Martell TV: A New Home For Online Video?

This Martell TV thing looks pretty interesting. Creating your own station, like TV networks have done for years sounds cool. It also seems a lot more social media friendly in general. The ability to have that "scheduled release" and run times thing looks nice. Also the ability to schedule ads as part of your own show and change it up however you want sounds pretty good. We've seen how certain YouTube creators have had placed ads for things like Netflix or whatnot, but they only get a certain amount of money from it and then it's stuck on their video forever. I like the idea of being able to do those paid ads but not have them stuck in there forever.

Below is a list of stuff that Martell TV can do that YouTube can't, or any other major uploading side like Blip/Vimeo e.t.c. As can be seen, it's actually not an uploading site you just embed your video form other sites, so you really have nothing to lose as YouTubers old videos will remain in place on YouTube and will continue to upload to YouTube, just also get added to this more "scheduled release" style.

The interesting thing is that the image on their site shows a mock-up picture of their application running on a Samsung tablet, so this tells me two things. First of all that the people behind this know exactly what they're getting into, an audience that will be watching the majority of their content on hand held devices like tablets, smartphones and so on, and I'm guessing because of those pre-installed ads that you can place, is kinda banking on it a little. In another albeit long shot, maybe they have a deal with Samsung, otherwise, why are they using their logo?

Anyway, feel free to drop a line in the comments below and check out the their full presentation and website at this link here:

http://www.strikingly.com/martelltv

MY LIFE AS A VIDEO GAME - EPISODE TWO: DUTY CALLS

EPISODE TWO: DUTY CALLS

MY LIFE AS A VIDEO GAME premieres it's second episode and it's sure to be a blast.

Don is finds himself a war-torn world surrounded on one side by a mysterious but beautiful woman and the hulking super soldier "The Sarge" and on the other Nazi's, Communists and Terrorists in the most awkward of alliances out to kill him. Time to First Person Shoot and questions later!

NEXT EPISODE AIRS TUESDAY NOVEMBER 20th! 

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Watch Don fight his way through real life video games, First Person Shooters, Arcade Beat 'Em Ups, Space Combat Simulators and more, only on Leon Unity.

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Shoot us an email: info@leonfilms.net

DIRECTED BY

Brian Dickson

WRITTEN BY

Petros L. Ioannou

STARRING...

Petros L. Ioannou as Don DeWitt

Jennifer Polansky as Kera Althorn

Brent Black as The Menu System

GUEST STARRING

James Ramon-Baker as Greg Nathanson

Sabrina Jean-Hughes as Don's Ex "Jenny".

Created by Petros L. Ioannou

Produced by Leon Films, Ltd

MY LIFE AS A VIDEO GAME - EPISODE ONE

EPISODE ONE: LOADING...

MY LIFE AS A VIDEO GAME gets off to with a bang.. literally, there are explosions within 5 seconds.

What if your life was a Video Game? Don DeWitt is what you'd call a "hardcore" gamer. So much so that it's been to the detriment of everything in his life from work to romance. One day however he gets more than he bargained for when he is pulled into an alternate reality where video games are real life and realises that things are a lot tougher when your life is a Video Game.

WATCH EPISODE TWO NOW

Watch Don fight his way through real life video games, First Person Shooters, Arcade Beat 'Em Ups, Space Combat Simulators and more, only on Leon Unity.



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CHECK OUT THE GAMER BAR FROM THIS EPISODE: "LOADING" (Yes, it's real).
www.drinkrelaxplay.com
Great bar, now located on Rupert St in Soho, London.

STARRING

Petros L. Ioannou as Don DeWitt

Jennifer Polansky as Kera Althorn

Brent Black as The Menu System

GUEST STARRING

James Ramon-Baker as Greg Nathanson

Sabrina Jean-Hughes as Don's Ex "Jenny".

Written & Created by Petros L. Ioannou

Produced by Leon Films, Ltd

MY LIFE AS A VIDEO GAME - Launches Nov. 12th 2013!

The moment has finally arrived, like with my blog, I've been terrible at keeping everyone updated, but now I can officially confirm that TUESDAY NOVEMBER 12TH 2013 is the official launch date of MY LIFE AS A VIDEO GAME.

Hope you guys all enjoy watching it!

