You think you have a big TV for your video games?

My friend has a 65-inch TV. It's very fun to play video games on or watch a baseball game -- mainly because it's huge.

But it has nothing on the Cowboy Stadium screen that is 72 feet by 160 feet. And here's a video (via Engadget) of someone playing Gears of War on the massive screen.

The angle seems a bit tough, though.

The voice of Tiger Woods 10

I found this video amusing, starring Tiger Woods and SportsCenter anchor Scott Van Pelt. Sort of.

U.S. video game sales way down

For the first time since August of 2007, video game sales failed to reach a billion dollars in sales, Reuters reports:

In the year to May, video games sales -- considered by NPD to include hardware, software, and accessories -- slipped 7 percent from a year earlier to $6.1 billion.

May is typically a bad month for video game sales.

The best selling game was UFC Undisputed, followed by Wii Fit.

Ghostbuster the video game

Ghostbusters 3 is still in the early stages of development. Rumors are flying around all over that everyone from the original cast is coming back (which is the only way to do it, really).

As long as Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Sigourney Weaver are in it and Ivan Reitman directs it, I think it will be fine.

But well before then -- in just about two weeks, actually -- Ghostbusters the video game will come out. And the New York Times has a great profile of the Ghostbusters franchise in advance of the new video game.

So should we be worried about the typical the-video-game-of-the-movie-nearly-always-sucks concerns (the same is true of books based on movies)? From the NY Times article:

Hoping to break with the decades-long litany of slipshod interactive movie tie-ins, Atari, the game’s publisher, has approached Ghostbusters: the Video Game as a major production in its own right. In a reversal of the traditional entertainment food chain, the game, to be released June 16, will come to market even as planning for the long-awaited third “Ghostbusters” film remains in the earliest stages. The expectation is that the game will both revitalize and expand interest in the franchise ahead of a new movie.

If their plan was to "revitalize and expand interest in the franchise ahead of a new movie" they would probably not release it three years ahead of when the movie is actually made.

So how involved were Ramis and Aykroyd (who wrote the first two Ghostbusters movies)? Well... kind of. But not as much as you might hear in the marketing.

“The crassest way I can put it is that they couldn’t have paid us enough to give it the time and attention required to make it as funny as a feature film," Ramis told the New York Times.

Will Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online revolutionize online gameplay?

There is an interesting article at Mashable about EA Sports' latest announcement.

From the announcement:

Available this fall, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR Online is an authentic golf simulation experience that is dynamically streamed to a web browser and requires no game installation, no disc, and no additional peripherals. This game is easily accessible and available anywhere, via a web browser and an internet connection.

I can't say that Sony (with the PlayStation3), Microsoft (with the XBox) and Nintendo (with the Wii) will be happy about this. Unless they also offer a version on the PS3, Xbox and Wii online.

This is a serious shot across the bow of the gaming platforms. EA is cutting out a number of middlemen -- instead of needing to package their discs and send them to outlets to sell to gamers who also need to own a PS3, Xbox or Wii, now all that is required is a computer and a broadband internet connection.

No more trips to Best Buy or GameStop to grab the latest title. Instead, people can sit at home and download the latest golf course.

But, Mashable writes:

A big part of EA’s bet here is that they’ll be able to change user behavior. As significant as the advantages of online gameplay might sound, buying the latest version of Madden (and other EA games) is almost a religious experience for many people. Additionally, some EA games have already implemented online features, and will likely continue to do so, making some of the advantages of online-only games less relevant.

Of course, it’s not necessarily an either/or decision between online and console. Diehard gamers might want to play Tiger Woods both on their console at home and online when they’re on-the-go. And EA is likely to continue to offer both options for the foreseeable future, using the Tiger Woods game as a measuring stick for whether they’ll be able to successfully apply the model to some of their other, huge franchises. It all makes sense on paper, but ultimately the gamers will decide.

So perhaps it will lead to this: a stripped-down online version for a tiered-monthly fee. And those who also purchase the physical game for their gaming console (or even PC) will get some extras.

In other words, EA Sports may have founda way to get more milk from the same cow.

Five things you need to know about Madden 10

There are few gaming franchises (if any) that have the type of loyalty that the Madden NFL video game can boast. It has been played on everything from the Apple II to the Playstation 3 and everything in between (I remember playing an old Sega Genesis version and later a N64 version).

And ESPN has a short sneak peak into Madden 10 (the "10" refers to the year 2010, not the tenth edition -- the Madden video game has been around since 1993).

Worth a read if you like football, video games and especially if you like football video games.