July 16, 2008 • 5 mins
Get a console-by-console update on the developments of the 2008 E3 exposition in this HowStuffWorks podcast, including news on improved online features and expanded memory. Check out our HowStuffWorks article "How Video Game Systems Work" to learn more.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hey there,
and welcome to the podcast. This is Jonathan Strickland, I'm
a writer for how Stuff Works, and with me is
Chris Pollett, Editor extraordinaire either and we're gonna give you
(00:21):
a quick update on some of the video game systems
that are out right now. Because of the Electronic Entertainment
Expo that's going on, there's been a lot of announcements,
so we want to catch you up on what's going on. Yeah,
this year's E three is It's known is UH scaled
down a bit from years past where the public was invited.
It's more of a UM press and industry only event.
(00:44):
But this year's big story is that there's really no
big story. New new consoles to UH to announce, no
new game with some kind of massive new controller that
you have to buy. It seems like a lot of
things are improved UM Sony and UH and Mike Usoft
both announced larger hard drives in new models UM. But
(01:04):
other than that, the consoles seem to UH to have
legs they're they're going on the way they have been,
just with brand new titles and enhanced versions of older titles. Right,
It's it's really all about incremental improvement this year. Uh.
And of course, all three giants we're talking about, Microsoft,
Sony and Nintendo here are all claiming that they are
going to dominate this year. But I mean, what else
(01:25):
are you going to do at a press event? Of course,
So let's talk a little bit about some of these improvements.
So well, we'll start over with the Microsoft's Xbox, So
the Xbox three sixty. A lot of the improvements they mentioned,
uh refer back to Xbox Live, which is their online
portion of the their console system. Um. That includes things
like you can now go online using the web and
(01:47):
and shop at the Xbox Marketplace and buy games and
other applications and download them directly to your console. It's
kind of like a TiVo thing where you would log
in and and and shop around for for television shows
and tell your vote to record the same sort of thing.
You don't have to be at your Xbox to do
it anymore. Yeah, and um, now they have a partnership
with Netflix, So if you have an Xbox Live Gold membership.
(02:10):
You can stream movies directly through your Xbox three sixty,
which is a nice feature, although you can't you know,
download them directly to your hardware. That's true. Although there
is one other kind of cool feature. You can now
play games from your hard drive. You can actually uh
copy games onto the hard drive, which decreases load times.
You still have to have the disc in the in
(02:31):
the game system to play it, but it means that
your load times are much shorter. But let's let's move
on to one of the others. Let's talk about Nintendo
for a little bit. Yeah, Nintendo, of course has been
selling like hotcakes there. WE has been flying off the
store shelves. You can them anywhere, you know. Now, they're
very very hard to find still and um, you know,
I think people expect them to come out with some
(02:53):
brand new uh feature or or device like the balance
board that came with WE Fit. But this year, um,
they're coming out with two new games. The announced WE
Sports Resort, which has a WE Motion plus plugs into
the back of the Wi Remote and gives it some
added functionality regarding motion and how it detects what you're doing. Um.
(03:13):
They also have WE Music with more than fifty instruments
that you can play. You know, the music games Rock
Band and Guitar Hero still very popular, so that's We's
unique entry into that market, right. And then there's also
the We Speak, which is a microphone application that will
specifically work with an animal crossing game that's coming out
(03:34):
for the Wei, but hopefully we'll be used in other
games and applications further down the road. And and just
for you guys to know, my most anticipated game announcement
is the Clone Wars because I want to play with lightsabers.
But let's move on to uh to the third biggie
Sony Now Sony. Sony's big announcement was mainly the the
(03:55):
new model that's going to replace the forty gigabyte model.
It's a it's an eighty gigabyte model, will cost about
four hundred dollars that will come out later this year.
But they had some other interesting information. Um, by the way,
people who are waiting for Sony Home, you're still going
to be waiting a while. We don't have any date
on when that's gonna come out, but it is still
in development, so it should be coming. I just hope
(04:17):
that the price decreases enough where I can buy a
PlayStation three and get a Blu ray Player and get
to play my Ratchet and Clank games that I used
to plan on. They announced a new Ratchet and Clank
title with a pirate theme, yes, Quest for Booty, So
I'm excited about that, right, And there's going to be
a whole slew of downloadable games. Actually, downloadable content is
(04:38):
gonna be big for PlayStation uh. They They are also
going to allow users to download movies and television shows
from a certain group of of providers and producers. Um,
but you get to actually download those, it's you get
to store them on your PlayStation and watch them whenever
you like. You can you can purchase movies and television shows,
(04:58):
unlike the Xbox version where you're dreaming. Yeah, I bet
the Sony fans were really excited about the new Final
Fantasy game. Oh, I'm sure they were, especially when they
heard it's also premiering on the Xbox. I hope you
guys can sleep at night. Well that about wraps it
up for this podcast. We have tons of video game
articles on the site, but to to get started, if
(05:20):
you're really interested in learning more about some of these
consoles and games. You can read how video game systems work.
