updatage

Ok first off I guess I will give a quick wrap up of things going on right now.

Marathon is in 3 days. Thats right saturday I will run my first marathon and my feelings on this change daily. some days I have a good workout and I think "man no sweat." Then other days when I have a not so good workout I think "aw crap this is gonna suck big time." SO how has this week been??? Its been in the aw suck category as my body has decided to revolt against me and my lack of sleep over the past 6 months or so and finally say "hey were not gonna take it." That coupled with the fact that since we have no means to prepare food ive been eating out dinner every night and you get a great combo of poor nutrition and lack of sleep. Which I think is the what runners world suggests for your first marathon. SO neway Ive just been focusing on rest this week. Thats right easy workouts and lots of rest. Hope that will make the difference come saturday. Hope to have pics up and my time by monday. But who knows maybe sooner.

House stuff -- Well the cabs were ordered and thats about it. t-5 weeks and counting till something starts happening in my house.

Ok I have not talked about gaming stuff in awhile but I read something that I just have to write about. SO if you dont like the game parts of my updates you are free to stop reading as thats all thats coming.

Ok We all know that the x360 is doing really well in the US and everywhere else in the world except for Japan. I read this morning that for the year the x360 is still trailing behind the gamecube in # of units sold for japan. OUCH thats gotta hurt. SO thats point #1. Point #2 is that we all know that the Wii and the ps3 are coming out soon. However the launch details of both of those are becoming very curious. Heres the contrast.

Nintendo -- Dude can you say BUZZ! Everything is coming up roses for nintendo and I think I am seeing for the first time a company that knows how to do a launch. They are remaining tight lipped until the absolute last minute and that is just building so much excitment over the Wii. the low price - the launch titles - the control scheme - everything is coming together for the Wii and I think for once Nintendo could be right in what they have been saying all along. Its not about the polygon counts or the rendering or the shaders or the power of the system its about the experiance playing the games that will sell consoles and games. SO with the big N's worldwide conferences getting ready to happen over the next couple of days I feel I can say pretty confidently that everyone will be happy with the news and that the buzz is only going to grow for the little system they call Wii

Sony -- WOW what a contrast. 2 years ago we saw Ken Kutaragi playing with ducks "in real time" in the bath tub and and that was supposed to be only the beggining. However it seems that over the last year the hype has simply been diminishing as more negative news comes out from sony. I swear I dont feel like they have had a single good thing to say about ps3 this year. And this is their launch year!!! First we had E3 which everyone couldnt wait to get good news from sony on. Well what did we get. 1st up was the "take out a second mortgage on your house" price tag. Then came the news that of the two versions going to be sold the cheaper was significantly scaled down in terms of ports and what not and that you could not upgrade it to be the same as the more expensive option. A major faux paux in my opinion. Now within the last few weeks is the announcement that they cant make their projected shipping qty's and they are reducing their expected shipments by like 75%, ignorning europe entirely till they catch up makes me very very skeptical about Sony in this gen. Sure Sony's got Fanboys and Fangirls and that counts for a lot. Ive been saying for the past year Sony could slap a "playstation" sticker on just about anything with the promise of Final Fantasy accesories and it would sell. Think the PS3 toilet with a chocobo theme for the little ones. However when Ken Kutaragi makes statements like this to reuters "If you asked me if Sony's strength in hardware was in decline, right now I guess I would have to say that might be true." DANG I really have to start thinking that they are on their way to a low point.

SO whats my point in all this. Simple I think the big N is going to become just that. The Big N again. I think this generation of conoles is going to see the Wii as #1 with x360 and PS3 fighting it out for second globally. And I just dont know if Sony can hang on at this point. X360 is already well established globally and has a large fanbase in America and Europe. PS3 can really only guarantee to own one market which is japan and the japanese gaming market is in the toilet right now. The big thing in japan is not home consoles but the DS Lite. Can the ps3 really compete with that? Can it compete with the x360 in America if we only see 400k units this x-mas with 80% of them costing 600+ tax. (thats 640.00 for me to buy a ps3 and I still dont have a single new game to play on it!) I feel bad in a way but maybe it will force some of the developers who have been rather snooty towards american hardware to cross platform develop. Yeah im looking at you Square Enix. How about we see FF13 for both x360 and ps3. That would be the nail in the coffin of the ps3 if that ever happened.

Well I have ranted long enough on things game related.

Cheers!