I had a fascinating conversation with Barry Hitchens, the exhibition consultant of the excellent Game On exhibition, which is currently at the Science Museum, it’s eleventh venue in a world tour that started in the Barbican in 2002.
You can listen in to Barry’s vast knowledge of video games and hear about the trials and tribulations of touring the show around the world.
The show has changed over the years, and Barry gives a lowdown on what has worked and what hasn’t, while outlining the history of significant stages of video gaming.
If you like video games, you’re going to love this.
Interview with Barry Hitchens – Exhibition consultant Game On
Following the success of the launch of the Nintendo Wii in the US where 600,000 units were sold within the eight days – that’s nearly one per second, the buzz about the UK launch continues to heighten.
Globally Nintendo is planning to ship 4 million console before the end of 2006, a record for them.
As we’ve 
Viewers will be able to pause and rewind live TV and enjoy access to around 30 Freeview channels.
BT is set to start rolling out the service early next year, although it’s going to be a bit of a half-cocked launch with only Channel Four currently signed up for the seven-day “catch-up” service (behind the scenes, BT’s legal team are busy battling with BBC and ITV producers to negotiate a path through the minefield of rights.)
The organisers of Game On, clearly have amazing contacts with the games industry having been running the exhibition for the last four years around 11 venues around the world. It’s contacts like this that has led to them getting hold of Sony’s PS3 and Nintendo before it’s launched in the UK – four months in the case of the PS3.
Who’s going to win?
The Nintendo Wii and Sony’s Playstation3 (PS3) will be available for play at the Game On exhibition at the Science Museum from Wednesday. Expect queues.
When you get bored of all the new stuff, by way of a stark contrast, you’ll be able to play the world’s first computer game, Spacewar!, from 1962 as well.
Video sharing Websites like YouTube are starting to impact on TV viewing figures, with more people switching off and logging on.
A further 13% of those questioned said they watched online occasionally, with another 10 per cent saying they expected to start in the coming year.
The majority of the population still prefers to watch the old fashioned gogglebox, with two-thirds of the population shunning online TV and saying that had no intention of starting in the next 12 months.
Wow … things are really starting to gel across the Murdoch media businesses, as James Murdoch starts showing his hand. Perhaps this is the first real example of seeing James’ talent on with what we’ve been told was his passion – that for convergence.
A number of Sky One shows will be available over the service. Sounds great, until you imagine that 93% of the those using Sky By Broadband already own a Sky+ box – having the ability to see the shows when they want to anyway.
The pricing of PSone games to be played on the Sony PSP have been announced.
It was initially envisaged that Sony would give access to the Playstation Store through the PSP using its WiFi connection. We can see one advantage of not doing this – people wanting to use the service will need to buy a PS3!
We see that Engadget are offering a charity auction for Save Dafur.
Ever self-aware, Engadget also point out they understand the irony of raising money for a Dafur charity, by playing a video game called Gears of War. Their defence is that their readers chose the charity and that they’d already decided what the event was going to be. As some step towards balancing this, Engadget have named the event Gears of Peace.
Following the trial in London, HD TV over Freeview has been judged as a success after the six months that it’s been running.
Simon Fell, Director of Technology, ITV Consumer was upbeat, “We have conclusively demonstrated that HD services can run effectively alongside standard Freeview broadcasts. All major technical hurdles are behind us, and collectively we can focus on potentially providing services for the forecasted sales of 10 million flat screen TVs by 2010.”