The PS3 and The Zune

Images (from left to right): Microsoft's Zune[Black], XBOX360, Nintendo's Wii, Sony's PS3

To start as the first newest tech news, this brings me to Sony's PS3 and Microsoft's Zune (portable media player). The PS3 came out this week and the Zune came out last week (Nov 14, 2006). What makes the PS3 such a big story is that Sony purposely makes this system seem to be worth more than gold by releasing far too little for a large demand. That wasn't so responsible of Sony (but hey, look at their batteries blowing up in people's laptops). It is in this reporter's opinion that you just wait for the PS3. Its not even worth the rush. Some major problems with the initial release of the PS3 are 1) you have to do about an hour's worth of upgrading to finally play games,  2) the controller no longer has a rumble feature!!! 3) most of the people waiting in line to buy it were NOT gaming enthusiasts, but rather to resell the system for double or triple the costs. Now that is just not right!!

Do yourself a favor and buy an XBOX 360 or Nintendo Wii. You don't even have to wait in line. Microsoft and Nintendo were at least responsible enough in making more systems available in stores.

Now on to the Zune: This is an excellent piece of hardware. Huge color screen, video capabilities, as well as audio and radio functionalities. The only thing wrong is the DRM!! Say you wanted to save a couple of netcasts, for example TWiT or Security Now, so you can listen to them on the road. So you pop in your Zune to your computer and transfer it over. Now the Zune will add its own copy-protection onto those mp3's you put on it. Clearly this is in violation of TWiT's licensing. Netcasts must NOT be copy-protected as they are freely available for the general public. I sure hope Microsoft really removes this DRM from the Zune in its next firmware update. Because of this DRM, Microsoft will not get as many sales as it can if it didn't have it. (Tip to Microsoft: Remove DRM if you want to be the next iPod Killer.)