to my main point. Each console has its target demographic, but overall they want to win everyone over. They have made advancements in wireless controller technology, networking. voice chatting, and intuitive gameplay with motion sensors and analog controls. A lot of the technology is something similar to what PC gamers have had for years, but it is in a more streamlined and in an easily accessible package. The unfortunate thing about PC gaming is that it is the equivalent of the crotchety old man of the industry. We buy our fancy and expensive hardware, monitors, and speakers to make us feel like we really are in the game, but we have been using the same controls since the “dawn of Doom”.

You can buy mice and keyboards that cost a hundred dollars or more a piece, but they are pretty much the same thing as their $10 siblings from 10 years ago. Buying a laser mouse and fancy keyboard doesn’t make you better… it just proves you have more money and you like having “new” technology. We use the WASD keys to move around and the mouse to look or navigate menus. Need more buttons for new gameplay features? Just assign them around the WASD set. Now, I’m not saying that PC gamers should drop their keyboards and mice and pick up a controller, but for all the engineering prowess that we have in the PC industry, you would think that we could invent some better equipment to interface with. To think that in ten or twenty years people will still be playing first person shooters with a mouse and keyboard is ridiculous since a handful of keys and a mouse will not be enough to control a realistic character in a digital world just as complicated as our own. The controllers of the future may resemble mouse and keyboards, but they will be more intuitive, more ergonomic, and have all the bells and whistles that we should already have today. I’ve been a huge fan of Counter Strike: Source and Team Fortress 2 and can’t imagine playing them any other way, but for newer games that keep trying to revolutionize the way we think in games (Bioshock and Crysis, for example) why can’t we include gameplay and peripherals that make our movements just as intuitive as our brains solving the puzzles?

All of our games are getting more intelligent, but we continue to play harder, when we should be playing smarter. Imagine the freedom that PC game developers would have with making drastically new gameplay dynamics if we started using more intuitive peripherals instead of continue using peripherals for that old school-button pushing-linear gameplay that we have grown so accustomed to.

Moral of the story: We need to play smarter, not harder, and we won’t be able to do that until we work together to have the right tools to do so.

I moved on to Super, which in my opinion is the best free video encoder you can find anywhere. It does more than a lot of the “pay for” programs can do. Unfortunately, Super couldn’t seem to convert it successfully to any format that I wanted MPEG-II, AVI, or WMV. I then searched and found a program called MP4Cam2AVI, which if you couldn’t tell by the name, converts MPEG-4 to AVI. Getting the raw footage converted and then edited took much longer than it should have. I can’t really blame Movie Maker because it is a free service and works great for capturing video off of a normal tape camera.

I guess my biggest complaint is that we have all these different video formats, but very few of them seem to play nice with each other. Also, to get a video editing program to accept a good portion of them would cost a few hundred dollars for the license.

The bottom line: if you are going to make a camera or new video format that is suppose to play nice with Windows, then you have to get it integrated into Movie Maker so people don’t need a multi-hundred dollar piece of software or download an extra program to convert it just to make a basic YouTube video.

</rant>

Also, if you’re as immature as I am and watched the Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror and Family Guy tonight then you saw the impressive commercials that Sony put out for the Playstation 3. Given the small number of games compared to its competition I haven’t been convinced yet, but damn were those commercials cool. Microsoft did sneak one commercial in promoting the social aspect of the XBox 360, but it wasn’t even close to Sony’s ads. I don’t think Microsoft has anything to worry about though as I hear that the new Metal Gear Solid got pushed back into 2008 meaning that the PS3 has very little in way of “killer apps”.

Anyways, just before typing this I caught this ad on the tube and only made me want to play Guitar Hero III more.

By the way, they did an interview with Slash at the place I work at. He seemed like one very interesting dude. I’m guessing that featuring him in GH3 isn’t going to hurt his reputation any.

The Office Drone Nerd:

• USB Drink Chiller & Warmer ($19.99). Anyone that sits at a computer all day knows that the secret to making it through the day without smashing your monitor to pieces is having a great cup of joe nearby. Now you can have it at whatever temp you want all the time. Some like their coffee hot, some like it chilled.
• Titanium Spork ($8.99). Eat lunch like a god with your mighty Titanium tool of lunchtime justice. May be used to fight off office ninjas, but proceed at your own risk.

The Fashionista Nerd:

• 8-Bit Tie ($19.99). Look like a character out of your favorite classic video game with this clip-on pixelated tie. Just remember, the Princess is in another castle.
• T-Shirts ($15 to $20). You really can’t beat a shirt made for nerds, by nerds. Check out Jinx and Threadless for some of my favorites.

The Nerd at Home:

• LED Faucet Lights ($19.99). Blue light when the water is cool and red light when it reaches 89 degrees fahrenheit.
• The Ex – Knife Holder ($69.99). Words cannot describe how cool this kitchen knife holder is.
• LED Art Fan ($389.99). The coolest fan in the room emits cool breezes and even cooler images thanks to 42 LEDs mounted on the blades. I think this easily falls into the “gifts for self” price range, but who knows. Maybe ol’ Aunt Millie has deep pockets.

Other Cool Stuff:

• ION USB Turntable ($99.99). Turn those classic vinyl albums to digital with this turntable hooked to your PC via USB. Also, it will hook to your existing stereo via RCA.
• XBox 360 Arcade ($279.99). Okay, I couldn’t help it. I know everyone already has one of these, but hey, if you get another one just send it over to me. I hear that Halo game is pretty popular.