Behold! It is Frogger. IN HD!!!!!!!

Wait, no. Bad idea. BAD BAD BAD idea. Frogger was never meant to be played in HD, so why do I play it in HD? Because it’s on the Xbox 360 and thus I have a problem. The frogger that was relaeased for the XBLA is a disgrace in HD. They developers didn’t do us the kindness of stretching the video width a bit, so unfortounately about half of the screen is used to play the game. It sucks a lot. (more…)

Yesterday Microsoft annouced XBLA Wednesdays where new games would be launched every Wednesday for the rest of the summer. Not only that, but they are finally releasing Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting! I don’t know about you, but I’m super excited about this. It’s great! (more…)

Well, E3 is over and from the sounds of it Wii clearly came out as the system that stole the show. The Playstation 3 had a very mediocre showing. Well, let me rephrase that, nothing on the PS3 was extremely outstanding or as head and shoulders above the Xbox 360. Luckily for Microsoft, nobody is buying into the whole 1080p garbage that Sony is spewing. Ironically, most developers aren’t even shooting for 1080p, since 720p/1080i looks great and there is no great visual difference. Also, I found it very amusing that Grand Tourismo: HD’s demo ran in 1080p, but nobody was too impressed by it. It didn’t look as good or any better than Project Gotham 3. It just looked like a highres version of GT4 with better lighting. (more…)

So I was on Xbox Live last night and of course there are some great trailers and demos available to the millions of 360 owners out there. Of course, I was eager to check out the Halo 3 trailer on my high-def tv. I’d already downloaded it from bungie, but a 30″ HDTV is a lot more fun to watch than a 17″ LCD. So, I sign in to Live and lo and behold, the Halo 3 trailer is there for download. It’s around 100 megs. Not bad. (more…)

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably have heard that E3, the biggest game expo of the year is happening this week. It’s going to be an exciting week of news. Today is Sony’s pre-E3 news confrence. Expect a new PS3 controller and maybe even a new console case. Hopefully some PS3 games will be closer to playable, but I expect a lot of video footage again this year from Sony. Also, don’t be surprised if Final Fantasy VII is announced for the PS3. It’d be a license to print money for both Sony and Square. That alone could steal all the thunder from the Nintendo/Microsoft events before they even happen. (more…)

The Mercury News is reporting that Microsoft is working on a portable game system based around the Xbox brand. It’s being assumed that this portable gaming device is going to be some kind of iPod/PSP/DS killer. I really just don’t think that Microsoft can pull it off. Wait, let me rephrase that. I sincerely hope that Microsoft doesn’t rip off the PSP or the iPod because if Microsoft does that, the Xbox Portable would be a failure. The iPod is great because of the fantastic iTunes integration and a super-simple interface. It’s does all the important things right and is a huge success because of it. Competitors who have tried to kill the iPod have failed because they tried to do the whole bigger is better/more features thing that just doesn’t work in consumer electronics.

The PSP is successful because of the Playstation brand and that’s it. There are a handfull of games that are good, but it’s mostly overpriced trash rehashed from the PS2. To combat the lack of real games Sony has opted for a media strategy with the PSP. Make it do everything other than games and people will love it. Where this strategy falls short is that it doesn’t do music as well as the iPod and it doesn’t do games as well as the Nintendo DS. In most respects I think that the PSP is a pretty weak product among gamers. I and I’m sure many others don’t even use mine anymore and am waiting for the Nintendo DS Lite. The hottest thing to do on a PSP is to play emulated (and illegal) copies of old Nintendo and Super Nintendo games. Even UMD sales are slowing to a halt.

Microsoft, take notice of these facts. You need to create a device that capitalizes on the coolest innovation that you’ve created in gaming - The Xbox Live Arcade. Don’t try to do what Sony has done and made a portable PS2. Instead, make a cool device that plays Xbox Live Arcade style games - fun games that I can pick up and play for a few minutes and stop as needed. Geometry Wars on a portable console would be incredible. Gamers don’t want to play through an hour long Halo level on a portable gaming machine. Gamers want quick fun that they can put down at a moment’s notice. If gamers have to spend ten minutes getting to a save point, then you’ve already lost the battle. Take a page out of Nintendo’s playbook. Make the Xbox Portable cheap, make it have some killer games, and make it “portable fun” instead of living room fun. After all, the Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Advance SP, DS, DS Lite are the gaming machines that are on top, not the PSP.