Alright Guy's Once again id like to take this time out to apologise for not having a post up sooner. the last post was over a month ago and is overdue, due in no small part to the fact that i had to also contribute to another blog, coinciding with my media studies project in school. Recently i was in lesson and we were discussing key terms in Media studies. One of the terms that interests me most is "convergence". If you wish to find out more about this "word" and its meaning, I recently started looking at "The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies" to try and gain an insight into what "convergence" actually means, in terms of the media and its respective branches.(http://convergence.beds.ac.uk/) << This is a series of magazines, published by a university on "convergence" that i intend to glance over very soon. Im trying to find something similar online, but so far havent been sucessful.
Moving on, what does it mean? Well to put it shortly and in my own definition, the "mergance" of two different aspects of the media, in this case, into one single aspect. Social Networking (Myspace, Facebook) and Online Gaming (Dedicated Servers for MMOG's). As I said in my last post, i now own a Playstation 3. Im still trying to explore all of the features, due to a lack of time to play with it, that the playstation 3 has to offer, but the one that im most interested in, and most relevant to the "Convergence" topic, is the Playstation Network. SO...What is the Playstation 3 network? Wikipedia says...
PlayStation Network, often abbreviated to PSN in the gaming community, is Sony's free online service provided for use with their PlayStation 3 (PS3)[2] and PlayStation Portable (PSP) video game consoles.
I was quite amazed to hear that since the Playstation 3's Release a year and a bit ago, there are 2.9 Million people registered in North America alone. Not to mention Japanese Figures at 4.34Million people. So.. Obviously this is popular, it doesnt quite rival myspace yet, at 10.96Million people but then again it has been out for not even a quarter of the time "myspace" has existed for. I thought that id try and see what the "playstation Network" was really about and signed up, hoping that i would find some "convergence" between Social Networking and The Gaming Industry. Surely enough, i did. I was even amazed to find my own personal "AVATAR" winking at me every time i logged in. And then i recieved messages from friends i know, that wanted to play a cup final at Wembley or work together, using a "bluetooth" headset, to take down a russian warlord in a popular shoot-em-up game, came pouring in. So now, i dont have to invite my friends over to play with them, and i get a free internet browser on my T.V... Im Impressed. Games are fairer, due to matchmaking setups and i no longer need to spend my days on MSN Messenger, as the "PSN" provides me with my own instant messaging service. I could go on and on about the features. Sure there are downsides, not having a keyboard means typing a message takes for ever. But when there is so much offered by the console and the Network you cant realy fault Sony here.
Im going to be investigating this more, by covering more consoles and see how "Microsoft" have countered Sony's biggest project since the Original Playstation more than 15 years ago. Consoles have come a long way since then.
Ciao..
Let me know your thoughts, provided you have time to read the amount ive written.
(I think that deserves a promotion up the Blog Rankings Sir..HintHint)
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