Amazon #PrimeDay, July 15, 2015

Amazon is celebrating their 20th birthday by establishing Prime Day.  Customers have the opportunity to try out a new Amazon Prime membership for thirty days at no cost.

Amazon announced the special event on Monday, June 6, 2015 by stating  "Step aside Black Friday, meet Prime Day."  It is Christmas in July for everybody that uses their Prime membership, whether the membership is already paid for or being used on a trial basis.

I am pleased that my online friends can take advantage of the deals that will be offered.  The celebration starts at midnight on July 15, 2015 and deals are posted as often as every ten minutes throughout the day.

Yes!

Amazon welcomes you to sign up for the 30 day trial

 and cancel your membership!

I tried my membership out before I bought into it so why shouldn't you?!  When you sign up you will get immediate access to the Prime membership benefits.  

Expect to see a lot of tech and game deals, but Amazon assures us that there will be something for everyone which will include items for summer adventures, family road trips, back to school supplies and everyday essentials.  

Just like Black Friday you'll want to 

mark you calendar and set your budget for Prime Day.

Happy shopping!  

XBOX ONE

The XBOX ONE

Base msrp, $500 USD

Quick heads up for parents with kid/s under 17 check the ESRB here before you buy a game!

Here we are again and we are moving on to the XBOX ONE. This has the same Triple A titles offered on Sony's PlayStation4, Assassins Creed 4, Battlefield 4, Call of Duty Ghosts, Fifa 14, and many more. These games are sold separately at a price of $60 USD each and expansions to these Triple A games are available at addition cost.

There are six Day One exclusives for the XBOX ONE they are, Deadrising 3, Fighter Within, Forza Motorsport 5, Ryse: Son of Rome, Zoo Tycoon, and Zumba Fitness: World Party. XBOX Launch Window exclusives are Kinect Sports: Rivals, and Titanfall. There are the games available for Digital Download, the games available Day One are: Crimson Dragon, Loco Cycle, Killer Instinct, and Powerstar Golf. In the Launch window there is, Minecraft XBOX ONE edition, Peggle 2, and Project Spark. The “Launch Window” that Microsoft refers to is an undetermined length of time.

There will be more titles coming out within two to six months after the game developers have time to work with the new platforms more.

The XBOX ONE comes with the Kinect and one controller and to play online requires a XBOX Live Gold membership at $60 USD MSRP for twelve months.

If you would like to get a second controller it is $60 MSRP.

A cool feature that the XBOX ONE and the XBOX 360 have is SmartGlass that allows a Windows Phone, Windows 8, iOS, and Android devices to be used as a second screen.

The XBOX ONE will be able to stream to Twitch only if you have a Gold membership and the Upload Studio app lets you edit and share clips from the past five minutes of game-play footage that is automatically recorded by the console.

To sum this up it is about the same as the PlayStation 4. It has some good features like the SmartGlass and the Kinect which has voice activation.

The base cost of the consoles will come down in price six to twelve months after the launch. Games will be the same price across all of the platforms and the controllers will stay the same for a while. You will probably be able to find sales on them in a few months.

The final price of the XBox One Console, one game, a second controller, and the XBOX Live Gold 12 Month membership is $680 USD.

Something else to consider is that you can not upgrade either console to get more performance out of it. There is also a limit on the hard drive for the XBOX ONE but the PS4 can be changed out for a larger one.
[Of course, this is subject to change!]

In the next blog I will cover the PC and I will let you know the pros and cons of
 choosing to use it for gaming purposes.

Georgianna Hardware Corporation

Twitter is Over Capacity

Can you believe it?  I just tried to Tweet and Twitter is over capacity.  We didn't even have Twitter when I first started to use the World Wide Web.  Actually, the first comment came to me some years ago when a nice, young man came to my home to fix my DSL.  I said, "Don't worry that you can't fix the problem with the first ten things you tried.  When I used the VT100 it would hang up every once in a while.  Computers always come around."   He replied, "Hey, I learned about that VT100 when I was in college!" 

This week is much better.  I was able to attend the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, CA from the comfort of my living room.  (That's better known as E3 to those who are heavily involved.)  Over 45,000 people were expected to attend the three day event!

Microsoft had everybody's attention right off with their announcement of their Kinect Star Wars game.  Funny that there would be excitement over the Star Wars game because Microsoft informed us that they are giving their XBox Live service a facelift.  The updated service will give us access to You Tube and live TV.  Not only that, but we will be able to control our XBox Live account with our voices.  The updated service will also provide access to Bing to search for XBox Live content.   They also announced that Disney and Microsoft has partnered to create the entire Disneyland park so we can all have a 360 experience.  The rides will be considered mini-games.  

Nintendo announced their next generation console, the Nintendo Wii U.   The console’s controller utilizes a touchscreen that can be used to play games on its own while the system allows for interaction between the touchscreen and the television.  It has a 6.2-inch screen with two analog controllers, but it isn’t a portable gaming device though because it acquires its images wirelessly from the console.  With Wii U owners will be able to have five participants in games or can use more than one controller to play a game.

Sony announced the new PlayStation Vita.  I admit I wasn't there, but I believe the consistent comments that the screen resolution is excellent and the controls are smooth.  What appeals is the touch interface on the back of the device.  AT&T is PlayStation Vita's 3G partner.  The games might cost more, but the game experience will be far better.  Sony is also adding to the 3-D experience and they told us about their new social network, "Near."  We will see the Vita in stores for the holiday season.

I want to go back over a few things that I saw and a few that I missed, but the first thing that comes to mind is, "WOW!"  I had a blast attending E3.  Thank you to everyone that broadcasted.

Please visit our web site to order.  Remember, Amazon is helping keep Americans employed.
http://georgiannahardwarecorporation.com/Gaming.aspx