Top 5 Things I Love About Man Of Steel

As those of you who follow me on Twitter will be aware. I was not a fan of Man of Steel, in fact I was screaming betrayal at the top of my lungs and proceeded to get very drunk straight afterwards... and drunk-buy video games from Gamestop too. However, in an effort to try and come to terms with an adaptation of Superman that I really, really wanted to enjoy but felt it missed the mark, quite dramatically so with the ending, I am going to do two lists, this week is the Top 5 Things I Love About Man of Steel. This is because there are very good parts to the film, but next week will be the Top 5 Things I Hate About Man of Steel.

Obviously SPOILERS AHEAD FOR MAN OF STEEL, so don't read any further if you haven't seen it yet.

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Okay? We good. Let's begin with something easy...


1. THE SOUNDTRACK

Starting with something easy, The Soundtrack to Man of Steel is excellent. Hans Zimmer brings the epic quality he had in his work on The Dark Knight trilogy to this movie and perhaps does an even better job. With Batman the soundtrack was as epic and great but at times a little repetitive. Now if there's anything about Superman I can say that I really enjoy, it's that despite all these powers Superman in general is one of the more subtle and harder to understand. As I've said before, he's not someone to be related to, but looked up to - to aspire to be like. This soundtrack truly captures this feeling, of a man alone, with the weight of the world on his shoulders but rising above all that, above the petty wars of humanity but never to a height we can't reach ourselves. The soundtrack feels very human at times, like for example in "What Will You Do When You're Not Saving The World" a track remixed for the trailer. When the piano parts play and we get this really soft melody that grows, adds drums, adds strings and grows triumphant until we truly get the feeling that this is the rise of the hero, not just any man, but a Superman as he bursts onto the scene for an adventure. The theme for Zod is bombastic and dangerous but never feels campy. As with the main theme there will always be inevitable comparisons to John Williams's amazing work on the original movie. Zod's theme in that was perhaps a bit better and more terrifying but also more fitting for a Zod that felt more evil than "programmed this way" as the Zod in this movie is.

In the end the soundtrack had to change, even if Williams's soundtrack is my favourite of all time, Zimmer's is nothing to be scoffed at and helps establish this movie as truly it's own. This says Superman but it also says Clark Kent, it says Smallville, it says Metropolis and it says Krypton. It really says it all while being so subtle and doing something inherently of it's own that it doesn't even require comparisons to Williams's work because they're both very fitting for their versions of Superman. I've seen for example versions of the Man of Steel trailer with the Williams music, it works and shows you the tremendous power that score has but the Zimmer score is a better fit for the story they're trying to tell, one with less mystery to Krypton and more of a journey for Clark Kent to become Superman.


2. SUPERMAN VS. ZOD

While I didn't like the way the fight ends and the overt destruction porn element of it all. This fight sequence is absolutely fantastic, really hard hitting, edge of your seat kind of stuff. This is the kind of fight that Superman II wishes it had. While I do enjoy watching that it feels a little dated. This fight is even better than the last 45 minutes of The Avengers for me with the Battle of Metropolis feeling more focused and far more personal for Superman as he fights his nemesis than The Avengers fighting in the Battle of New York against a bunch of nameless faceless forces before Hulk shows off just how much of a "puny God" Loki really is. They're using their powers to their fullest, punching, flying slamming at full speed, picking up objects and hitting each other, melting said objects with heat vision; you really feel like this is a battle for the ages, two titans clashing in the skies above a city as Superman and Zod duke it out for the fate of the world, finally capturing what a superhero fight sequence this epic should look like in live action like it's never been done before outside of comics and animation.


3. AESTHETICS - COSTUME, KRYPTON & MORE

Rather like with the soundtrack, while I really enjoyed the way Donner made Krypton look and the fact that to this day I still don't think Christopher Reeve in his blue skin tight spandex and red underpants looks even remotely silly, he pulls it off; this movie excels in the production design from the costume to Krypton everything looks fantastic and the visual aesthetic of the movie is gorgeous. It's a beautiful movie and really shows off everything that a realistic, but still comic book based movie should look like. I'd liken this to the 1989 Batman's aesthetic. While I never disliked The Dark Knight's style, I always felt it was a little too... plain and real. In Batman Begins it looked very nice seeing the scummy underworld but as the movies progressed they became less stylised and more "crime drama realism" which while it showed the effect Batman had on his city it also showed Gotham as just any other city, there was nothing unique about it. The Tim Burton movies had this overt cold gothic feel to Gotham City that made the city feel like it was a character of it's own. The same can be said for how Metropolis looks and feels, how Krypton looks and feels and how Superman looks in that chain-mail esque suit of his. It's real, it feels tangible but still stylised beautifully. Look at Zod's Kryptonian battle armour in this clip here, it looks functional yet stylised it looks awesome and epic, comic book, yet real, it feels fantastic.


