Sony have launched an advertising campaign aimed directly at Microsoft and, more specifically, their new Kinect device, which allows gamers to control their Xbox without the need for any physical controller. The associated site, yaybuttons.com, brings up a picture of their new PlayStation Move controller – Sony’s competitor to Kinect, and urges you to click on any of the buttons on the controller.

Every time you click a button, a new message pops up, and ad goes through a seemingly endless diatribe about how buttons are essential to gaming, and that some people want to remove. How crazy is that?

I think this was a good idea by Sony, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. The monologue seems more bitter and petty than the fun voice I’m sure it is supposed to be, and, as I alluded to in the first paragraph; it goes on for too long! I have no idea what the ad says towards the end, because I had gotten so bored of clicking the damn buttons that I just closed the page!

The result of this ad? I got sick of pressing buttons. Good work Sony.

Some other stuff

Michael Jackson The Experience has been delayed, and will not be coming to Xbox 360 or PS3 until 2011. This was news to me because, honestly, I had no idea they were making a Michael Jackson game. I played Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker on the Sega Megadrive quite a bit when I was still young, but I can’t see what they could possibly base a game on this time round. There are a number of insensitive answers to that question, but I’ll just guess at a dance game!

Google are reported have bought the 3D tour company, Quicksee. Quicksee make those panoramic 3D tours of locations that companies can then put on their website. I last saw one of these around 2003, and wasn’t aware there was a big market for them. Anyway, Techcrunch have their suspicions that this could lead to users being able to upload their own panoramic images to Google Streetview, to supplement the existing service. If Google do buy Quicksee, I can’t think of any other use they might have for the technology, but if they were going to do that, something like Microsoft’s PhotoSynth would be better.

A British army commander will be updating Twitter from the front line soon. This may come as a surprise after news stories of army personnel getting into trouble for their use of social media, and some even facing legal action. It is, however, little more than a publicity stunt.

The commander in question, Colonel Dougie Graham, hopes that the Twitter account will help people connect with the troops out their in Afghanistan, which is a good enough cause, but he is apparently in extensive talks with superiors over what he can and can’t post. I can’t see any twitter updates letting the British public know how woefully under-equipped they are getting through, can you?

With the higher-ups ultimately in control of what Graham can post, this seems of little use to the British public.

Google are entering the location war, but from a different side to the existing services. Rather than do what Facebook has done, which is to do almost exactly what Foursquare and Gowalla were already doing, but with more people, Google have decided to lock down the business side of location based services while no one else is bothering.

Google’s Local Business Center has been renamed Google Places, which isn’t particularly original. It focuses on local search, and offers businesses a number of tools that will help them get business through Google’s local search feature. These services even include a printable bar code that can be scanned using a mobile phone to bring up the businesses Place’s page.

Given Google’s track record with social (Orkut, Buzz?) it seems like a wise move for them not to try and take on the aforementioned social location based services, but even if they weren’t so bad social; their core business (search) and their Google Earth/Streetview services make business orientated location services a no brainer.

That’s all the news that interested me over the weekend. Check back tomorrow for more Thoughts on (the tech and gaming) News.

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