PS3 arrogance and a great site

I sat back yesterday after reading international web sites and realised that I have no idea when the PS3 will be hitting our sunny South African shores. Why do I not know when the PS3 will be hitting our shores? That is a damn fine question. Remember, all of this is happening in my brain, not out loud, that would be sad.

So after reading these international websites on the launch of the PS3 and how much it will cost and that only the expensive version will be available in Europe, I thought that I had better do some research. By the way, us lowly, bandwidth challenged South African form part of Europe. The Japanese might love our animals, and our animals love eating Japanese, but we are still European to them.

I clicked on www.playstation.co.za and followed the link to the PS3 Website. 1st: I hate pop-up windows! Don't do it! But they did and I went, so I moved on. After waiting for 3Kb of Flash movie to load, I saw that the SA launch is in March 2007. WOW!!! Same as Europe, just no date.

Next step, I went to the Ster Kinekor website to phone the people who release all the PS's to South African stores. There are no contact details on the PS3 site. Again, be warned, you have to wait for pretty animation to launch. HAVE THESE PEOPLE LEARNED NOTHING FROM GOOGLE?

The only number you can find on the Ster Kinekor website is Ticket Line. I would love to copy & Paste it here, but the site won't let me. I can also not Skype it as it's all graphic. Anyway, I called the number and told them my story and they told me to call another number. Which I did.

Once I got to that number, a lady tells me to hold, which I did and I get through to a voice mail box that says it's full. GREAT, now what? No option to go back to the operator, so I call again and tell her that the voice mail box is full. She puts me through to another person who seems to know a little more than the ticket line guy.

All she can do, though, is take my details and promise that someone will call me back.

That someone did call me back, yes, I know, it's amazing! She tells me that I am no longer on the mailing list and will check with her PR company if I can get on the list. HELLO!!! I am on a national radio station and run a blog and influence millions, if not tens.

So now I wait.

What I can tell you about the PS3 is what IOL are running this morning. I didn't want to put it up on this site as all of the numbers will be wrong.

But onto better things.

I found this GREAT site named AfriGadget. It features all of those "Boer maak a plan" things that clever minds in tough conditions come up with. You think that your new iPhone is cool, check out what people make when they HAVE to.....

JVC's new HD HD Camcorder

JVC will soon add to its Everio range of hard-disk drive camcorders with a model that can record high-definition (HD) video, it said today.

The GZ-HD7 can record a widescreen image at 1080i (1080 horizontal lines of resolution and interlaced), which is just below the 1080p (progressive scanning) system judged to be the highest of several video quality levels that fall within the high-definition bracket. It packs a 60G-byte hard-disk drive that holds five hours of video when captured at the highest of several recording modes. The camera records in the MPEG-2 format and capacity can be extended to around seven hours in "SP" mode by cutting down the vertical resolution.

Features include 3CCD (charge coupled device) image sensors, 10X optical zoom, optical image stabilization and USB (Universal Serial Bus), HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) and iLink interfaces. JVC said the USB is primarily for saving data, the HDMI for playback to a high-definition TV and the iLink for streaming. Conventional analog component, S-Video and composite outputs are also installed.

The GZ-HD7 will be available in April in the U.S. and cost around $1,800. Details of availability in other countries was not announced.

LIVE TV ON A CELL PHONE? VERIZON SET TO LAUNCH SMALL SCREEN SERVICE

By GARY GENTILE

Verizon Wireless customers will soon be able to watch live TV over a network constructed by Qualcomm Inc.

Verizon will launch its new service, dubbed V Cast Mobile TV, sometime in the first quarter, the company said Sunday at the International Consumer Electronics Show. Verizon said it would release details on pricing and availability closer to the launch of the service.

Verizon also announced an upgrade to its FIOS digital television service that will let users use their cell phone to program their home digital video recorders, change parental controls and perform other functions.

Many of the channels on the V Cast service will be live feeds from major broadcast partners, including NBC, CBS and Fox. Recorded full-length programs will also be offered, such as episodes of late-night talk shows.

Two handsets will be available at launch - one from Samsung and another from LG. More handsets and TV channels are expected to be added by year's end.

Verizon is the first wireless carrier use the network created by Qualcomm Inc. The MediaFLO system broadcasts signals to mobile phones over a different portion of the wireless spectrum than cellular calls and data services.

The phones have dedicated TV keys that launch the service. An antenna can be extended to strengthen the signal.

