77 million users personal details out there, unencrypted – just like that! What the hell?

I remember when we first met – you were only young with a handful of games in your back catalogue. It was an exciting time – you, me, some beers and Call of Duty: World at War. Free online gaming. What on Earth happened?

I knew something was up a few weeks ago. After a few months of PSN neglect, I slipped my copy of Modern Warfare 2 into the disk drive and opted to play some multiplayer.

After about 5 minutes of play I realised my character had superhuman abilities. I was able to jump higher than all the buildings and run faster than that Jamaican fella, Usain Bolt (has there ever been a more appropriately named athlete?)

It was a deflating moment – on par with the realisation that neither Santa nor the Toothfairy were actually real and everything good in the world had been smeared in elephant shit.

A bunch of hackers had pretty much ruined a beloved game that I had spent hard-earned money on and at the time, it appeared that neither Sony nor Infinity Ward could give a monkeys about it.

After a while and a bit of moaning from the Modern Warfare 2 gaming community, this issue was settled with a patch – but the damage was already done and I’d be lying if I was to say that purchasing the next Call of Duty on the 360 wasn’t influenced by this experience.

Behind the scenes there was this curly haired mop, George Hotz. A kid far too intelligent and far too cocky for his own good (case in point, check out the pretty cringeworthy, egotistical video to your right).

There he was, ripping open the insides of the PS3 and publishing it all online for everyone to see, like some later day, digital version of Robin Hood. Well, Sony saw fit to put a stop to his shenanigans and but the damage was already done.

Now, I’m not saying Mr Hotz was responsible for this latest security issue – I don’t know the first thing about hacking, jailbreaking or anything like that, but his actions dealt a bit of a blow to Sony and obviously left them a little shaken.

Well, in case you haven’t heard recently (and if you haven’t, seriously, where have you been?) PSN was compromised in a big, big way and Sony pulled the plug on their network in an understandable effort to protect both their customers and their reputation.

However, many Playstation 3 owners don’t see it like that and it’s only understandable that they are losing their patience.

I know the XBLA fanboys will argue “but it’s free, so you have no right to complain!”.

Well think again – if you’ve just paid full whack for Portal 2 and were looking forward to playing some online co-op, you can’t. Effectively, you’ve paid £40 for half a game. I know Sony are working desperately to get PSN back up and running again, but this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened is it.

It was only last year that a good percentage of Playstation 3′s were crippled by their inability to understand the logic of a leap year. That was until Sony enigmatically fixed it after 24 hours (however, some suspected they just waited a day to see what would happen – I can’t back that up).

But how many knocks can a service take until it’s community bugger off and find somewhere else, more reliable and more secure to spend their time and more importantly for the industry, their money?

The potential costs are unthinkable – from the larger publishers like Activision and EA to the more independent studios whose only platform for selling their products is on PSN, profits must be getting lost at an unimaginable rate and no doubt, at some point after all this, jobs are going to go.

I love my Playstation 3, I really do and up until now I have been patient with PSN. I can only hope this hiccup is sorted quickly and costumer confidence is restored, but events like these are not easily forgotten.

The next few weeks should be interesting.

For more info on the PSN Outage, it’s worth paying a visit to the playstation blog.

For a more satirical slant on this, it might be worth following psngate on the social networking site, Twitter.

Not much is known about it at the moment – there’s been rumours of controls with LCD screens, a new and improved motion controller and even compatibility with the Nintendo 3DS. The truth is, at the moment it’s far too early to call and we will not know for sure until this years e3 expo in Los Angeles.

However, what we do know is that the current Nintendo console residing in 67 million peoples living rooms is becoming some what out of date. With Microsoft and Sony releasing their own motion controllers, Nintendo is no longer looking like the innovator. Despite the fact that Nintendo pioneered the way for motion controls, you’ve only got to ask yourself if more people are playing Kinect Adventures or Wii Sports Resort? I’m willing to bet that right now it’s the former.

The wii is also the only console on the market that is incapable to displaying a video game in full 1080p HD. Have you played a wii game on a massive HD television? Compared to the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360, it looks rubbish! I know that graphics are not everything, but it really does look dated and demonstrates that Nintendo missed the boat with this.

Which is a crying shame, as a number of games on the wii are nothing but a complete joy to play.

I know that with all the shovelware that bombarded the system, it felt like that gems were few and far between, but for every Carnvival Games title, there was a Super Mario Galaxy 2 and originally an exclusive, Dead Space: Extraction.

Another nail in the wii’s coffin is it’s lack of online play – make the process easier with usernames and not numbers. I know that’s a somewhat laughable suggestion in light of what is happening with the PSN this week, but online gaming has grown into such a monster recently, it’s hard to imagine a core game coming out these days without some sort of multiplayer mode shoehorned in.

So where now for Nintendo? What should they do next?

Ultimately, the enigmatically titled Project Cafe needs take Nintendo back to their roots again. It needs to appeal to both the core and casual gamers alike, not split them down the middle like it’s predecessor.

What do you think?

As soon as someone, somewhere dares to criticise it, gaming forums across the land scream out in terror, in fierce defence.

And who can blame them?

This is the second golden age of gaming, it’s been almost 40 years since the release of the first successful home video game and surely it’s about time the mainstream media took the biggest and most profitable entertainment industry in the UK a bit seriously.

Well, I’ve been thinking about it and I’ve come to the conclusion that the whole scene doesn’t do itself any favours and at times I think to myself that it’s no wonder there’s some elitists out there that are so quick to dismiss it all.

For a start, take a look at the way some games market themselves.  With publishers going to extreme measures to make sure that their game scares the public and gets the headlines, or even better, discussed in Parliament.