That's available right now at how stuff works dot com
for moral this, and thousands of other topics. Does it
how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think.
Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
(05:44):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hey there,
and welcome to the podcast. This is Jonathan Strickland, I'm
a writer for how Stuff Works, and with me is
Chris Pollett, Editor extraordinaire either and we're gonna give you
(00:21):
a quick update on some of the video game systems
that are out right now. Because of the Electronic Entertainment
Expo that's going on, there's been a lot of announcements,
so we want to catch you up on what's going on. Yeah,
this year's E three is It's known is UH scaled
down a bit from years past where the public was invited.
It's more of a UM press and industry only event.
(00:44):
But this year's big story is that there's really no
big story. New new consoles to UH to announce, no
new game with some kind of massive new controller that
you have to buy. It seems like a lot of
things are improved UM Sony and UH and Mike Usoft
both announced larger hard drives in new models UM. But
(01:04):
other than that, the consoles seem to UH to have
legs they're they're going on the way they have been,
just with brand new titles and enhanced versions of older titles. Right,
It's it's really all about incremental improvement this year. Uh.
And of course, all three giants we're talking about, Microsoft,
Sony and Nintendo here are all claiming that they are
going to dominate this year. But I mean, what else
(01:25):
are you going to do at a press event? Of course,
So let's talk a little bit about some of these improvements.
So well, we'll start over with the Microsoft's Xbox, So
the Xbox three sixty. A lot of the improvements they mentioned,
uh refer back to Xbox Live, which is their online
portion of the their console system. Um. That includes things
like you can now go online using the web and
(01:47):
and shop at the Xbox Marketplace and buy games and
other applications and download them directly to your console. It's
kind of like a TiVo thing where you would log
in and and and shop around for for television shows
and tell your vote to record the same sort of thing.
You don't have to be at your Xbox to do
it anymore. Yeah, and um, now they have a partnership
with Netflix, So if you have an Xbox Live Gold membership.
(02:10):
You can stream movies directly through your Xbox three sixty,
which is a nice feature, although you can't you know,
download them directly to your hardware. That's true. Although there
is one other kind of cool feature. You can now
play games from your hard drive. You can actually uh
copy games onto the hard drive, which decreases load times.
You still have to have the disc in the in
(02:31):
the game system to play it, but it means that
your load times are much shorter. But let's let's move
on to one of the others. Let's talk about Nintendo
for a little bit. Yeah, Nintendo, of course has been
selling like hotcakes there. WE has been flying off the
store shelves. You can them anywhere, you know. Now, they're
very very hard to find still and um, you know,
I think people expect them to come out with some
(02:53):
brand new uh feature or or device like the balance
board that came with WE Fit. But this year, um,
they're coming out with two new games. The announced WE
Sports Resort, which has a WE Motion plus plugs into
the back of the Wi Remote and gives it some
added functionality regarding motion and how it detects what you're doing. Um.
(03:13):
They also have WE Music with more than fifty instruments
that you can play. You know, the music games Rock
Band and Guitar Hero still very popular, so that's We's
unique entry into that market, right. And then there's also
the We Speak, which is a microphone application that will
specifically work with an animal crossing game that's coming out
(03:34):
for the Wei, but hopefully we'll be used in other
games and applications further down the road. And and just
for you guys to know, my most anticipated game announcement
is the Clone Wars because I want to play with lightsabers.
But let's move on to uh to the third biggie
Sony Now Sony. Sony's big announcement was mainly the the
(03:55):
new model that's going to replace the forty gigabyte model.
It's a it's an eighty gigabyte model, will cost about
four hundred dollars that will come out later this year.
But they had some other interesting information. Um, by the way,
people who are waiting for Sony Home, you're still going
to be waiting a while. We don't have any date
on when that's gonna come out, but it is still
in development, so it should be coming. I just hope
(04:17):
that the price decreases enough where I can buy a
PlayStation three and get a Blu ray Player and get
to play my Ratchet and Clank games that I used
to plan on. They announced a new Ratchet and Clank
title with a pirate theme, yes, Quest for Booty, So
I'm excited about that, right, And there's going to be
a whole slew of downloadable games. Actually, downloadable content is
(04:38):
gonna be big for PlayStation uh. They They are also
going to allow users to download movies and television shows
from a certain group of of providers and producers. Um,
but you get to actually download those, it's you get
to store them on your PlayStation and watch them whenever
you like. You can you can purchase movies and television shows,
(04:58):
unlike the Xbox version where you're dreaming. Yeah, I bet
the Sony fans were really excited about the new Final
Fantasy game. Oh, I'm sure they were, especially when they
heard it's also premiering on the Xbox. I hope you
guys can sleep at night. Well that about wraps it
up for this podcast. We have tons of video game
articles on the site, but to to get started, if
(05:20):
you're really interested in learning more about some of these
consoles and games. You can read how video game systems work.
That's available right now at how stuff works dot com
for moral this, and thousands of other topics. Does it
how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think.
Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
(05:44):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready, are you
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