I was very excited to be at CES for my first time, I was expecting to run into masses of people, I think the brochure that they mailed was pretty clear about it. Yeah, perhaps some people that I know will call it "Nerd Fest" and no I am not a nerd, geek, etc. nor do I want to be one, I am simply an average human being who enjoys shopping for fun hardware and software. I hate it how people right off hand relate technology with geeks, it’s pretty sad when people fall that low to right off hand conclude that enjoying technology equals being a geek. Oh well, this is another topic that I rather not write a whole story about.
I was one of the lucky community members to get into the Microsoft Press tent and may I say the security was tight. Even with a pass, we still managed to get harassed by the cyborg guarding it. As bad as having to confirm that we indeed were allowed in there and the guy still didn't accept it, wow! Inside of the tent there was a wide variety of press working very hard to distribute information about the event to websites, newspapers, etc... Inside the Xbox Community room the MS community crew did a great job in providing us such a comfortable quiet place to relax and post up news about CES. They even put up a 360 with Gears of Wars so that we actually had something to escape from for a while, nice job guys. I hope to see this done more often at events, it's great to see Microsoft Community members actually caring about providing us the indie sites that travel around events, a place to keep up to date with our sites.
The first booth that I stopped by was, “of course”, the Microsoft booth, where it consisted more of PC games than Xbox 360 games. Didn't bother me a bit, instead that's a great thing. Give some shine of light to Games for Windows. Some people haven't exposed yet to this. Halo 2 for Windows, was the first game that I had get my hands on, I gave it shot with the keyboard but as a console user, it's more comfortable to move around with the controller. The game was running smoothly and the graphics where as equally good as they are in the Xbox/Xbox 360. The 360 titles that where available to play Lost Planet, Guitar Hero II, MLG Baseball 2k7, Icon, Viva Pinata and the arcades titles where Castlevenia, Ms Packman (packman with a bow), Worms and others. They also had some Voodoo PC on the floor that unfortunately we weren’t able to obtain much information from the demonstrator, since he didn’t know much detail about the product. Now why there wasn’t an Xbox 360 customized car? At least somewhere, come on…
At the Intel Booth the first thing that caught my attention was of course the multiply yourself skid they had going. Where you go do a few moves and get multiplied by this person editing the video. There was a huge line for this, even the popular gamers had to wait to get multiplied into a video, by no means was anyone getting any special treatment. In addition to that they had demonstrations of games using Intel’s most advanced processor “Core 2” their product is supposed to deliver to the power of four. They also had some racing cars that we decided to save for another to test drive them.
Over at the World Series of Video Games tent there was a competition of beating Team 3d (I was probably at the Microsoft booth at this time) which was supposedly going to be televised on G4. I guess I won’t get to see it since I never seem to tune into G4, I think the Men Show really gave me a bad impression about them. The tent had some really nice computers running games like Halo 2 (of course) was the game that caught my attention, wow I think the keynote brainwashed me. Other titles where Rainbow Six Vegas, Counter Strike and more…
Zune booth was way to sociable for me, in better words one it looked cool and hip, almost to make you feel like you where not surrounded by the masses of groups of people that where all over the floor at CES. I really love the colors they chose the bizarre combination of brown and pink together are not that bad. They had some really comfortable couches that made seemed like a hangout place, I thought that was really cool. I did hear that they were selling some Zune’s at CES for $20.00 less then the retail value, darn too bad I was broke. I guess Cesar brainwashed me with his pink Zune and no I am not even thinking about going out of my way to find a pink one (I hate pink) but without a doubt I’ll be an owner of one pretty Zune.
Overall it took me a lifetime to get from booth to booth, majority of the booths I visit it was almost impossible to even get a shot of what was being demonstrated. All around the convention I saw plenty of 360's that were being used with various games like Kameo, Project Gotham Racing 3 along with the Xbox 360 wireless wheel, etc...No Wii's, what's up with that Nintendo? Some of the gadgets that caught my attention were the world's largest flat TV 108" by Panasonic. I really wish that I could have one of those in my living room, then again how do I make it fit thru my door? Also, saw Hyundai's line of LCD TVs and yes the same Hyundai that makes cars. Speaking of cars, I saw some really interesting customized vehicles with TV in areas you wouldn't even think about actually adding a TV to. I did glance over the Sony booth but decided to save it the next day.
Walking around the convention floor I wonder why the event lacked females, disregarding some that where promoting products at the booths. Come on ladies, we are setting a bad example, I know there's techy females out there so step out and show your face around. Well I have been asking myself that same question ever since I stepped door into my first programming class, sad enough I was the one of the only girl out 20 guys that we had in our class, just sad. Normally I don't pay attention to these kinds of things, but come on. It almost seemed like the requirement to be at CES was if you are a guy you're in.
After CES, we ended the night by attending this special event Microsoft had done over the Venetian with their famous water show. Where we got to enjoy a show with a puzzle water show, that sad enough I couldn't solve but wasn't alone on this one others weren't able to either. Followed by this we headed over to Pure Nightclub located inside of the Caesars Palace for Windows Vista party. Surprisingly the food was great, they had a good share of appetizers, variety of sea food and meat sticks. Sadly, I had to settle for chardonnay, somehow Vegas clubs only believe in two types of wines. The guys really enjoyed this one, the stage by the middle of the night got a performance of the Pussycat dolls, and I am still laughing out of this one. It's always entertaining just seeing how silly men look when they are going crazy over girls, ha! Too bad they didn't have some kind of PCs running games inside of this, I guess perhaps the club didn't allow it. After this we headed back to our hotel to get prepare for our next day.
Coming up the rest of the days @ CES 2007!
[ CES Day One: Photos | CES Gamerscore Coverage | Xbox.com CES Coverage | Vision’s Experience ]