VGM Fusion

Microsoft Annual Holiday Media Event

Today I went over to the annual event that Microsoft Canada has been running now for the past few years in which they show off all their new mice and keyboards, and give us an update on the yearly expansion packs for Zoo Tycoon and Age of Empires III.

I did get to see a few things that were interesting this year though. First was the new SideWinder gaming mouse that is made through and through for gamers (or so I’m told). To be honest though, it was fairly comprehensive. The mouse is large, has some strong grip points for your fingers, and has an adjustable DPI setting from 200 - 2000. We’ve seen those kinds of things before, but then there are some new ones (at least for me).

The mouse has interchangeable discs suited for different types of mouse pads. They offer slightly different resistance to movement, and are all different compounds and mixes of Teflon. Next, you can add weight to the mouse via a sliding tray that you can pull out the side of the thing. There are 4 slots for weight, and you can add either 5 or 10 gram increments with the ballast provided. Now, that’s kinda neat if you want a heavy mouse.

Also included is a macro button which offers the same sort of customization that we’re used to for games, as well as heavy interaction with the included intellimouse software.

So yea, or nea? I told them it looks Darth Vader-ish.

Next up was something I wasn’t entirely familiar with… Windows Home Server.

Now this isn’t exactly something related to games. Well, let me be frank, it’s completely unrelated to games. But guess what, this is my blog. Suck it.

So what is it? It’s basically a Webserver/Backup-Restore Utility crammed into an NAS (Network-Attached Storage). It does offer quite a bit in the way of optimization and customizability over most of the other NAS out there, and in their own Microsofty way, it’s pretty cool with all the remote access features.

These things should be available in market either by the end of the year, or early next, and the prices still aren’t announced, but the HP one (pictured) will probably come in around the $800 mark based on the HDD configuration you choose.

So there you have it. That pretty much raps up my coverage of the event. There was Vista on display too, but nothing really new with it, just more about OneCare. I also got a chance to play SceneIt again, same build as at X’07. I’m looking forward to what they’ll do with that game… and no, they wouldn’t talk about downloadable content yet.