After all, there is no such thing as bad publicity and the more headlines that are printed, the more free advertising you’re gonna get and the more games you’re gonna sell.

Ask yourself this, was it really necessary that No Russian was a playable level in Modern Warfare 2 or could the story had been told via a cutscene?

Why are companies advertising popular games with condescending slogans like “your mom will hate it” – it’s insulting to gamers and it’s just asking for everyone who isn’t interested, to roll their eyes and mutter ill advised comments under their breath about how childish that game must be. It’s been rated 18+! How many 18 year olds do you know that are concerned about what their own mothers think of a video game?

Again, the advertising for your average high street games shop doesn’t do justice to the punters.

A quick look round the Internet and you might stumble across an advertising campaign for a major store which boldly says “Talk to the gamers”, above a mixed bunch of nerds, emos and those bikers from The Lost and The Damned.  It looks like someone has taken a bunch of My Chemical Romance rejects and photoshopped them onto the Usual Suspects poster.  Now, I’m not saying everyone who works for this store is a weirdo freak, but with advertising like that it gives the image that most gamers are social outcasts – which they’re not.

Finally, there is celebrity endorsement.  Nobody gives a monkeys if Ant and Dec want to play their DS games with a bunch of cabbie’s. Nobody cares if JLS enjoy playing Donkey Kong together and finally, nobody cares if Vernon Kaye is addicted to video games.  Put the iPhone down, leave those Angry Birds alone and get back to family fortunes.

Take a look at the movie industry. It’s nowhere near as desperate – some will say that’s up for debate. But when an inexperienced MP calls for a film to be banned it doesn’t get every other film fan in the land demanding that the MP resign. Most of them just ignore it and get on with their daily business.

Maybe I’m getting old and miserable, but if the gaming scene is to be taken seriously by the mainstream masses, then the whole scene needs to grow up.  From the over defensive purists, to the controversy courting publishers.

Until that happens, all your daytime television pundits and tabloid journalists are going to present the gaming industry as a threat – it gains them attention and it sells newspapers.

Unfortunately though, the way some of our gaming peers behave, it makes us all an easy target and they’re the real threat to our great hobby.

Kinect

So Microsoft had their e3 conference this evening and as expected, it’s evident that Microsoft are intent on cracking the casual market.

As entertaining as it was, I still don’t understand the industry’s fascination with getting gamers off their sofas and onto their feet.  Nintendo have tried this and ultimately failed.

Ask any gamer, who owns both a wii and another console what machine they play the most, and the chances are they will say the other console.

So with most wii’s gathering dust, it astounds me that both Sony and Microsoft are so preoccupied with getting gamers to be more active.

The sad truth of the matter is, for the most part we don’t want gaming to be active.  After a long day at work, the last thing I would want to do is jump around like a moron and have our photos taken whilst playing Kinect Adventures.

Don’t get me wrong, the technology on display was very impressive and I’m looking forward to seeing how the market will develop.  But at the same time, you can’t blame me for being the tinniest bit apprehensive.

Take a look at the wii-motion plus.  As soon as it came out, it was completely forgotten, with only several games taking full advantage of it.  Not even Nintendo’s latest flagship game, Super Mario Galaxy 2 bothered.

I hope I am wrong, I really do, but judging by the fact that only 3 third party developers (Ubisoft, Harmonix and Lucasarts) were showcasing their products at the conference, I am not holding my breath.

Having said that, Harmonix’s Dance Central looks like it has a lot of potential to become a popular party game, much like Sing Star and the Rock Band series.

But other than that, nothing grabbed me.  Not even the untitled Star Wars game – from the footage on display, it lacked pace and looked both cartoony, and dare I say it, a bit wii like.  And I’m a big fan of Star Wars.

Come to think of it, most of the games on display looked like a high definition upgrade of the wii’s back catalogue.

There was Kinect Joy Ride, a cartoonish avatar based racing game that looked like Mario Kart. There was also Kinect Sports, an idea not inspired by Wii Sports at all and finally, something called Kinectimals – an animals game, aimed squarely at the younger audience.

To be perfectly honest, if this is the future of gaming, I’m gonna have to find myself a new hobby.  It all sounds like too much physical work for me.

Mind you the idea of talking to my Xbox is oddly entertaining.

Saying “Xbox…” followed by the command, the Xbox would then perform the task.  And by the time the ESPN anchors found themselves on stage, I was uttering “Xbox: skip to the end”

Kinect stuff aside, other highlights included Metal Gear Solid: Rising – which looked absolutely batshit mental, featuring footage plenty of sword based carnage and a random act of violence against a van.

Mark Lamia from Treyarch showcased a few levels from the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops.  Starting off with a level set in a tunnel armed with only a revolver, the grim realities of war were still visible – blood stains, random torso’s etc.  The next level on display involved the hijacking of a helicopter and flying it through a valley in the jungle, whilst bombing enemies, bridges and convoys.  Looked quite promising.

Halo Reach was also demonstrated, showing just how epic games on the 360 can be.  Featuring a sequence on a beach with covenant drop ships plummeting to the ground – it all looked particularly impressive.

Everyones favourite games developer Peter Molyneaux was also present, showcasing Fable III – set 5 decades after its predecessor, Molyneaux promised that the game will deliver “great British humour” and take the gamer from “revolutionary to rular”.

The team from Epic games demonstrated Gears of War 3 by running through a level in 4 player co-op – looks like it could be great online fun.  They also revealed that the game will feature a new mode, called Beast.

At the end of the show, Microsoft had one more surprise in store.  A new X-box 360 – smaller, wireless and the same price as the current one.  When is it out?  They ship this week.

The new Xbox 360

With Microsoft’s conference being a bit skewed towards the casual market, it’ll be interesting to see what Sony will be doing tomorrow.