Here it comes, like every other year – the Christmas season.

Favorite time of the year for the retailers and the companies will use any trick to tempt you buying their products for the perfect gifts.

Let me give you some tips for this coming Xmas if you want to buy a videogame unit.

I do not intend to go into a full review of the three players. There are a lot of sites and magazines which can provide you with those details. (my favorite would be Gamespot, IGN, or 1up). Let me just gives you a simple overview of the strengths and weaknesses of each of these units. You will see that despite being called videogame consoles, they might have a different target audience or usage purposes.

I will not base this comparison on price either. Price might be your ultimate decision factor in any case. If you have a decent budget, you will be able to afford any of them. Should you have a limited budget, the following comparisons would probably help you.

In the past, you could differentiate and select the gaming console based on the available games. Some of them were unique to one platform or the other one. This is less frequent now. Most of games are developed cross platform to reduce the development costs. Exclusive games are more rare.

PlayStation 3: The High Definition Heavyweight.

If you are into latest technologies and quality products, go for the PS3. It includes the Blue Ray Disc Player which is worth the price of the console by itself.

Sony did as well great job in trying to link all your devices together. They are working on a feature called remote play. It allows you to control your PS3 from any hot spot using your PSP, which is really cool. You can not play games or DVD from your PSP still. However, for a first step, you can watch stored movies, pictures or listen to music. The battery life of your PSP will be highly affected ; however, this is a really cool feature.

Games are ok, even though it is fair to say Sony has not found yet its gene. There are no enough exclusive licenses to justify the purchase of PS3. Hopefully, the future release of Grand Theft Auto and Grand Turismo will change it. Yes, ‘Resistance’ is a great FPS. Yes, driving in the mud with ‘Motorstorm’ is really pleasant. However, it does not keep you nails and teeth down and hooked into a piece of wood for a long time enough.

The main flaw for me is for sure the poor activity on the online store. On that topic, Sony, please have a look at your direct competitor, Microsoft is over performing…

XBox360: Online gaming for all

XBox360 succeeded in implementing a new reference point for online gaming. It has never been so easy to play against friends or unknown people online. Just launch your game, go to the online dedicated game mode and you can directly challenge the rest of the world. For the hardcore gamers, it gives you a new perspective on gaming challenges and extends the game lifespan as well. There are lots of games available and you can even play against your friends on PC who would have the same game for Windows – this is really great.

The online option is not restrictive to gaming. You can go to the market place and download trailers or demo level for almost all the major games. This is a great alternative to test a game before you purchase it to see if you really like it or not.
Finally, there are lots of fun, small, arcade games you can access as well. Download them, store them in your Hard Drive and enjoy.

What I do not like about the XBox360 is its interface. It looks more complex than a traditional Game console. You navigate between menus, settings, online and can be lost sometimes. You may feel that this system has been created by PC-oriented people.

Nintendo Wii: Share it with friends and family

When it comes to gaming and innovation, Nintendo knows about it. With the Nintendo Wii, prepare to be immersed in a completely new entertaining world.

This console is not about high technologies. The image quality can not compete with Xbox or PS3; there is no Dolby Digital Sound.

However, its strength lies in its ability to turn any of us into an addictive gamer. You will rarely play the Nintendo Wii alone. You will play it with friends, family when all of you will swing the Wii wand or Wii-mote in the air trying to smash a ball like you would be doing with a tennis racket. You will surprise yourself dancing in rhythm with our famous Rabbids. Those games are fun, addictive and innovative. This is the best entertaining device for years, binding friends with a couple of drinks for a fun evening.

On the downside, the online store is not as developed as the other consoles.

Conclusion :

If you are looking for High Technology, the Lamborghini of the consoles: PS3
If you are looking for lots of games and an excellent online experience: XBOX360
If you are looking for a fun-filled time and something to play with your friends : Nintendo Wii

In case you can not make up your mind, do like me, get the three of them…:=)

You might have heard about some rumors in the past. The web was getting crazy, Google would launch a mobile phone.. This did not seem to be right to me at the time. The company had more knowledge in software than hardware and I did not see why it would take that risk to go for all the pain of hardware, production issues, stock level managements, depreciation…while it would make more sense to continue to develop on its core business and at the same time, extend it.

Well, we now have the answer. When a giant like Google decides to launch a new revolutionary platform, it is called Android.

Android is able to change the current OS business model currently owned by operators and device manufacturers. It is capable of challenging the recent iPhone on its battlefield as well.

Like in the past, Google is going to promote an open source code to allow developers to develop thousands of applications for the mobile phones. When Apple tries to control the number of applications that can be used on its phone and when Microsoft is getting difficulties in trying to create a real innovative OS for the phone, Google is betting on the developers to make a difference.

Android is not a phone, but a software code that will go into the phone. It is intented to replace Windows Mobile or Symbian for example.

In order to see it on your phone, phone manufacturers will have to develop some infrastructure to support it. Most of the companies which already support Microsoft or Palm OS will not have a choice and
will not be able to propose any new device to counteract it. However, you can be sure new companies and manufacturers will soon propose devices to support the Android platform.

Android promises to be fun, innovative, easy to use, 3D, as well as being fully web integrated. Let us wait and see.

In any case, we are reaching a new phase in the revolution of the technologies.

Should you want to have more details, you can have a look at this video posted on YouTube

Link to the Open handset Alliance website here.

I apologize in advance for the following rant, but I think this is frustrating or funny enough to be mentioned.

I am pretty sure you have experienced the same issues. You are an happy customer of your favorite brand, but unfortunately, once in a while, there is a problem, an issue, a failure in the delivery and you have to contact the hotline.

Here it goes, even though you trust the company, even though you know it is going to be painful, even though you prepare yourself mentally, you lose your nerves eventually.

This was what happened to me.

You order software from the online store of a famous brand to make sure that you receive it fast. The software arrives damaged and cannot be installed.

The nightmare begins:

1) The Tradition :
‘Sorry for putting your call on hold, your call is important to us, all our customer service officers are engaged at the moment. Please continue to hold, we will attend to you shortly.’
Even if you try to call in the middle of the day, you have to face those cheesy ‘hotel lobby’ music for 40 minutes.
After that, you engage with a technical team who believe you are a newbie and cannot operate software properly. You have to explain to him specifically that you know what a CD is and no, you did not put it upside down (lol!).

Then, you realize the guy you are calling is in Australia (which is pretty far away from Singapore for a product you have purchased in Singapore….). The same guy tells you proudly that if you had bought the product from a ‘ brick and mortar’ store, you will have an immediate exchange for the faulty product. Lol, what a great promotion.

After negotiating, he agrees to ship you another CD that will arrive in 10 days!

2) Follow Up:
Of course, you do not receive a formal reply, so you chase after the team. You then realize that the reply is coming from Europe from a different team. Nobody is answering the emails of course.

3) You Try to Call Up
This is the big mistake – you have 5 people who explain to you how sorry they are, how they understand your frustration and they are doing everything possible to solve your issue. Nice but still, I have yet to receive the CD.

4) The solution
After 1 day of effort, you finally reach somebody who is the decision owner and can arrange for a delivery of that new software. The software is delivered late the same day and the day after 5 people call me to see if the ‘customer issue has been solved’

Conclusion : Why is it so complex when you have a solution to the problem?
In this case, a simple ‘Yes we understand, we are sorry, you will have another CD delivered to you tomorrow’ would have solved immediately the issue.

It is frustrating to realize that you are just treated as a number among all the customer issues and you are just going along with the process flow.