News Break

Two quick news stories before the first day of school.

• First off, Paramount is considering to drop the HD-DVD format. A clause in their exclusivity contract said that they could freely switch formats if the WB switched from HD-DVD, which they did last week. This would effectively kill off the format, because both current remaining studios (Paramount and Dreamworks Animation) have a close relationship, and Paramount actually publishes Dreamworks' movies. There's no telling when they'll drop HD-DVD, but I suggest they do it soon.
  

• Second story isn't much of a news story but a sad realization: PS3 versions of cross-platform games are apparently much inferior in quality to those seen in the Xbox 360. That doesn't make much sense at first glance, because the PS3's hardware is much more advanced than the Xbox 360's, yet The Orange Box struggles to keep a decent framerate, and now, Lost Planet for the PS3 is incredibly disappointing.
  
  Having played bits of Lost Planet on the 360 here and there, I can say that the graphics on the 360 version were gorgeous, and the PS3 version, while not hideous, is noticeably much worse. (That said, it's probably still worth picking up if you haven't played it on the 360 yet.)

Oh and for those who have yet to see it, the awesome Bill Gates parody of The Office has been made available on both MSN Soapbox and On10.net, Microsoft's much unheard of video podcast of sorts. Seeing as how just typing "on10.net" and pressing enter returns an error message, I suggest the version on Soapbox.

edit: Now time for a quick parcel of annoyance. What's with Vox adding those annoying popovers on each link highlight? I HATE it whenever a blog does that and I'm sure as hell not going to let my blog have those. If I don't find a way to turn them off without paying Vox a subscription fee (which I would expect from a SixApart product, hurr), I'm switching to another blog. >_>