Unreal Engine 4.0 exclusive to consoles

As a gamer I recently bit the bullet and bought a PS3. It was only 4 years ago you could hear me say that gaming on the PC will always be superior to any console. Well I was wrong, or perhaps my tastes have changed. Consoles now a days are so superior to PC gaming in so many ways. Comfort (couch), Graphics (HD TV's), Sound (7.1 surround sound), and cost ($500 for the most expensive console on the market) all seriously out weigh anything you can do with a PC. When you look at it the console is the cheapest way to get a very descent gaming system in your home. So it was after opening my eyes and seeing this I decided instead of continueing to upgrade my computer so I could play the latest and greatest games i'd rather get a PS3 and benefit from having a blueray player.

Well one of the most successful software backends for games (Unreal Engine) recently stated that they were going to focus their efforts exculsively on consoles before considering PC's. This is big news in the gaming community because Epic (the makers of Unreal and its Unreal Engine) has had a huge presence in the PC market thanks to its lisceseing of the engine out to quite literally hundreds of game developers that then use it to make games for the PC market (as well as consoles). However from now on their engine will be optimized for console use.

This move is most likely due to the development cycle for a console system is shorter. The PS3's hardware is set in stone it doesnt change, same with an Xbox 360 or a Wii. A PC however, has lots of different hardware in it. Not 2 PC's are a like, this means that developers have to program for these slight changes in expected harware, as they make the software more suitable for a larget audience it is less efficient and thus graphics are not as refined, physics are lacking, etc.

One could argue there is a lot wrong in gaming in general and PC gaming specifically. People have been saying PC gaming is dead for years, however this might just be the first nail in the coffin.

It's Hammer Time!

Think you got made dance skillz yo? Want to prove it to the whole world? Then Dancejam is the social network site for you. It's ran by MC Hammer so you know its good!

Pandora + PS3 = Failure

Recently I purchased a PS3, and it was a great purchase. There really isn't any steller PS3 only titles out for it, but thats not why I really bought it. I honestly bought the PS3 because of everything else. I wanted something that would be the center of my entertainment system in my living room, and the PS3 does it nicely. The benfits of a blueray player, and a player of other media (downloaded movies and music) I couldn't pass it up.

Yesterday I got an idea to use the ps3 web browser to go to Pandora and stream music. Unfortunately it didn't work out as well as planned. Pandora's website requires I run Flash 9.0, and the PS3 web browser only has Flash 7.0. There is no way for me to update this. However it looks like the PS3 will accept an installtion of linux. So to get Pandora to pump thru my stereo I would need to boot into Linux with my PS3 and then browse out to the internet and view Pandora's webpage. Seems a little bit absurd. Research i've done online about this, has brought up similar stories but no real solutions, or a time frame when Sony is going to update to Flash 9.0.