Rockband Euro Pricing...

... is a complete piss take. It actually almost sickens me. £180 for the full (read "proper") experience. I could buy a new XBox 360 and a new copy of Gears for that price and still have enough change to ride the merry go round and buy some penny sweets for the journey home.

I read the interview over at Eurogamer and I found myself cheering internally at the moxy displayed by Ellie Gibson. Check it out...

Eurogamer: Let's pretend this is Watchdog and I'm Nicky Campbell. We've had dozens of calls and texts, alright comments on the website, and I'd like to put some of them to you. One reader says, "If I wanted to spend EUR 240 I'd buy a real instrument and join a band."

Rob Kay: So they should. Go and do that, yeah... If someone wants to go out and buy a real guitar instead, that's awesome. More power to them.

...

Eurogamer: So if you weren't working on it, if you were a plain old gamer, would you pay GBP 180 for Rock Band?

Rob Kay: Yeah. Maybe I'd try it over at a friend's first, to see if I liked it or not. Rock Band is a fantastic game for playing at a party, so lots of people will get that opportunity, and maybe they'll want to take that opportunity before they invest the money. I wouldn't blame them; it's not a cheap game, it really isn't. But it's a game that delivers that much more in terms of its fun factor and the experience it gives you.

Eurogamer: Perhaps Eurogamer readers could pop round yours to have a little go and see if it's worth it?

Rob Kay: [Laughing] Yeah, give me a call...

Zero Punctuation reviews COD4... Uses actual Cod fish as graphical joke.

Watch and enjoy the latest animated rant by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw as he takes COD4 to task for being a bunch of American willy waving. Good times.

The tortoise and the hare (or Sony and Microsoft)

EA have stated that they expect the PS3 to outsell the 360 in 2008. How can this be? The PS3 has had the slowest launch in history as far as onlookers are concerned with a starting retail price placing the console out of the budget of everyday gamers and high calibre exclusive games being few and far between. Meanwhile the 360 has massively grown it's install base, brought online gaming to the masses and enjoyed numerous award winning exclusives including Halo 3, Bioshock and Mass Effect.

I'm not sure what EA based their predictions on, however as a consumer I'm starting to look at the PS3 and 360 a little differently than I did say 4 months ago. The PS3 price has dropped a couple of times and is now bundled with a number of quality titles including Drakes Fortune and Ratchet and Clank. On top of this Blu-Ray is looking stronger and stronger each week as the fortune of Toshiba and HD-DVD dwindles. This, I don't believe, is enough for Sony to pull up alongside Microsoft in this 3 man horse race, at least not yet.

What's really got me tempted to change teams is Microsoft's shoddy attempt at quality control. Almost everyone I know who has a 360 (and thats a lot) has experienced technical problems with it. A little while ago some guy came forward claiming to be a technician or something for Microsoft and basically detailed the reasons for the high 360 failure rate. I believe him. As far as I'm concerned Microsoft has shown gamers no respect at all by producing and continuing to produce a faulty console, mine has already red ringed once and within weeks of getting it back I'm seeing the red lights flash up occasionally, like a warning that the damn things on it's last legs already.

It's not just the bricking issue though is it, lets be honest here. The 360 is a pretty damn unreliable beast. Sometimes I'll call up the guide menu and then press B to send it away and it'll stay there, frozen for upwards of 2 minutes while the machine, like Vista, sits and has a think. Owning a 360 has tried my patience and while I love the console and it's games, one day, and one day soon it's going to push me too far and I will send it back to Microsoft with a polite note that reads "Fuck you, I'm buying a PS3... See what you've reduced me too!?"