Kevin Butler

This is the new ad campaign for the PS3 and I think it's awesome. I've long been a fan of Sony's VP of almost everything, but kicking off a new campaign by bringing Kevin out of retirement was highly enjoyable to me.

You really should be following this guy on Twitter as well.

Are there any other gaming mascots that stand out to you?

PS3 Version of new Counter Strike gets all PC-y

You may have stumbled across this article on Kotaku already and while I'm a little tired of all things Valve, because of it's endlessly annoying fanbase, this is neat news.

With the release of Portal 2 on PS3 (due to Sony's more open source PSN) you can see Valve's desire to meld PC and Steam with PS3 and I really find that exciting. You could run a limited version of Steam on your PS3 and even do the coop campaign with a PC player over Steam. Nothing outstandingly groundbreaking, but it is another step towards a potential one console/rig/system future that people keep saying will eventually happen.

What's neat about the new Counter Strike is that, on PS3, you'll have not only cross-platform play AND cross-platform skill based matchmaking, but the PS3 will also have built in mouse and keyboard support.

As all gamers know the "Master Race" has the far superior control scheme and it's a really great addition to the console. Not only does the cross-platform play allow for a much much much larger pool of players (especially for a Valve Counter Strike game) to play with, but the mouse and keyboard support will actually allow console players to be every bit as good as their PC Brethren. If there's one thing Shadowrun on 360/PC taught us it's that cross-platform is cool, but PC player will own your ass with the better controls.

So basically this game has taken a giant leap forward as a future purchase for me. I would have liked to given it a try because I've always really wanted to give PC gaming a really good run, but the initial start up costs of a new rig are too much and I don't want to jump into an old Valve PC game and get owned for being a noob.

Thoughts? Do you guys think these are good things or should they remain separate like they've always been?

Sony can kiss my ass...

Two years ago I bought a PS3. I bought that PS3 because I had finally given up on my fanboy-rage over HDDVD's demise and I was able to snag one for the same cost as a BD player (at the time). Side note: I had put a ban on all movie purchases till then too... yeah, I'm a freak.

ANYWAY, the first BD movie I bought was Sunshine. For those who haven't seen it, you obviously hate America. It is, a phenomenal movie and has a demo-worthy audio track. Getting to my point... my wife is gone, and had some time to kill so I threw it in. As the movie starts the PIP featurette pops up and I cannot get the damned thing to go away. Finally, I hit the forums and discovered that Sony, those bastards, blocked some JAVA coding in the PS3 and other Sony BD players as a "security fix". Because of this, Sunshine, which uses JAVA for it's BD features, bugs out and it is impossible to watch it without the PIP. Sony has acknowledged the issue but since October when the issue first showed up, there is yet to be a fix. The only solution I have found is to contact Fox and see if they will issue a replacement disc.

I just got off the phone in an attempt to contact Fox, but of course, they are unavailable until Monday. Needless to say, I'm pretty pissed off. I'm already in a pissed-off mood and not being able to watch on of my favorite movies just pisses me off more.

So, from the deepest depths of my heart and with all sincerity... Sony, your products are shit and you can kiss my ass.

*this post was written with love from a Sony Vaio*