Monthly Archives: November 2006

PS3 Envy? Not So Sure…

On Wednesday, I met with someone who told me that Sony setup a PS3 preview lounge in SOHO. After our meeting we headed over there to check out the new PS3 Sony Playstation console and see if the hype was true.
Upon arriving, it was an exclusive event. We needed an invite to get in, but around the corner some Sony dude was giving out free tickets to get in. So we got tickets and went up to the two pretty young ladies working the door, and they let us in like we were rock stars.
Inside were many PS3 stations with retro space age white half spheres to sit in. Many games were being demo-ed from racing to first person shooting to others. The graphics were astounding. Certainly the graphics horsepower had been increased and some of the action was much better. Seeing it all on widescreen HDTV certainly made the experience much more dramatic.
But…somehow it still just old news. Even though the graphics rendering was much better, the games were the same. Racing, first person shooting, fighting games – we’ve all been there before. I can’t help but wonder if a game had improved by just simply having more graphics horsepower, and honestly I can’t say that they had. They were still the same old stuff. When will we see the games themselves improve beyond the visuals…?

The Promise of Streaming Video Broadband Ain’t No Promise At All

I’m in NYC right now and missed the episode of Lost last night. I think, “Hey, no problem! Abc.com is streaming all their shows.”
I click through to launch last night’s episode of Lost…legally since abc.com is allowing this…and start to watch. Everything works pretty well until…bandwidth is lost.
What?
I close that window, wait a few minutes, then launch it again. This time it makes it further in the video, and then bandwidth is lost again.
WTF?
It is obvious to me. Verizon Broadband is cutting off my bandwidth. They see me streaming a high bandwidth video on their network, figure it out at various times, and then shut me off. The same thing happened with SBC on the West Coast. I was streaming the Ironman Championships from Kona all day, and finally after 9 hours, SBC decides to cut me off.
This sucks. When are the internet providers going to just allow me to do this whenever I want? They need to upgrade their networks so each of us can stream that much all the time, 24/7. It’s the way the world is going and they have to live with that.