Black Friday is usually the day that kick starts the holiday shopping season, but this year shoppers (actually, more like die hard gamers) went frantic a week earlier when Sony launched the much anticipated Playstation 3 last Friday. With only 400,000 machines for the initial launch, people across the country camped outside stores hours before they opened so that they could get a hand on a PS3, despite its high pricing of nearly $500 per console and an additional $60 per game.

Check out what we found on PodZinger on what CNET and others are saying about the PS3 shortage.

Kotaku, a popular gaming blog, now reports that a new shipment of Playstation 3 has landed and will be available in stores by Black Friday so we will start see the mayhem all over again this weekend.

Shortage of the console has created much mayhem among including two men holding two employees at gunpoint at an Ohio video game store for 5 games consoles. Nintendo Wii also launched last Sunday with a bit less fuss as reports state that there will be “five to 10″ times as many Wiis available at launch compared to Playstation 3.

Microsoft launched Zune today, hoping to be the next iPod killer (that’s what they all say). Many are anticipating Zune to be the next big thing for Microsoft after the success of Xbox 360. Reviews have been lukewarm including Ryan at Engaget who complains about installation issues and John Biggs of Crunch Gear seems to agree. Leo Larporte and gang also gave a relatively bad review on the TWiT’s show.

On the other hand Gizmodo gave ZUNE the thumbs up for a “relatively painless installation” and points out that it plays nicely with iTunes. Zing! us to check out what others have to say about Zune here.

Besides Zune, PS3 will also launched this Friday (November 17) and Nintendo Wii on November 19. Although both have different target audiences, there will still be a lot of chatter and comparisons as everyone anticipates Nintendo to be a comeback in the game console market after its huge success of DS Lite.

A recent medical study done Dr. James Rosser at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City show that surgeons who played 20 minutes of video games prior to surgery completed their laparoscopy surgery faster with fewer errors.  Check out the article on CNN.

Buy your surgeon an Xbox today!

The 2006 edition of the largest gaming show in the world attracted over 70,000 attendees to the LA Convention Center. As always there were plenty of announcements, Sony displayed the PS3, Nintendo débuted the revolutionary Wii (Weee!), and Grand Theft Auto 4 faced off against Scarface (the movie that inspired the GTA franchise).

As always plenty of huge booths, strange guys in costumes, but no booth babes, E3 is now a family friendly experience.

E3 2006 results on PodZinger 

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Attack of the Show: E306 Live

PC Gamer Podcast

This headline could describe me every time I play Project Gotham Racing 3 on my Xbox 360.  I do have the Enzo Ferrari, a $1+ million car, in my PGR3 Garage.  I still can’t finish a race without smashing it into a wall at high speed. 

But, alas, this story is about Swedish video game entrepreneur Stefan Eriksson, who started now-bankrupt Gizmondo.  Eriksson was driving on the Pacific Coast Highway when he slammed into a pole at 162 mph.  Eriksson told police that his German friend Dietrich was driving, but police noted that only the driver’s side airbag had blood on it and Eriksson had a cut lip.  Dietrich had “run away.”

Eriksson had also let his payments on his Enzo Ferrari, a $600k Mercedes, and one other car lapse after moving them from Britain, and was arrested and held without bail for Grand Theft Auto.

Note to Eriksson:  Don’t make up fake friend you tried to remember from SNL Sprockets (”Lieben meine Affe-monkey!”), don’t leave bloody evidence contradicting your story, don’t forget to make your car payments, and don’t try things you saw on Grand Theft Auto 3!

On April 1, 17 mysterious boxes wrapped in gold with question marks on them showed up in the town of Ravenna, OH.  Alarmed residents reported them to the police department, who then called out the bomb squad and hazardous materials squad.  The boxes were found to be empty.  Five 16-17 year-old girls claimed responsibility for deploying the boxes.  Ravenna Police Chief Randall McCoy referred the case to the county prosecutor’s office for possible criminal charges.  

Department of Homeland Security Deputy Press Secretary Brian J. Doyle says that he will personally interview these girls to see if they should be held as enemy combatants.  DHS officials will consider boosting the per-capita homeland security grant to Ravenna, already at 27x New York City’s, even further to combat the city’s mounting terrorist threats, such as terrorists masquerading as actual delivery people to leave dangerous boxes around town in suspicious-looking boxes with “Amazon” printed on them (clearly a terrorist cell marking).

Check out the local news coverage [1, 2] and the extensive list of links on Topix.net.

I have a PodZinger RSS alert feed for the term “xbox” so that I can keep up on xbox news.  As I was checking my items this morning, I noticed an interesting video podcast from Attack of the Show from last Friday.  They had Dean Takahashi on, and he was talking about why he believes Microsoft is working on a handheld, an “iPod killer,” that will have video, music and games. 

Dean has been working on validating this rumor since last December, when there was an Xbox reorganization.  You can read Dean’s full story in the San Jose Mercury News blog.

Woohoo!  I actually did get an Xbox 360 yesterday.  As I was writing yesterday’s blog article, I revisited many of the links I had for Xbox inventory tracking.  Using the “Guide to finding an Xbox 360” I found that our local Best Buy had stock on the premium version. 

But…ugh…I had several hours of meetings before lunch when I could get over there.  My heart dropped when the person at the front door said that there were no Xbox 360s.  But, I found the guy in the know in the gaming department, and he walked me to the storeroom where he handed me a premium.

It was quite easy to hook everything up, sign up for an Xbox Live account, and network it to my Media Center PC.  In fact, as I was upstairs just finishing installing the extender on my PC, my 6 year old son figured out how to get his favorite music video started on the Xbox and watched it before I got back downstairs.

Also, check out my gamertag:  PodZinger