Digital gaming gaining ground

The day when gamers purchase their next video game title from their TV screens or computer monitors rather than driving to their local game store may not be so far off. The Entertainment Merchants Association's annual report showed that in 2010, while U.S. consumers purchased 71% of their video games in disc format, 44% bought them digitally.

This steady climb of digital distribution is expected to reach 58% by 2013. There's no doubt that both formats have their pros and cons, but despite those who believe that disc-based video games will eventually become overrun, some believe that it won't necessarily come to that.

"The home entertainment industry should be encouraged by the strong consumer support for packaged media demonstrating that discs and digital content will coexist in the foreseeable future," said EMA president and CEO Bo Andersen.

The EMA's report also showed that home game consoles like Sony's Playstation 3 are fast becoming entertainment centerpieces. U.S. households owning a PS3 used it for playing DVDs and Blu-rays 27% of the time, and downloading or streaming movies, like Netflix, 13% of the time. Forty percent of Microsoft's Xbox 360's time was also used for non-gaming.

Whether gamers choose to stick with shiny disc and plastic case or download them directly to their console or PCs...sometimes, a game is still just a game.

E3 2011

E3 2011 is in full swing with tons of announcements, trailers and demos from the industry's leading game developers, and Level Up is in the thick of it!

Microsoft looking to explore new possibilities of interactive hardcore gaming with Kinect and Xbox Live; Sony making a comeback from the recent PSN outage with a lineup of hit games and a new handheld system, the Playstation Vita; Nintendo look to satisfy both hardcore and casual gamers to push interactive gaming further with its console, the Wii U coming in 2012; not to mention lots of anticipated titles from third party developers, there's a lot to look forward to in the world of gaming.

Stay tuned for more info from our guys on the floor coming soon!

Tips and Advice from the Experts at Level Up: Set Up your media server!

Video Game consoles have been around for years. What's changed? Pretty much everything, but most notably is the fact that gaming consoles have evolved from merely playing games to providing a powerful media and communications device for your family.

If you own today's Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 you can link it your home computer to share all of your videos, music and pictures. You can access the internet, or use your game system to video chat and send messages. Services like Hulu Plus which provides the most popular pre-recorded television shows, Netflix which provides on-demand movies from all your favorite studios and other services like Crackle, Vudu, Last.fm and many more provide unlimited media content on demand. Built-in photo gallery, media players and browser applications as well as many upcoming new apps will unleash a whole new experience for your gaming console.

Some of the services mentioned above are provided on a monthly fee base such as Netflix and Hulu-Plus which start at only $7.99 but in my opinion are well worth it. In fact I am very close to cutting the cable service at home all together.
Services like media share and message and video chat however are free. Here is how to set up your media share service.
1)First you must have a PC with Windows XP or higher installed.
2)You also need to have Windows Media Player (this comes pre-installed on all windows pc's) or another media server program like PS3 media player installed. The process is about the same. For this example we will use Windows Media Player Version 12 and Windows 7 OS.
3)You must have your PS3 or Xbox 360 connected to your Home Network either by using an Ethernet Cable or a Wireless connection.
4)Open your Windows Media Player and activate sharing. With Windows Media Player 12 you would click on the STREAM button and select Automatically Allow Devices to play my media.
5)You will then see a a list of all Media compatible devices that are connected to your home network.  Your Xbox or PS3 will show on the listed devices found.  (Note: your game system needs to be turned on in-order for it to be discover.)
6)Next go to your game system and view Media Library on your Xbox 360 or go to Video, Music or Pictures drop down menus on PS3, you will see Windows Media Player logo if you click on it you can see all your pics, videos and music and play them right from your console.

Viola! You now can view and enjoy all the media you have stored on your home computer through your Game Console and Big Screen.
Remember that not all formats are supported by Windows media player or your game systems built-in media player. But you will find that the most common formats will work just fine. Some of the most common formats are WMV, MP3 and MP4, .AVI.
So if you haven't already explored your game systems potential, I strongly recommend you give these tools a try and see what your game system is really capable of.

Submitted by
Jerry Abreu