TheWayoftheWeb

Content and Digital Marketing Specialists

sony

The enduring power of a good mash-up…

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I dashed out in my car at lunchtime to run some errands, and while I was rushing around, this famous song was being played on the radio (it’s not the official video due to all the Youtube, PRS, music industry and other licensing restrictions.

But the lyrics forming in my head, and the video being pictured in my mind as I drove along was actually:

There’s probably a lot you could imply about original creations, payment mechanisms, and music industry copyrights etc…

I’ll just sit here chuckling and thinking about the quote on a T-shirt I bought from the National Gallery (is it just me that thinks their website is shocking?) recently – ‘Bad artists copy, Good artists steal’ – Picaso.

Essential tools for working from the family home

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There really are two things which make it possible for me to work from home without having the money to build an office in the garden:
Sony MDR-V300 Headphones with Neodymium Magnet – Folding Design + https://www.last.fm/user/BadgerGravling

That and the fact I’ve got a bookcase partitioning me from the rest of the room and blocking the line of sight to the television (currently showing CBeebies to my partner and my 8-month old!).

The power of the dead goat

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Interestingly, and despite the amount of competition out there, it seems like I received a bit of a traffic boost yesterday.

And it’s all thanks to Sony, God of War 2, and the ‘Dead Goat‘ PR stunt.

So as much as I’ve attacked Sony for their bizarre PR approach, and the underwhelming PS3 which seems destined to be the console for those left after the twin onslaught of the Xbox 360 (Online gamers) and Nintendo Wii (Fun gamers), I’d like to offer a heartfelt thanks to the electronic giants.

And I wouldn’t mind a PSP in return, as that’s a console I feel has been underrated by the general public. Especially as it offers quite a bit more than just gaming, if you can be intrigued enough to figure out how it all works…

Sony PR manage to surpass even themselves…

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I had to post this as soon as I spotted it, as much as I dislike linking to the Daily Mail….

After badly misjudged PR disasters like the PSP blog, and trying to promote Gran Tourismo with Project Gotham screenshots, I really did think they might have learned, and I did have to check this wasn’t a late April Fools joke…

But no. Some PR and marketing genius decided it was a good idea to promote God of War 2 with a party at which visitors were invited to eat food from the inside of a still-warm dead goat.

Admittedly the offal inside had been procured elsewhere, as actually eating a dead goat would obviously be foolish….far better to use it as a kind of food-warmer…

There was a full feature in the official Sony Playstation mag, but now the 80,000 print run has had to be scrapped and the feature on the launch removed. You have to wonder how many PS3 buyers will be reading the Daily Mail as opposed to the official mag…

So that’s three disasters in just a few months… Can’t wait to see the next one…

Microsoft launches Live gaming convergence

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Microsoft has set a date for the long-awaited connection between the six million console games on Xbox Live, and PC gamers running Windows.

Windows LIVE launches on May 8 with the Vista version of Halo 2, followed by Shadowrun in June and Uno later in 2007.

It’s a long expected move to boost both the online service on consoles, the online service on PC, and the promotion of Microsoft products around the home.

It’s already possible to access your Friends list and Message lists for your console, via your PC and www.xbox.com, but now you can actually play with the same friends whether you’re on a console or PC, as well as the community gaining a large number of gamers.

Hopefully some steps have been taken to balance the advantages of the PC’s keyboard/mouse combination over using a console joypad…but I’m not holding my breath for that one!

But it’s a really good and sensible move overall, and has made me reconsider getting a new PC for gaming. Having a unified system which has worked so well on consoles suggests PC gaming will become a lot easier to set-up and organise. Hopefully it will also lead to a wider range of PC strategy-type titles on the Xbox 360.

It’s also a major shot at the likes of Sony, whose PS3 has been underwhelming, sales wise. Sony have long seemed reluctant to get involved in online gaming in the same way as MS, preferring to let individual games feature individual systems for online matchmaking etc.

And Sony doesn’t have a huge number of PC gamers using their operating systems and ready to jump on board.

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