As it was announced previously, Sony’s music library is coming to Amazon MP3 soon. How soon? I would guess in the next week or less. Why so soon? See Exhibit A. Yep, that’s a Foo Fighters album that’s loaded into Amazon MP3 without any pricing or buying button on there yet. So, what seems to be happening is that Amazon is loading up all their database and then when it’s all loaded, it will all go live to buy at the same time. In the meantime all you and I can do is wait patiently and buy some Led Zepplin or Pink Floyd.

A new law being drafted in Germany states that if you play, distribute or create a violent video game you can get jail time. This is according to GamePolitics.com (you can read the story here).

According to a report in Spiegel, a bloody school shooting in Germany last month has led to renewed calls for action against violent games.

As reported by GamePolitics,  an 18-year-old Counter-strike player assaulted his former middle school in November, wounding a reported 37 people before taking his own life.

The rampage led Minister of the Interior Gunther Beckstein to propose amendments to German law which would authorize prison sentences for those who create or distribute game content which features “cruel or otherwise inhumane acts of violence against humans or humanlike creatures.”

Penalties proposed by Beckstein include up to one year in jail and/or fines.

This is absolutely outrageous, although he is at least a little more logical than Jack Thompson. We are living in the 21st century and the average gamer age is pushing 30 years old, we aren’t kids anymore. Leave it to the Naz… err Germans to  restrict peoples freedoms. I can’t wait to see all of the gamer “camps” popping up hidden in the country side.

In case you don’t know or have been living in a cave for some reason, the PS3 is the hot item this holiday season. I have an opinion on this and here it is: Let’s Get Ready To Rumble. it seems there are many, many, many reports of fights breaking out in lines across the country (ok, mainly New York and San Francisco because they have Sony Stores, who each have about 800 PS3’s I might add) The fighting seems to be stemming from the fact that when the lines grow to a certain size the security guards move the line and people try to cut in line. So then fights break out, as soon as I find a YouTube video of a PS3 fight I will post it here, until then good luck to all the PS3 warriors out there and Godspeed!

Oh, one more thing, the entire country of Taiwan is getting only 500 PS3’s, can you really call that a launch? Good Luck to them as well.

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…)

Sony, is now more than ever seriously out of its collective mind. Not only is the PS3 the most expensive console ever, it’s also even more handicapped by the 2 pricing scheme than the Xbox 360 was. Sure the cheap 360 had no hard drive, but you could buy the hard drive for $100, so it wasn’t a huge deal. On the other hand the “cheap” model of the PS3 is missing WiFi, MemoryStick/SD/CompactFlash reader functionality, and HDMI. Esentially, the PS3 is an overpriced machine that in reality doesn’t look or play any better than the Xbox 360. But wait, there’s more! (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…)

Nintendo today announced that the Nintendo DS Lite will launch in the US on June 11 for $129. Prior to this annoucement there was a lot of speculation that the system would cost $150-200. I figured that Nintendo would launch the system at $130 and drop the price on the Nintendo DS to $110 or $100. I’ve already seen the DS for as low as $120 at Walmart.com, so I think $100 is very possible in the next month or two. Anyhow, it’s just exciting for the DS Lite to finally be coming to America!

Accoriding to Reuters Sony plans on its game division losing 100 billion yen, or roughly 900 million dollars. Most of this has to do with the PS3 launching this year. Now, this begs the question: how much does Sony plan on losing per console? (more…)

The reports of the MacBook Pro arriving this week were true. Apple announced the replacement for the vaunted 17″ Powerbook today and it’s a pretty impressive machine. It’s got the high-end Core Duo as well as a solid gfx card and memory. However, the $2,800 price point is pretty steep. Well, at least for most mortals. If you are a music producer or a movie editor, the 17″ MacBook Pro is made for you. Probably the smartest inclusion on Apple’s part is athe Firewire 800 port. I was surprised they left that off the 15″ MacBook Pro when it launched earlier this year. All in all I’d say that it’s an impressive replacement for the 17″ G4 Powerbook, but other than that it’s pretty much business as usual for the Apple switch to Intel. It’s faster and everything, but otherwise iSight, FrontRow, etc… are all Apple standard equipment by now. At least it’s a better deal than a fake carbon fibre laptop from Sony.