Matt Drewry

Being a blog, I come here as much to read the comments as the actual article and has the commenting system changed?

I thought before, all the comments appeared in a long list making it easy to scroll down? Now, it seems I have to hit a link to see the next 20, and said link seems to activate the phishing scan (IE7) meaning I'm seeing a 5-10 sec wait to move on.
Anyone else seeing this, or just me?

I guess I could disable the scan, or use a different browser, but changing my browser habits seems a harder route than clicking through from my RSS feed to a different site running the same article!

@ djhsecondnature

I'm the UK too and by contrast, most of the people I know including me have 360's and maybe that's the point, you buy the machine your friends have, so you can play online together

I'll probably get a PS3 at some point, but only to play Blu-ray. I don't want to start a war here, but just as it would be interesting to see how many Wiis are still being used (mine is gathering dust!) it would also be interesting to see how many PS3s are just for movies

An article on global viewing figures for you Marc, Oozer and Dustin

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=88160

Oh yeah, the UK got Mario Kart 64 too this morning!

I've just done run the system update here in the UK and the News Channel just appeared.

It's quite a nice extra - all the stories are supplied by AP and are divided up into sections National News, Sports, Business etc etc. Some articles have a little map to the left hand side when opened that shows you where in the world the story comes from (denoted by a blue sphere on the headline page), whilst others just contain the text.
Once read, both types grey out on the headlines page to show you've looked at them, although then can of course be reopened if you need to.

There's also a slideshow option for each topic area (complete with elevator music!) which seems to cycle through the current headlines, zooming you across the globe in the top portion of the screen to where the story is happening. Clicking when a headline is displayed, takes you to the full story. I guess this could be a useful option when you're eating your breakfast or something.

Overall like the weather channel I don't think I'll be using this everyday but I'm glad to have it, especially for those times I can't be bothered to boot my laptop

It took until 3am on Oxford Street, but I finally got my preorder fulfilled! Now the search is on for nunchucks and composite cables..

Yes all companies ARE in it for the money, I just think us in the UK (and Europe) are just sick of companies marking up the price of our electronics. Thankfully with a weaker dollar recently, the practice of just doing a straight dollar to pound price conversion seem to be over, but lets compare the prices currently:

$600 = £305

However the launch price is reputed to be £425 for the UK!

So in your currency:
£425 = $836!

Which is ebay type money! It's this kind of milking that gets so annoying, it's like wait longer, and then pay more.
Still it could be Sony's loss, I think it's much easier to be the most expensive machine if you're first, but by March Xbox 360 and Wii will have quite a wedge of the market..

I'd buy one in an instant for the next version of Pro Evolution Soccer which HAS to be better than the current offering. Similarly to Madden, the first release of this on the 360 is a much cutdown edition of the PS2 version (in terms of added extras at least) and yet cost £10 more!
I'm sorry to say I played it for a weekend on the 360, before taking it back and swapping for the PS2 version.
Since I've played virtually every edition of this game, the feel of the Dualshock is now programmed into the muscle memory of my fingers, and using the 360 controller certainly didn't make me like the game any better!

It makes total sense for UK gamers. $48 is just a little over £25, and you'd be hard pressed to get many secondhand launch titles for that kind of cash.

I'd also like the Xbox live question answering. I guess they do right, if they're essentially the same code? I did get Gun from the far East off ebay, but I never even tried to play it online.

I've only ever bought one guide. Generally I agree with the comments that they spoil the experience or the info could be found elsewhere. The game I bought it for was Pro Evolution Soccer 5 (Winning Eleven in the States) because sure the game is easy to learn, but knowing when to push the right buttons is the key to mastering it, and I'd got sick of feeling as if the console was 'fixing' the matches somehow.
I've played every version of Pro Evolution/Superstar Soccer dating back to the debut on SNES, so it's not like I'm new to the franchise!
This 217 page guide really is worth every penny to get the most out the game, and to understand all the nuances and variables. It probably saves me money too, from broken controllers shattered out of frustration!!