4. THE CASTING & CHARACTERS

Henry Cavill nails it. No-one can ever replace Christopher Reeve in the red and blue suit but Cavill does his own thing and looks the part. He looks like Superman through and through and he plays the role fantastically. And he's not the only one from Amy Adams as a much smarter and more interested adaptation of Lois Lane,  who like pulitzer prize winning journalist that she is, figures out who Superman is long before anyone else does, a realistic and dramatically different take to the norm but very believable. Especially the way she's played by Adams. Michael Shannon screams and rages a lot, he's Zod alright, that over the top character once made famous by Stamp, sadly never saying "kneel" not even once, but every bit the over the top aggressive mad man. But this one is very believable and somewhat empathetic. He's a product of the broken Kryptonian Caste system and Shannon portrays him as such, he sees nothing wrong with what he's doing as it is what he was born to do, literally as that's how people are made on Krypton, not via natural birth as Kal-El is conceived at the start of the movie but as perfect members of society, told how they will act, why they will act this way and their entire lives planned out into utter stagnation from there on out. Perry White played by Lawrence Fishburne feels like the character, he's tough, he's funny and he isn't taking any shit from Lois because he knows better. The casting is great, and while I was overall disappointed with this movie as you'll find out next week, the cast and their portrayals in general, especially Cavill as Superman make me want to see what they'll do in a sequel.


5. YOU THINK YOU CAN THREATEN MY MOTHER?

This single scene made the list because it's incredible. But more than that it shows who Superman really is, he's not the Man of Steel, he's not Kal-El of Krypton, he's Clark Kent, he was raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent on Earth in Kansas, as the line goes at the end of the movie "I've lived here for 30 years, I'm from Kansas, General, I'm about as American as it gets." Like the scene later in the movie where Jonathan sees his son with the cape as a child, and that gorgeous piano music plays, signifying that Jonathan knows who Clark really is, who is he desitined to be, the protector of Earth and his son. This scene shows how Clark truly cares about the people of Earth and how he isn't going to take any shit from Zod or anyone else from Krypton. The moment Zod threatens Martha, Superman slams into him drags him through a cornfield and slams his fist into him over and over again, it's an awesome scene and really shows Clark's protectiveness of his family and that no-one not the military not even Zod would dare lay a finger on Martha for fear of unleashing all hell... that all too human side of Superman that will protect his own and will do the same for the whole Earth, maybe he's not there quite yet but he's doing what he can. It's a badass moment and easily my favourite scene in the film when it's followed up by Clark talking about how his parents taught him how to harness his powers properly, remembering that great scene in the school where his X-Ray vision and super-hearing kicks in and the young Clark realises the gravity of his existence on Earth. Martha helps her son to make the world small, make his mission small, one person at a time and in this moment this person is her. He saves her and punishes Zod severely.


So those are my top 5 things I loved about this movie... next week, I unleash my inner General Zod and rant about why overall I was disappointed in this.

The Apartment: A Screenplay Analysis

THE APARTMENT
Screenplay Analysis by: 

Petros L. Ioannou

The Apartment is a 1960 film with a script written by Billy Wilder to be later directed by him also. As per usual Wilder continues his magic on paper and screen in this film. The Apartment is a romantic comedy and whilst not the first it did set something of a standard for the genre, which many films have oft tried to reach but few have ever done so. The copy of the script I’m working with shows it written in a most unusual manner, though not unfamiliar to me as Sunset Boulevard was written in the same way. A two column spread across the page made it a little confusing to read at first because it sometimes felt hard to see which part I should be focusing on, but after ten or so pages I adjusted to it. This unique style seems to have been a trademark of Wilder’s and interesting as it is, it can be a little disorienting for the reader. The script itself is a fairly lengthy one coming in at roughly 104 pages of double column script making it unusually long for a romantic comedy given the standard page-per-minute estimates. The film itself runs for just over two hours showing how unusual it is, given most in this genre only last for an hour and thirty minutes generally speaking. However not a second is wasted in this screenplay and every scene counts.

