Microsoft’s briefing was full of glitz, glamour, and lots of games. Nintendo’s conference was full of boring lectures, sales data, a few good announcements, and possibly take-home tests. Sony was a bit of a combination of the two, falling a bit short of the quality of the Microsoft show, but they were far more successful than what Nintendo was able to put together. Sony didn’t cut out all the sales charts like Microsoft did, but they didn’t skimp on showing great looking games either.

Sony’s briefing began with a sense of humor about all the leaks they had beforehand, saying they want to be the industry leader even with news leaks. After a little bit of sales data, Naughty Dog came onstage to show off a demo of Uncharted 2: Drake’s Fortune. The game looks amazing, especially in the quality of character animation. After that, MAG (Massive Action Game) was demoed, showing gameplay for the first time. It looks somewhat impressive, but I’m still not convinced that it will be a compelling experience.

Next up was the official unveiling of the PSP Go. The design is quite a bit different than the current PSP-3000, and it will be co-existing with the current model rather than replacing it. The PSP Go will be in stores the beginning of October with a $249.99 price tag. Coming at the same time as the PSP Go will be a Gran Turismo game for the handheld system. Hideo Kojima decided to show up at Sony’s conference this year (after appearing at Microsoft’s yesterday). This time, he revealed a Metal Gear title for the PSP, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. The game appears to take place early on in the Metal Gear story, according to the insanely long trailer that had several different endings. Seriously, the thing just kept on going.

The next section of Sony’s show dragged on for a bit with a few montages and talk about Playstation Home. The crowd had a bit of fun with the presenters when they mockingly cheered for a Hannah Montana game. On the upside, there was a quick mention of a new Rockstar game exclusive to PS3 that is coming called Agent, but little detail was shared.

Luckily Sony got back on track with a live demo of Assassin’s Creed 2. The game looks more colorful than the original, probably due to the Italian setting during the Renaissance. The game’s new lead character, Ezio, is shown climbing buildings and leaping between rooftops much like in the first Assassin’s Creed. However there were several additions and twists to the formula that were shown as well, not the least of which is using Da Vinci’s flying machine to soar over the city. Ezio also has two different hidden blades, allowing him to covertly take out two guards at once, and he can also steal weapons from enemies as he fights them. The demo ended with Ezio leaping into the river to swim away, something that would have meant instant death in the first game. Assassin’s Creed 2 looks very good, and I can’t wait until it hits shelves this November.

Sony then showed off an English-language trailer for Final Fantasy XIII, followed by the surprise announcement of Final Fantasy XIV Online coming in 2010, exclusive to PS3. Everything seemed to be on track for Sony thus far, but then Sony revealed their take on a new motion controller, grinding the briefing to a halt.

The new controller featured was just a prototype, so the final look will most likely be quite a bit different than what was shown today. The new controller basically looks like a ping pong ball on the end of a wand. It works in conjunction with the EyeToy camera to detect position and rotation in 3D space. They showed off several simplistic tech demos of the thing, but it came off looking rather cheap and gimmicky, despite working fairly well. It is supposedly coming in the spring of 2010 despite appearing like it isn’t very far along. Compared to the technology behind Microsoft’s Project Natal camera, Sony’s motion controller doesn’t seem to be quite as innovative.

Luckily Sony had more games up their sleeve after the motion controller was revealed. Mod Nation Racers is another title in the vein of LittleBigPlanet. The game is a kart racer with tons of customization options. Particularly impressive was the demonstration of the simple to use, yet robust track editor included in the game. After that was a trailer for the new Team Ico game, The Last Guardian, looking a lot like Shadow of the Colossus in its art design. Next, Grand Turismo 5 showed up in trailer form, looking rather pretty, but very light on gameplay.

And Sony ended the show right there…….okay not really. They showed off a ton of gameplay from the first few minutes of God of War 3. The game looks to play a lot like the previous games in the series, except it is a lot prettier in the graphics department. The level of detail in the environments and character models was very impressive, and I’m sure it will sell a ton of copies when it releases in March 2010.

All in all, Sony had a really good show, despite the lackluster motion controller tech demos. They showed off a lot of games and an attractive new design for the PSP, certainly a lot more content than what Nintendo had.

Handbrake is a free open-source video conversion tool available for Windows, MacOS X and Linux. I stumbled onto this piece of software only a few months ago and I have found it excellent at producing first rate compact versions of some of my DVDs.

It is specifically designed to create MPEG-4 versions on DVDs, but will also complete conversions between a limited set of video codecs (e.g. MPEG to AVI).

Using Handbrake couldn’t be simpler. Just insert your DVD and from the Handbrake main screen select the  VIDEO_TS folder of the DVD and Handbrake will scan for content and provide a list. The normal tricky part of trying to figure out what video and audio codec your device needs has been made easy by having a varied selection of devices to pick from. Selecting your device automatically sets up Handbrake for the optimum quality of video and audio for the output file. Hitting ‘Start’ kicks of the encoding and will dump the file to the place of your choice.

I’ve so far tried this on my iPod Touch and PSP and found that a 2 hour movie ends up around 1GB when encoded for my Touch. With 32GB to play with I’ve stuck several movies onto my iPod and have found them all very clear and easy to watch while sat on the train. I also have many more sat on my Mac and they still look pretty good on the full screen. Having a whole selection of films and TV shows on my Mac is great for traveling and also cuts down on battery consumption as there is no DVD drive to power.

Some of the devices included in the automatic settings include Apple TV, Xbox 360 and PS3, so you can also load these up for watching on your TV.

Buy an 8GB USB stick, load it up with 16 hrs of all your favorite movies and TV shows and you can watch them whenever you have access to a computer, PS3 or Xbox 360.

Please remember, using this software is for personal use only and not for selling on copies of all your DVDs!

Find the software here.

Discussion Topics

Video Games
Marketing Brochure for Xbox 360
Nintendo Releases Fall Lineup
City of Villains Beta Test
PSP 2.0 Released
Resident Evil for DS

Movies
Serenity Viral Campaign
The Island is a Foreign Success
Alba Dreams of Jeannie
Halo in 2007

Discussion
Gadgets – Optimus Keyboard
High Definition