Life after gamescom

You may indeed have wondered why I was strangely absent of late, especially since the gamescom in Cologne would have been an ideal topic to discuss in recent weeks. Well, I have been extremely busy with an intriguing project. Remember last year's media blowout, featuring the 3sat Neues expert panel with Louis Castle and Matias Myllyrinne?

This year, I have been responsible for the first broadcast of an eSports tournament on a public sector television network. The three-hour long program was called FTW - For the Win, aired on August 20th on ZDFkultur and centered around the prestigious Pro Series, staged by the Electronic Sports League (ESL). Of course, we all hope that it will become a regular fit.

The brainchild of my former boss, I was solely responsible for actually getting his idea on air, suggesting presenters and a title for the show, finding guests and producing most of the items on various topics concerning eSports. Some you may find them interesting, even though they are all in German. The real treat is this year's expert panel from GDC Europe, featuring legendary developer Richard Garriott, which is all in English. Here are the links:

ZDFkultur expert panel featuring Richard Garriott (30 minutes, English)

FTW - For the Win, ESL Pro Series Winter Season kick-off at gamescom (3 hours, German, restricted access due to age rating)

Introduction to eSports, ZDF Sportreportage (5 minutes, German)

Bootcamp, Team Alternate (2 minutes, German)

Clan structures, n!faculty (2 minutes, German)

Artist Aram Bartholl, building the de_dust map in real life (2 minutes, German)

Hope you enjoy this year's media blowout. Please let me know what you think.

3DS receiving significant price cut

Nintendo announced a significant price cut of around 40 percent for the 3DS amidst poor sales. In one way, I told you so. But then again, I did not.

PS4 coming 2012, feature Kinect-like controls?

The PlayStation4 will hit markets in 2012 and feature a control mechanism based on body movements similar to Kinect, Digitimes has learnt.

Sony will have Taiwan-based partners begin production of PlayStation 4 (PS4) featuring body movement-based control like Kinect at the end of 2011 for launch in 2012, according to Taiwan-based component makers.

Foxconn and Pegatron Technology, assemblers of PS3, will undertake assembly of PS4 as well, the sources pointed out. The planned shipment volume of PS4 in 2012 is at least 20 million units, the sources indicated.

It seems likely that next year, all three next generation consoles will launch (or will at least be announced to launch in 2013). Remember that Microsoft also has a successor console sent out to select third-parties, according to rumours.

More than two years ago, I predicted that all three next generation consoles would be announced in 2011 and 2012 and that the ten year lifecycle Sony envisaged for the PS3 was an illusion.

With the PlayStation3, Sony may be committed to a ten year life cycle. But Microsoft will clearly pull a successor to its Xbox360 out of the hat before 2012 by the latest. The same goes for Nintendo. And if the PS3 isn't selling now, why should it be selling in three years time, when there will be two next-gen consoles out, which are both sure to surpass the PS3 in either hardware power or controller scheme or both.