The story follows C.C. Baxter, C for Calvin, C for Clifford, but everyone calls him Bud. Actually they don’t. No-one in this entire screenplay calls him Bud, and there’s a very good reason why; he’s no-one’s bud, just a means to an end for everyone to walk all over him. What we have in Mr. Baxter is a man who is a walking definition of a spineless corporate drone. A man who will let people walk all over him in order to get a promotion and climb up the corporate ladder. He wants to be the man in the power suit with all the cash he can get, and he’s willing to be pushed around by everyone and anyone in order to get that promotion. Baxter is no-one’s “bud”.

We see this from the very moment the film opens; Baxter is letting Mr. Kirkeby use his apartment to have an affair with a woman named Sylvia so his wife doesn’t find out. Baxter is forced to stand in the street whilst he waits for Kirkeby to do his business and leave.  The question right from the start when reading this screenplay is why on Earth is Baxter letting Kirkeby do this? At first it seems like he’s just being a “good friend” as that’s what Kirkeby refers to him as when he’s trying to shovel Sylvia out of the titular apartment. We learn later that Kirkeby is actually one of four managers, Baxter’s superiors, at the insurance company he works for whom he lets use his apartment for extramarital affairs. First of all, let me just stress that I find the fact he works at an insurance company very important to showing the character of Baxter. It’s not like his dreams are to become the head of a talent agency, or become first pick in a professional football team, he’s working in what is famously one of the dullest industries on the planet and yet he’s willing to compromise his integrity to get ahead and rise on that dullest of corporate ladders because THAT is his dream, to be the man in charge, perhaps so that he can be the one stepping on people and not the other way around. Baxter will let all four of these men defile their marriages in his home so he can climb that ladder.

It works for a while and the four managers all give Baxter glowing recommendations to Mr. Sheldrake the company director. An interesting side-note is that this is actually the second time I’ve seen a Mr. Sheldrake in a script written by Billy Wilder, the previous having been Sunset Boulevard, a minor role as a film studio executive. It’s an interesting note that shows even great writers like Billy Wilder have the same ticks as people like myself including in-references to their own work, having always included the word ‘Elysium’ in some form or another in each script I write. It shows that no matter how far you go back writers have always been trapped in their own worlds and realities when writing a script, even if no-one but themselves will notice it. Mr. Sheldrake however in this screenplay has a much larger role than the Mr. Sheldrake in Wilder’s film from ten years prior. This time Sheldrake is the walking definition of sleazy corporate executive. He’s a womaniser and a right bastard. Sheldrake finds out about the famous apartment and decides he won’t fight the promotion Baxter is receiving if Baxter will let Sheldrake use The Apartment too.

I capitalise The Apartment above because I believe The Apartment is a proper noun here. It’s a character all on its own with its very existence being a part of New York City and the high-rise life that exists there. Every one of Baxter’s neighbours has an Apartment to themselves for the most part, they scold him  believing him to be a sleaze ball himself; bringing home a different woman each night. Each person is stuck in their own little world set as Writer Wilder called it “Apart” from each other. That’s why this film is called The Apartment, it’s not just because of the location, The Apartment is a character in itself as much as the Taxi in Taxi Driver or the suit in Iron Man. The Apartment sets people up in their own little worlds where they can judge other people’s worlds without all the facts and from a distance still safe in their havens, set ‘apart’ from each other. The Apartment is the location for the moral corruption of C.C. Baxter, he is no-one’s bud; he’s their Pimp and his Apartment has become a glorified brothel.

Sheldrake uses The Apartment to have his affair with Ms. Kubelik; the elevator operator that Baxter has a crush on also. The irony being that Baxter is letting people step all over him so he can get a promotion and become the kind of man that women like Ms. Kubelik would want to be with, a man of authority in a power suit, like the one he buys right after his promotion. When he finds out Baxter is devastated but continues to let Sheldrake use The Apartment. Ms. Kubelik is constantly trying to break free but finds herself always drawn back to the womanising Sheldrake as Ms. Kubelik is not the first affair he’s had. In fact sleazy Sheldrake has had one with his secretary and many others as the secretary recalls, it sort of reminds me of a soccer team’s squad rotation. This drives Ms. Kubelik to attempt suicide inside The Apartment. It’s over the next few days that Baxter helps her recover physically, emotionally and mentally. It is here that Baxter’s moral corruption takes a 180 and makes him stand up for himself. He was willing to forgive her when she stood him up to be with Sheldrake on their “first date”. He was willing to let Sheldrake take The Apartment over and use it as his love next. He was willing to take the scolding of his neighbours and a beating from Ms. Kubelik’ brother in the face. But now he’s had enough!

