Tuesday, June 11, 2013

E3 2013: Microsoft Turns On Its Customers and Sony's PS4 May Crash the Industry


There's an electricity in the air.

Yes, once again, it's time for the Electronics Entertainment Expo, otherwise known as E3, the big annual video game industry trade show in Los Angeles which we always hear is becoming more irrelevant. And granted, we seem to be seeing less games there every year - what with the ever-increasing industry woes I've chronicled my thoughts on here for years - but still, everyone goes and makes it out to be a big deal. There's always awkward technical glitches and nonsense video game system customers don't care about, like attempts to push Sony and Microsoft branded alternatives to streaming services like Netflix and apparently now convince us that we need to manage fantasy football leagues right there on our console dashboards while also watching more commercials. Everyone still goes - except Nintendo at least had the foresight to do a series of their usually excellent prerecorded Nintendo Direct internet broadcast conferences instead of their usual awkward stage show, just showing up to show off the games directly to the press and to attendees on the show floor - and it's generally kind of terrible and embarrassing every year.

And I still write about it. But this year, it's different.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Two Words on Bullying

Oh hey, it's 2013 now, isn't it? And I haven't posted anything here for you guys since last November. Obama was rightly reelected, of course, but predictably, we've only seen the usual disappointment from the government since. That's a matter for another irate ramble, however. Normally, as I've meant to for the past year or two and still haven't gotten to, I'd start out the new year with some big rambling post summarizing things as of late - personal, boring nonsense. There's not much to report as of late, though I'll probably babble enough about it at some point, from my having been freelancing for over a year and a half now to tentative efforts to escape the south that I've been focusing on to present ongoing health problems threatening to derail more than I care to think about.

At any rate, just over three and a half months into the year, I'm starting out 2013 with a couple of things I felt compelled to post.