1/17/2009 - PS3 + xbox 360 = PS360

As a person in the Playstation 3 camp, I'm not sure how to feel about this video. It's a demonstration of a Playstation 3 console whose guts has been replaced with the core components of an XBox 360. Essentially, it's an XBox 360 with a Playstation 3 faceplate. It's an impressive mod to be sure, it's just that it seems to be a waste of a perfectly good Playstation 3.

12/9/2008 - How to Break a 360

One of the main reasons I did not get an XBox 360 was because of all the news last year about the high system failure rate. I'm sure I read somewhere that 1 in 4 Xboxes suffered from the "Red Ring of Death". Yes, I know it's ironic that my PS3 failed and I had to get it fixed, but I'm still happy with my choice. My new PS3 is working just fine and I'm sure it has a better chance of lasting than a random 360 out there.

The XBox failures was so bad that Microsoft extended its warranty from 1 year to 3 years. Well, the XBox made its debut in November 22, 2005, so the warranties on those XBoxes have expired. If by chance you bought it at that time and your system gets the Red Ring of Death, you're pretty much S.O.L. If you bought it at a later date and your warranty is still in place, you'd want it to fail so that you can get a replacement XBox with the newer chipset that is less prone to failure. That's the dilemma the folks at IGN want to help you with by showing you exactly how to break the XBox 360:

8/22/2007 - Hitler Gets Banned (His Ultimate Downfall)

Rated R for profane subtitles

Here's a video that made the rounds a couple of months ago... it's a clip of a German biopic on Hitler at his most desperate state in World War II. But according to the subtitles, it's not because of any losses the Axis powers were incurring, it's because his XBox Live account was banned by Microsoft. Yes, it's a parody, but it certainly speaks the truth. Apparently, if your account has been flagged because you were abusing the chat features, your console could potentially be banned from getting online altogether! All your gamerpoints and achievements would be lost, while any XBox Live Marketplace points you've bought/acquired would be useless. If that were ever to happen to my PSN account, I'd probably have the same reaction as Hitler.

7/11/2007 - Jack Tretton PS3 price cut interview

When they announced that Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix was coming to the next-gen systems, I decided that I really wanted either the X-Box 360 or the Playstation 3. From the beginning, I thought I would be getting a PS3 because I wanted to be able to play all my PS2 games. But then they announced the price. I wouldn't care if it projected holograms... $600 IS WAY TOO MUCH! Couple that with the lack of games for the PS3, my attention turned to the 360.

After all, 360 had some games on there that I really wanted to play, and the X-Box Live Arcade system looked like a great addition for retro gamers like me. But I knew there were things that really irked me. Like the way they labeled the buttons on the controllers. It's like they gave a big "SCREW YOU" to folks who were used to the Super Nintendo button layout (if you have a 360 and an SNES, you know what I'm talking about). That, and the fact that I have to pay yearly for the X-Box Live service. But you know what the final straw was? The 30% failure rate! I don't know of ANYTHING out there that has such a high failure rate! Before I heard that, I even thought about getting a used 360. I'm glad I didn't.

So Sony pulled me back into their camp this past weekend by announcing that $100 price cut. $500 for a gaming system is still expensive, but it's really cheap for a Blu-Ray player. Also, after evaluating the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray wars, I really think that Blu-Ray is here to stay. I was this close to cementing my decision for the PS3, but then I saw this interview:



Are you kidding me?! What the heck is this about a 10-year life cycle? It's OBVIOUS why they had to cut the price to $100: The Nintendo Wii is kicking their butt! This guy is the CEO and he's totally clueless! I want to scream to him, "You don't know jack, Jack!" Before I go ahead and buy a PS3, I want this guy out of Sony first.