After Sheldrake loses his family because his secretary tells his wife the truth after she was fired, Sheldrake becomes a bachelor but continues to string along Ms. Kubelik like the rotten bastard he is. This culminates finally in him asking Baxter to use the very site of Ms. Kubelik attempted suicide; The Apartment, for a rendezvous with her. He declines, specifically stating that he won’t let him go near the apartment again, “Especially not with Ms. Kubelik”. This is the crux of the film, after being walked all over, getting his promotions and new suits and a fancy paycheck by letting his very existence become meaningless. He’s had enough, and he’s not standing up for himself as much as he’s standing up for Ms. Kubelik, that’s how much he cares about her. She inspires him to take a stand and quit his dull meaningless corporate job and stop being a drone and become and individual. To me this moment is as complex as all episodes of Star Trek and The Borg in terms of questioning individuality combined. In a few seconds he breaks free of the shackles of being just one of eight million people living in New York and becomes an individual who is willing to literally “stick it to the man”, here he is embracing the 1960s as they roll in on the New Year, a new decade has begun, one that had been forming slowly throughout the 1950s as we’d seen in films like On The Waterfront and Rebel Without A Cause, one of liberal individuality and Baxter has embraced the times with them, Ms. Kubelik. She finds out about what Baxter said to Sheldrake and runs to The Apartment. He declares his love for her and she doesn’t respond but tells him to “Shut up and deal!” the cards that she was uninterested in at first when he was taking care of her but now wants to play. She is now interested in him, not sleazy Sheldrake.

The Apartment is an exceptionally well written script and shows the quality of Billy Wilder’s writing throughout. It’s such a different script from Sunset Boulevard and demonstrates just what a talent he is. I’ve always been able to admire someone who’s able to  switch genres at the drop of hat and succeed marvellously at both and a Noir to a Romantic Comedy is about as dramatic a switch as can be. When questions of individuality, standing up for oneself and an almost prophetic message about the coming decade of free-liberal-thought as opposed to the corporate world where money means all of the closing decade where everyone is referred to as Mister, Misses, Miss, all by their last names and impersonal. The Apartment exemplifies all this and so much more in probably the best romantic comedy ever written.

Sony E3 Press Conference

Sony... Sony, Sony, Sony. My hats off to you guys, because there has not been a body slam like that since this one here. Only this one ends with Sony marching out triumphant and Microsoft walking away in tears. I literally cannot see a way back for Microsoft at this point, this launch period at the very least, they don't stand a chance in hell. Okay so onto the conference. This was possibly the best E3 in history, I know it's early to call this as Nintendo are going to have their hour-long Direct in less than nine hours and they're going to hopefully be bringing a lot to the table but not one of the conferences has been disappointing and this one was not the icing on the cake nor the cherry on top of the icing, or the cherry on top of the icing on top of the sundae of awesome. This was a whole extra cake added on and being told it tastes just as good but is completely sugar free and gives you superpowers. It really hit hard bringing out their strongest for what has turned out to be possibly the most epic E3 ever putting doubters like myself in their place.

Starting from the beginning, Jack Tretton stuts out on stage and essentially says "We know you've all been waiting for the PS4... so we're going to talk about the Vita". My instant reaction being "Give it a rest, the Vita is dead dude...". He starts talking about it, stats, PR bullshit, what have you. Now he's on about the PS3, yeah, yeah, get to it. Shows a bit of The Last of Us, the new game by Naughty Dog which is getting rave reviews at the moment.  Then a new game called Pupeteer takes the stage, looking interesting. Another game called Rain is shown, seems very stylistic, don't know anything really about it though. Beyond Two Souls goes out there, looks like an interesting mesh of Movie and Game starring Ellen Page. Gran Turismo 6 is unveiled, congratulations, you've successfully made the same game for about ten years now. They go on about "tessellation of polygons". I was getting a bit bored at this point to be honest. A bit more went on, we saw another CG trailer for Batman: Arkham Origins and a little bit of Grand Theft Auto V. These are all great games but nothing Sony should be bragging about too much, we knew they were coming and they were dragging time here. Well, from what I can tell, that was intentionally so.

Here begins the PlayStation 4. Starting out with finally showing the design, a somewhat unremarkable black box, or trapehzoid, nothing special. But the Sony Entertainment Network is expanding to include more movies, more music, and an Exclusive Sony Network of TV and Film on PSN Tailored specifically to gamers, whether this is like a Sony Netflix or their old shows and movies streaming for PSN+ customers, I'm not entirely sure. They're also bringing Redbox Instant, Live Events Viewer (A god send for me as I have no cable) and Flixster to PS3, Vita and PS4.

