Divide By Zero - a blog by Kamran Ayub

The interwebs are abuzz with E3 information. Personally I don’t follow it much because I can’t keep up. However I did read about Microsoft’s presentation.

The Xbox 360 will be getting some cool new features come Fall, including a new dashboard, avatars, gameshows, NetFlix streaming, and some other neat things.

I am excited about NetFlix streaming. I know there’s a plug-in for Media Center from a 3rd party… but I don’t have Windows Media Center so having it built-in to the Xbox will be sweet.

The gameshow idea is interesting. Apparently it will be social games that you can compete in to win prizes. Crazy.

As for avatars, I guess that’s cool but I’m not really sure what purpose they’ll serve. They look better than Miis but still.

What I am really excited about is Rock Band 2 in September. They released the official track list and it looks awesome. Judas Priest, Motorhead, Megadeth, Metallica, Dream Theater, Dylan, Journey, I mean… damn, it’s all there. Some tracks are questionable as to why they chose them… I assume it’s because of better band playability not popularity. Painkiller is definitely an awesome track, but Battery by Metallica? I guess I would have chosen differently. Still, it’s a good track list. I will end up getting the newer drum set because mine are too loud and I want the new ones. I’ll also be getting another guitar, the new RB2 one. It was good that I held out buying a second guitar!

Harmonix said that you will be able to port most RB 1 tracks over to RB 2, which means you don’t have to carry around an extra CD, good news. But really, how hard is it to put both game CDs into one case?

The $300 premium Ion drum kit looks fantastic. If only I had that much money to spend on an instrument I would get it. The fact is, I’m not even to Expert drums yet. I don’t think I would be using them to the full extent unless I was good enough to warrant it.