In a demonstration Sunday, the signals were strong and the picture quality sharp, without delays or hiccups caused by buffering data as often happens with video carried over current wireless networks.

The service comes with a program guide and customers can "channel surf" using the phone's keypad. The screens on the phones are about 2.5 inches (6 centimeters) diagonally.

The live programming will be available in U.S. East coast and West coast feeds. Local programming might be added later, said John Stratton, Verizon's vice president and chief marketing officer. Parental controls are included to block objectionable programs.

The same advertising that appears on the live feed will also appear on the V Cast service, the company said.

"We think that potentially the market is very large for this," Verizon president and chief operating officer Denny Strigl told The Associated Press. The market will grow over the next two years, he said.

"We think the advantage we have here is that we are first to market and it is something that will not degrade the existing network that we have."

Samsung Electronics Co. also said Sunday it was working on technology that will become available sometime in 2009, after U.S. broadcasters make the switch to digital TV signals.

The system, called Advanced-VSB, is designed to strengthen the digital signal sent from local broadcast stations so that mobile receivers can lock into it, even if moving at high speed, such as in a car or train, or in cities where buildings and other objects often interfere with the signal.

The system would allow a wide range of mobile TV applications, such as signals sent to a handheld device or a laptop computer, using the same broadcast signal sent to television sets.

Verizon Wireless is a joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC of Britain.

5 Reasons Why the PS3 Isn’t Selling

Families want to play together.

All my friends have a 360.

Nobody cares about Blu-ray.

PS2 is too strong.

$600 for a DVD player?


Read the details behind the thinking here...

Next Generation Gaming Wars

So which gaming console will be the dominant one when the FIFA World Cup comes to South Africa? A website is asking for your opinion AND is showing which console is being sold the most. NextGen Wars is tracking, real-time, the sales of the Wii, the Xbox 360 and the PS3. So far, the XBox is way in the lead with sales but more than half of the votes for the winner are going to the Wii. Put up your vote and see the sales at NextGen Wars.

Wii- No. 1, PS3- No. 2, Xbox 360- No.3 in Pre-Christmas Sales

PlayStation 3 and Wii have enjoyed the biggest sales last week end in Japan since their launch in November, due to heavy stocks provided by their respective manufacturers.

According to figures from Media Create Co. Ltd, Nintendo’s Wii was the best-selling gaming console for the week 10-17 December, at 108,237 units. The console was previously known by its project code name of Revolution, and is the successor to the Nintendo GameCube. Although Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3, as part of the seventh generation of gaming consoles it competes with the other two on some levels.

The retail market data provider ranked Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.'s PlayStation 3 in second place among consoles at 70,942 units and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 in third at 17,168 units. The PlayStation 3 is Sony's seventh generation era video game console, third in the PlayStation series. It is the successor to PlayStation and PlayStation 2 and competes primarily against Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii. According to Media Create, 81,639 PS3 systems were sold in the 24-hours of its introduction in Japan. The production cost is estimated to be US$805.85 for the 20GB model and US$840.35 for the 60GB model, so Sony loses a lot of money with every piece of PS3 sold.

The figures mean both the new consoles recorded their best week of sales in Japan in the pre-Christmas shopping season, with the exception of the launch weeks.

Among software sales games for the Wii easily outranked those for the PlayStation 3. Two games, "Wii Sports" and "Pokemon Battle Revolution" made it into the top-ten with sales of 69,923 units and 67,607 units, respectively, for the week. The best-selling PlayStation 3 title was ranked at number 35 in the chart, which is dominated by games for the Nintendo DS handheld and PlayStation 2.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 saw sales drop during the week but they were still relatively good for the year-old machine. During the week, sales of the machine totaled 17,168, Media Create said. That's about half the amount sold the week earlier but well above sales recorded in November. Over 35,000 Xbox 360 consoles were sold in the week from Dec. 4 to 10 thanks to the launch of the Blue Dragon video game.

The game was created by a famous Japanese games developer and had been eagerly awaited in Japan. To push sales of the console Microsoft created a special edition with Blue Dragon face plate and copy of the game bundled with the core edition console for the same price as the console usually sells.

More lists, The 20 Most Innovative Products of the Year

While we are on the topic of lists, PC World have released what they think are the Top 20 Innovative products made this year. The Wii is there as are some really cool Sure headphones, but the surprise is what is at Number One!!!

See the list here.