Onto some games; Killzone: Shadow Fall, we saw this at the February conference in New York. It was a somewhat unremarkable Sci-Fi First Person Shooter, as we expected. Nothing new, but it's a launch title none-the-less. Then there is DriveClub, a game free to PSN+ users on launch date, once again nothing new, same old. Next up is inFamous: Second Son, the spin-off title that actually looks pretty damn good if you ask me and something I hope that can be made to be a lot of fun. The trailer looked pretty slick, with the lip syncing almost perfect a rarity in video games because often mouths with move a bit, but it feels like a voice over, this felt like the voices were coming from their mouths, their lips truly moved. A New Steampunk game, called The Order: 1886, set in Victorian London, kinda looks like a cross between Dishonoured and what I assume is Arthurian Lore as they had a guy called Gallahad, and a quote from L'Morte De Arthur at the start, could be an interesting take to see some kind of Arthurian Legend revival in a Steampunk based setting. Knack seemed interesting a kind of action fun quirky game. Interesting visuals, a launch title. The Dark Sorcerer looks very nice, thought it was another cheesy generic dark western fantasy game turns out to be...well I have no idea, there was a green screen and a film crew involved and a bit of comedy.

Then they went onto the independent titles, right now Steam and Nintendo lead the way with indies, but Sony seems to be set to give them all a run for their money with the ability to self-publish content. Transistor, from the creators of Bastion looks pretty slick similar gameplay different setting and style, very nice looking. Don't Starve was another indie game shown off, didn't quite catch a lot of this as my stream kept failing on me. Mercenary Kings kind of a retro shooter along the lines of classic games like Metal Slug, from the creators of the Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World game. Young Horses, Rays, a Western Game, a space sim called Galaxy and a game I can't remember the name of because I was too busy laughing at Sony's ability to poke fun of their own bad meme by saying it's based on fact but does not contain any "Giant Enemy Crabs".

Then onto their blockbuster titles coming to PS4. Diablo III, without the always online requirement, and new Sony based items from games like Uncharted as special exclusives. And then what came next was like nothing we'd ever expected....



FINAL FANTASY Versus XIII... or should I say FINAL FANTASY XV. A Sony Exclusive taking the elements that were once a part of the fabled Versus game stuck in a hellish development cycle now put into Final Fantasy XV, a game that had gameplay that looked incredible, seemed to play smoothly and was visually stunning. For a Final Fantasy fan like myself, this was the killer blow to Microsoft, that was enough to make me get a PS4 over and Xbox but they didnt' stop there... Kingdom Hearts III. A game we've been waiting for since the days of the PS2. It's like Square Enix essentially have turned around and said "We're done f-ing around with mobile games, spin-offs and crap like that. We are bringing the big guns to the forefront!" Not to mention that Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, which was being warmly received by this point after all the good news, was console exclusive to Sony. A Final Fantasy double and Kingdom Hearts III really has put them on the map. Let's hope they can deliver. After that they showed a little more of Watch_Dogs, which looks great as ever, some more of Assassin's Creed IV: The Black Flag. The Elder Scrolls: Online coming to PS3 with an exclusive first run beta of the game.

Then came the actual killer blow: in what almost seemed like a mockery of Microsoft, Sony tells us it will back the player, play used games, everything that is normal for us now, will continue and given recent fears it's great to see they've listened and totally gotten it right. They even released this hilarious commercial about how the PS4 shares used games and deliver a damaging blow to Microsoft. With Jack Tretton back on stage now gleaming ear-to-ear. What came next was well, to put it in Mortal Kombat terms, a "Fatality". The price point of the PS4 is... $399. That's one hundred dollars LESS than the XBox One and it includes all the exclusives mentioned, plus all the third party titles like Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. This killer blow to Microsoft has left them in the dust. Come Holiday Season 2013, there will be one winner and it's the PlayStation 4. They've also made Microsoft look so bad now that they might be forced to drop the anti-used games policy or good news for Nintendo fans like myself, it's likely many people will go for the Wii U also.

Final Thoughts: This conference was masterfully performed and has made me realise just how much I'm going to miss the crowd at tomorrow's Nintendo Direct. It's been an epic day at E3 and Sony has taken top prize delivering the best E3 Press Conference in recent memory if for no other reason than it has proved gamers still have a say.

Rating: 10/10 - PERFECT