It’s fair to say that Sony aren’t quitters. They’ve really tried their best to provide non-gaming content in an attempt to promote the PS3 as something more than a games console. This hasn’t always worked, but this time though, I think they’ve cracked it (in Europe at least). Sony’s latest is in the form of Movement, a road trip documentary focused on two English blokes, taking a trip across Europe to find the best in independent bands and sign them up to a record deal.
More info on this potentially entertaining content after the leap!
I think for a lot of people, their mental image of a serious gamer is that of an overweight pimply teenager. But I think that the idea that a sedentary activity like playing a video game (Wii Sports excluded) leads to obesity, is a bit short-sighted.
I really don’t eat when I am playing games. On the contrary, I have found myself literally shaking from low blood sugar, because I don’t consume anything while gaming. In most games, you eat…. you die. Granted I could stand to lose a few pounds, but I think this has to less do with gaming, and more to do with the pizza and other crap I eat when I am NOT gaming.
At QuakeCon, I also noticed that the ratio of thin-to-fat gamers was significantly different from what I see in everyday society. While their weren’t many “bodies by Jake” in attendance, most of the gamers I saw actually seemed to have a relatively low body mass index. Having forgotten my calipers at home, thus preventing me from doing an on-site scientific analysis, I have decided to test my theory that gaming actually DECREASES your propensity for obesity.
First of all, here’s a simple formula to calculate your BMI, or body mass index.
Weight in pounds x 703 ___________________
Your Height in Inches (Squared)
For example, if you are 6 feet tall and weigh 200 pounds……
(200 x 703) 140600 divided by 5184 (72 squared)= BMI of 27.1
For our friends across the pond on the metric system, it’s even easier. BMI= WEIGHT IN KILOGRAMS divided by HEIGHT IN METERS(squared)
If you care to participate in this unscientific survey, please visit our forums, and post your BMI. Look for the results right here on Thursday. (Forum registration takes just afew seconds, and burns up to .0000003 calories.)
Few people in the video game industry command the type of respect that former “Xbox Chief” Peter Moore has earned. Taking the 360 from a distant second to a pretty strong first in one generation of hardware is nothing short of incredible. The ramifications of the innovations in community and gameplay that occurred on his watch have rippled throughout the video game market, not just on the 360.
Moore sat down with Gamasutra for an interview that covered Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Japan, and even a reference to a MS Handheld gaming device that, at least, he didn’t deny. “You’ll be waiting a while”.
At the end of this interview, I couldn’t help but wonder why Microsoft would let a man of this caliber escape their ranks. To me, he was the face of Xbox, one that shot straight and was always a step ahead of the other guys. He delivered what he promised. When something went wrong, he fixed it. Say what you will about scratched disks and rings of death, both are totally viable arguments. But at the end of the day, gaming has never seen anyone quite like Peter Moore.
At his level of leadership it seems they could have accommodated almost any situation to keep him at the helm of this program. Perhaps they tried. I would be very interested to know how that all went down.
Do you think Moore’s departure for the arguably greener pastures of Electronic Arts will signal a change or shift in the console wars? Do you think Microsoft is capable of finding and installing someone with Moore’s street cred and dynamic leadership ability?
I spoke with a friend of mine, inside the company, and he seemed pretty down about the whole thing. Not enough to warrant a suicide watch or anything. But still.
It’s no secret that I am a fan of the 360 for a plethora of reasons, and as such I am really interested in “what’s next” for the company, the console, XBL, and gaming.
Although I do not believe in what those loopy Brits are doing, by banning the game from the country altogether, I really don’t understand how Take Two didn’t see an “Adults Only” rating coming for their gorey, bloody, sinister, and likely wildly entertaining Manhunt 2 in the U.S. Have they not PLAYED their own game?
But anyway, what does an “Adults Only” rating really mean anyway? So what if the stores where kids are likely to see it won’t carry it. Like Walmart. Or Gamestop.
Or Target.
Or Best Buy.
Or Circuit City.
Or Sears.
On the bright side, maybe you could put em in places where there’s no chance in hell that kids will see them.
Like the library.
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As if Second Life wasn’t already mired in deviant sexual behavior. FLAME ALERT: Second Life users should put on your “thick skin”
Linden Labs has released what many people are calling the next logical step in the evolution of Second Life. Voice Comms. Within certain areas of the SL world, users can now actually talk to each other… something that has been sorely missed amongst the conversations about “child play” and penis-trading.
On the bright side, it’ll be a lot harder… hehe.. heh…um.. oh yeah…. It’ll be a lot harder for Fat Larry to keep up the impression of being Cindy Shoebender “the escort” when he’s gotta try to pass off his baritone voice as a girl’s. Talk about a buzz kill.
If this new freedom is not accompanied by a sharp crackdown by Linden Labs on the types of deviant behavior that SL is notorious for, they’ll be reduced to the likes of all those chat rooms that come up in the top of the list in IRC. (ie: ##_#TeensGoneWild)
What could really be an interesting environment to build and explore, is being trashed by retards, miscreants, pedophiles, and perverts. Now, with microphones, they can annoy and harass the “normal” folks right out of the game. As more and more big companies flock to SL to try to ride the wave of coolness, I hope they’ve done their research and realize that the neighborhood they’re moving into, is the Red Light District of the Internet.
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The American Medical Association got together and decided that video games are now officially addictive.
This announcement eclipsed some other headlines that came out of that same AMA meeting. In case you missed them, here they are.
Car accidents can lead to injuries.
Getting hit with a hockey puck hurts.
If you stop breathing, you will die.
If people doing something in excess equals addiction, then why haven’t I heard anything about rock climbing addictions? Or swimming addictions? Personally, I think I suffer from a baseball addiction.
Most of you are going to laugh this off, but I contend that this is some bad news. It paves the way for morons like Elliot Spitzer, who already mopped the floor with the radio industry in New York, to legislate and enforce some insane crap. Laugh at that headline now, but beware. This is going to get a lot less funny before it gets better.
Look, I know there are people that do literally nothing except play video games. They’re too lazy to get up and get a job or mow the grass. But addicts? Are they going go into muscle-clenching mouth-foaming withdrawal if they can’t log in to WoW? If so, I stand corrected, and I can’t wait for THAT video to come to YouTube. Until then, I’ll be over here in the corner, looking concerned.
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Ever met someone who over-used a particular word? I once knew this guy who used the word “dope” to describe everything. It was as if every other adjective in the English language evaporated, leaving everything either “dope” or “lame”. It wasn’t that my friend was stupid… he was just trying too hard to be cool.
Over at G4TV’s “The Feed”, about 6% of today’s headlines included the term “pwnd”. Seemed like overkill. A very quick dig into their archives yielded the following recent headlines.
British Dude Pwned By Sleep! Paris Hilton Officially PWNED! C-Murder PWNED! Posh Spice Gets Pwnd By NBC! Google Gets Totally Pwnd By eBay! Carrie Underwood Gets Pwnd LOL!
Is it just me or does it seem like whoever’s writing this stuff is trying just a little too hard to be “hip with that gaming jive”
Hey G4! Just keep it real!
We like you for who you are:
“A place to watch Cops and see two people butcher the teleprompter reviews of games they’ve never played.”
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