Last weekend... I saw Cars. It was very, very awesome. Well... that's a given. It was Pixar. To date, anything of Pixar's is just pure brilliance. I missed Toy Story, Bug's Life, and Toy Story 2 in the theaters, since that was during the not so get-out-and-do-stuff part of my life... and, as if I wasn't entirely convinced Pixar rocked, I chose not to see Monsters Inc... quite possibly my favorite movie from them. Man, after I saw it on DVD, I decided to never again miss a Pixar movie in theaters... and then Finding Nemo and The Incredibles came out and pretty much sealed the deal.

Anyway... Cars. See it now. There's absolutely no reason not to. It's G-Rated and I'm 21 and laughed at many, many parts along with everyone else in the theater. It's awesome. There's really nothing else to say... it's just... so good.

So after I got home, I decided to compete my personal Pixar DVD collection. I've been missing Toy Story 1 and 2 and Finding Nemo for... well... ever. For no reason really, except because... I was lazy, or something... I don't know. But I finally bought them yesterday. Along with the DVD set of the original 1979 Battlestar Galactica. Another one of those things I've just been putting off, but I know I'll enjoy immensely once I have it.

My TV died last weekend, too... I was all set to load up some leet Super Mario World gameplay action and... the TV wouldn't turn on. I was nooot happy. So I don't only have no TV to take to LAN parties, but I have no TV to play games on my own, either!! So I bought this from Fry's Electronics: The VEG Lite. Now I can play anything with RCA/SVideo outputs on my computer monitor. (This isn't a capture card... it pretty much just turns the monitor into a viewing window... like a TV without a tuner.) Hopefully it works as well as they all say it does... I have no idea what's a good product in this area, and nobody else I know knows... either... yeah, that kind of looks weird written out.

But I've decided that I want an HDTV, despite my rantings that nobody wants HD media yet. I made a discovery yesterday that made me realize how much of a leap HDTV really is. Okay, currently, most people in the US use NTSC. All interlacing technicalities aside, it's about 525 pixels tall. Think 640x480-esque computer monitor. That's horrific! We've been using this resolution for far, far too long. At first, I thought HDTV was only ever so slightly higher than NTSC... hah, boy was I wrong. I did some long looking yesterday and while I was comparing resolutions, it suddenly hit me... the newest HDTVs are declaring 1080i resolution. What the heck is that, anyway? Well, I starting reading around a little more and saw that 1080i TVs are 1920 pixels wide. Your typical high-end widescreen computer monitor. (Like my laptop!) HDTVs are 1920x1080 at a 16:9 ratio. Computers are 1920x1200 at a 16:10 ratio. I'm not exactly sure how to do ratios (one of my harder to remember math courses), but I think if someone were to do the numbers, I think 1920x1080 at 16:10 ratio instead of 16:9 would turn out to be 1920x1200.

All my jabbering aside... 1080i HDTVs are the equivalent to a 1920x1200 computer monitor. Only there's no black bands when playing a DVD movie on an HDTV. (Computers are 16:10, movies are 16:9... you have a little bit of blackness when playing them on computers.) In a sense, HDTVs are more specifically built for watching widescreen movies.

My fanboy thought patterns are kicking in... I'm imagining playing Halo 3 on an Xbox 360 on a 1080i HDTV in my bedroom... 45" widescreen LCD? Ohhh man. I want one. Maybe they'll get cheaperish for Christmas. Time to stop buying stuff and save up for a TV that'll come with me when I move out!

Now it's time for everyone's favorite section: Sony Says!

An interview with Kazuo Hirai has him on record saying that the fan reaction to the E3 Press Conference was "positive" and "people were generally excited we came out with a lot of news like the launch dates, prices, and quantities". Excited about prices? That's one word for it. He goes on to re-affirm that the PS3 price is "right for what we're bringing to consumers". Including Blu-Ray in the PS3 somehow insures a five-year cycle for the PS3, and that they don't want to sell an add-on like Microsoft did. (Of which I hear nobody complaining that it's a separate device... at least not yet, because nobody wants these new media formats.) He also says the next generation of video games starts when Sony says it does, and no sooner. Also note that he says the Playstation is "all about games".

The next article on our list is a translation of an interview with Ken Kutaragi, in which he declares the PS3 is, in fact, a computer and not a console, and that they want to be able to upgrade the PS3 like a PC. He briefly mentions that they "may want the Blu-Ray drive to have a writable version upgrade", but then seems to quickly backpedal from this very un-Sony-like remark and say "well, Blu-Ray may not develop like that". To seal the deal, he once again declares that "the Playstation 3 is a computer. We do not need the PC." (I guess we shouldn't buy Sony Vaio, then, eh?)

Another brief interview with good ol' Kutaragi has him saying that Sony wants to be like Apple. He states that "our message is clear: hardware is our business" (which, I might add, is a direct contradition to what Hirai says the Playstation's goal is), and that the high price of the PS3 is all about brand perception. Here's what he says, "Steve Jobs could slap an Apple logo on the PS3 and sell them for $2000 each. We couldn't do that." He also states that "Apple is closer to our vision for the PS3" and while there is no direct competition now, there may be later. (Right... with your inflated gaming console.)

This article from Kotaku has Sony executives agreeing that 1) The PC is dead, 2) Nintendo is for kiddies, and 3) Sony is the innovative one. Do you believe them? I sure don't.

Yahoo interviewed Square on the new PS3/Windows Vista MMORPG they're making. Can you guess what it's called? Why, it's Final Fantasy 11! Anyway, among all the talk, we see a paragraph about how easy it is to port games to consoles. They say it was really easy to port FF11 to Xbox360 since it's essentially Windows, and that a PS3 version will require a total redevelopment of the game which would require about 3 years to complete. (Wow, 3 years to port an existing game to PS3's Cell processor? Very friendly, Sony.) They also go on to say that because of this, an at-launch release of FF11 for PS3 will be unheard of, and, to take the matter further, they say that they would much rather spend those 3 years making an entirely NEW game.

On a slightly unrelated-yet-very-related note, Sony and Pioneer have announced that Blu-Ray has once again been delayed from June 30th to August 15th. Another article points out that if the PS3 was released before these players, then it could be catastrophic for the standalone Blu-Ray players. Part of the success of the Blu-Ray laden PS3 will be the success of Blu-Ray as a movie media... and if there aren't any disc players to build up a user base?

I will also take this time to point out that HD-DVD has been on the market since April, with two different players by Toshiba: the normal version $500 HD-A1, and the professional version $800 HD-XA1. Compared to the unreleased $1000-projected Sony Blu-Ray player, HD-DVD is far cheaper and... well... people can buy it NOW. (Yes, $1000... this is the reason Sony keeps saying the PS3 is a good price for a BLU-RAY PLAYER.)

I will close out with a rumor that's been circulating the internet. I will say again... this is an unconfirmed RUMOR article talking about how the PS3 may be facing even more downgrades before release. Although, seeing as how Sony has had a perfect track record of over-promising Playstation specifications and then cutting off features left and right... some people (including me) think that even though it's an odd looking rumor... the very idea that Sony will downgrade further is entirely believable.

That is it for now, folks! Thank you for tuning into this week's installment of Sony Says!