GDC - PS3 - and chilling out

"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought." Albert Szent-Györgyi (1893–1986)

I am a bad blogger. For the last couple of week I have been active in the real world (I have been snowboarding at the alps (Verbier), sleeping 10-12 hours per night, redocorating the apartment and organizing a seminar on serious games/exergames) but passive in the online worlds. At the same time I preach how relevant online presence and dynamic existince is. Oh well...

GDC is approaching, I will be following the main seminar and GDC Mobile. Hope to see you there or perhaps at the IGDA party on Tuesday? Also PS3 will be released in Europe on 23rd of March. There has been a lot of discussion about the compatibility of PS2 games, the (high) price -- of course, blu-ray and whether Playstation remains as the nr1 console in the market or not. I believe that it will remain the market leader even though the situation is different compared to the 1995 (Sony innovatively promoted PS1 as "trendy home electronic device" and did well) or 2000 (included DVD player was a killer idea at that time). PS3 has a lot of good qualities, I am not yet sure if the average Joe is after blu-ray (even though blu-ray movies look great!), but at least the excellent and inexpensive online capabilities, PS3-PSP connection, PSPish interface (I like it!) and extendability (hardware-wise) are potential success factors. I really like MotoStorm but other games did not really surprise or interest me that much. I hope Playstation will understand the importance of casual and social gaming and focus on families of circle of friends as the target instead of (just) hard core gamers. Nintendo Wii definitely has get the message as they are well (and successfully) focusing on the "new potential" of gamers.

Gamers have been laughing at the funny Wii vs. PS3 video (which by the way is surprisingly similar in style than Mac > PC ads by MacIntosh.) Is this a hint in some way?

Yes, and those interested in serious games or exergames, I suggest to check out the material presented at the Exergame and other Serious games -seminar on Tuesday (20. Feb). Some of the slides are in Finnish but hey, this is a perfect moment to start practising, right? ;) (First=general, kuluttajatutkimus=consumer study, teknologiavisiot=technology vision, Fitness Adventure and Figuremeter are the prototypes). And if you are unsure of the pronunciation, click here!