trisha returns

and free radicals have said the wii is not powerful enough for haze.

what a load of rubbish. you hardly have any idea about the gaming past. nintendo was the money grabber, it was because of them the likes of sony and namco got sick of being the ones making nintendo possible and why they bit back. the snes had sony chips, and played namco games, and they both thought why are we getting fk all from this deal, and the rest is history

it sure isnt black and white, but the launch is vital for them, and they have to have huge games every month after release not just at the start.

e3 used to be part of the huge electronics expo held earlier in the year. if it wont be standalone it will just go back into that. its too big not to have a show for all those folks wares, but standalone when its main players are in the electronics business is not so important to them. after all, sony would love to have the games glitz on the bigger tv/hifi show based electronics expo, while microsoft no doubt sees no problem in adding it to their stand at the same event or a pc one...

Sorry I have been busy, you might have read about the worlds financial markets recently.. oh no, sorry, you wouldn't have. As for power, well, normally at this point of a machines life we are caught in the haze of meaningless specs. ie until the machines are actually out and benchmarkable we can only use the rather useless figures the companies give. Of course Nintendo knew their figures were so pathetic they refused to even release any as no matter how they dressed them up they would have looked bad against the xbox2 (now reality and testable) and ps3 (still hype and untrustworthy) specs. But haze in fact is what this time allows us to know the wii is underpowered. Step up FREE RADICALS and their FAQs on HAZE. Why is it not going to be on the WII? Well they say, the WII can NOT cope with it, the machine is too underpowered. Now do not get me wrong, Nintendo has a very good chance with the WII. But its not through having a good naming policy, "WEE" is still an own goal in marketing. But Nintendo HAS ABANDONED the traditional games market it once dominated and is trying to create a new one. Yes there will be cross over games, but the reality is, the nintendo will have more cheap party games and the others will get more complicated (graphically at least) ones. The wand wont remain exclusive to the WII for long. It should be obvious while the games will be adequate as the hardware will be good enough for virtually everything we have seen in the past, the machine will be like the gameboy platform is to a tv machine. Its games always simpler and smaller, and perhaps younger by default. Yes Nintendo says it will be different this time (it said that before with the Cube though), but games machines are aspirational when it comes to which you buy, and a machine aimed at grannies like Nintendo say the WII is, is hardly a fashion statement for the traditional mass market - but remember I said Nintendo has abandoned them. WII will get a SAGA stamp of approval and that will be as exciting to kids as a Skoda estate wall poster to a Ferrari and a naked chick. Haze shows that the PS3&XBOX2 has moved on, and Nintendo has moved out. Not a bad idea from Nintendo as they have only admitted what I have been saying (and my comments on Nintendo Financial position was confirmed exactly by Forbes magazine at the start of the year - I linked them at the time go look) for years, i.e., Nintendo has lost the traditional machine market and needs a new niche. It can not afford to fight either Sony or MS in the "Atari" box market that they once ruled like an evil dictator. Perhaps if they had not wii'd off the likes of Namco with their nes & snes years demands they wouldn't have suffered the fate they have. Nintendo is creating a new market, away from the others, but is anything they are doing unique? Once the controller is cloned, then the WII will just be an underpowered box to the others and no other distinguishing features other than price. Price is the $64,000 question. We saw the 3DO get slaughtered because of price, but we also saw that no matter how low the cube went sales always ended up lower than the year before, while the ps2 remained the dearest machine even though it was the least powerful. So that's no easy guess to make. However Nintendo is making a lot of good noises at the moment, and Sony is not. That is a welcome change at least. What really matters though is the launch is not like the N64 OR CUBE ones where huge initial sales dried up as there was no follow through in supporting products for way too long. Oh and HD is a mistake. Sales are flying for the new TV sets as the price of an "oh so fashionable" flat panel one crashes below £600. 32" hdtv lcds are cheaper than a good brand 28" crt was only 5 years ago. People can afford them, the question is can they afford them for the kids bedroom where the WII will be? The XBOX2 or PS3 is likely to be in the living room and the wii in the kids bedroom, Nintendo seem to know that, hence perhaps why they did not bother with building in the ability. It is just another thing that suggests Nintendo wants the WII to be the gameboy of the tv machines. Cheap, basic and uncomplicated (gamewise - i mean how complicated is a box with a controller!) to the powerhouses of the traditional tv machine.

lg is huge. the panel / tv company is actually a joint venture between philips and lg (lucky & goldstar being separate companies in the 80s). lg philips displays were world number 1 for crt tubes, with 25% of the worlds tvs using their glass units. sharp and panasonic tvs often had philips tubes. lg philips displays makes all their crt stuff while lg philips lcd ltd makes the flat panels (and is separately listed/traded) you get the feeling working for "lg philips displays" is therefore not good for long term employment as for the new "panels" companies like sony never made plazmas, instead bought from 5 different makers (there are only several actual panel makers in the world, they just end up in hundreds of brands and assemblers hands) which included lg-philips, although pioneer was a lead supplier. sony have dropped plasma domestically and reduced it worldwide, favouring lcd, which they make with partner SAMSUNG! lg-philips has remained with the plasma technology as well as pushed forward with lcd (where sharp is the biggest player), hitachi and toshiba have shuffled their interests recently, while only MEI has stuck solidly with plasma technology announcing earlier this year a huge investment plan for their plasma plants. last year sharp managed to break the 65" lcd barrier that had been a serious technological headache. however while the panels used between various brands can be the same panel, what is often different is the software running it. and that can be the difference between a £800 tv and a £2000 one. it can also make a very big difference. think of a chipped car, same engine, different software. the other thing to watch out for is the type of digital connector used. sky is likely to create the most popular type with its hdsky+ box, but it is not the sort fitted to all tvs sold as "hd ready" at the moment