Entertainment

E3 after-hours party: Geeks on a bull

We can't work all the time, you know. Those of us at this year's E3--reporters, analysts, game developers, and so on--have been more or less running back and forth between meetings and events at various hotels around the Santa Monica coast, wishing we were sitting on the beach rather than being tragically forced to try out new Xbox games that aren't on the market yet. (Woe is us.) But that all changes after about 6 p.m., when a whole host of software companies make us feel better by throwing parties and treating us to free food and an open bar.

One of the E3-related shindigs on Wednesday night was the Bethesda Softworks party at a delightfully cheesy Sunset Boulevard joint known as the Saddle Ranch Chop House.

It was a good half-hour drive out of the way, and there were plenty of other game companies that threw parties that night, but this one had a mechanical bull. (Not sure about where you're from, but on my home turf, ride-the-bull attractions are pretty rare. I think there's a total of two of them on the entire island of Manhattan.) Check out what happens when a bunch of geeks invade a bar that looks like it fell out of Disney World's Frontierland...and try to conquer a piece of "interactive entertainment" that doesn't involve a console or a joystick.

As you can see from the extensive footage above, the average E3 attendee does not appear to be particularly good at bull riding. Maybe the Wii Balance Board could help with that.… Read more

E3 2007: If Microsoft told you to 'jump in,' would you?

Microsoft's media event on Tuesday evening--the first slot on our E3 2007 agendas (aside from picking up our press badges)--came with the company slogan: "Jump In." It was displayed on signs outside Santa Monica High School's outdoor amphitheater, where the event took place, and on the giant projection screen behind the stage (when the screen wasn't displaying a tag cloud of the Xbox Live usernames of those present). The slogan was even on the access badges that were mailed to us a week in advance, with the admonition that if we didn't have … Read more

Netflix down

If you've been trying to log onto Netflix this afternoon and been having trouble, it wasn't just you.

At around 2:45 p.m. PDT or so, after 20 minutes of struggling to get onto the site, I tried again and found the message, "The Netflix Web site is temporarily down."

The site said the service would be back up soon, most likely by 3 p.m. PDT. But we shall see.

Update: Netflix now says it will be at least 3:30 p.m. before its service is back up and running.

This is the new E3? Sure, I'll take it...with a side of Pinkberry

I rolled into the seaside city of Santa Monica, Calif., home of the E3 Media and Business Summit, this morning after a flight out of New York City that wasn't technically a red-eye, but might as well have been because it was pretty darn early (would you call that a pink-eye?). Let's just say it's a far cry from the conference's former home at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The above photograph shows something that I snapped with my camera while--no kidding--on the way to pick up my press wristband for Sony Computer Entertainment America's … Read more

How TiVo and Amazon are working to eradicate disc media

It has been my theory for a little while that sometime in the near future, we are going to see the downfall of physical discs for watching movies. A lot of companies are moving towards a downloadable model. Most notably, Apple sells downloadable movies through its iTunes store and even pipes them through to its own set-top box. Microsoft also sells movies through its Video Marketplace on the Xbox 360 in both standard and high definition.

In March of this year, TiVo decided it wanted to jump into the game. It was a really logical move since it has a … Read more

Microsoft E3 preview: Price drop anyone?

Rumors are flying around about what will be announced at E3, yet little of this speculation has anything to do with Microsoft exclusively--until now. Not to be outdone by Sony's recent actions, at this year's E3, Microsoft is planning to announce a price drop on all three versions of the Xbox 360. Next-gen is reporting that the new prices will go as follows:

"The $299 Core pack will drop to $249; the $399 Premium pack will drop to $349; and the recently released $479 Elite model will drop to $399."

Also potentially showing its face at … Read more

Wii virtual console releases for this week

Here are the virtual console releases for the week of July 9.

Yoshi (1992, NES, 500 Wii points) - Yoshi marks the first game solely devoted to Mario's dino friend. It's strictly a puzzle game, where you must match like objects in order to release Yoshi from his egg prison. Mach Rider (1985, NES, 500 Wii points) - Come visit the year 2112 as envisioned by a 1980s video game developer! Mach Rider drops you in the middle of an intergalactic battle for Earth and all you've got is your motorcycle. Air Zonk (1992, TurboGrafx 16, 600 … Read more

Central Park's new 'problem': Mortal Kombat

Happy Friday, everyone.

Life would be a whole lot better with your own personal backup band. Need evidence? Look no further than this YouTube clip, which shows what happens when the University of California at Berkeley's DeCadence a cappella group comes across a couple of sparring boxers in New York's Central Park.

Which life occurrences do you think would be best accompanied by video-game theme songs? Add your ideas in our TalkBack section.

[Thanks to Jeff Minard for sending the video.]

Microsoft to 'Bring it Home' again at E3 '07

During last year's E3, Microsoft allowed Xbox 360 owners to download exclusive content from the show as a part of "Bringing it Home"--a campaign designed to get gamers as close as possible to E3 without actually being there. A great deal of buzz was generated from the huge Lost Planet demo that allowed gamers to play two near-finished levels of the game.

Sticking with what works, Microsoft has wisely decided to continue offering E3 content from this year's expo in the form of downloadable goodies. The Gamerscore Blog reports that beginning July 10 and running … Read more