CES

We've long dreamed of a day when we could download freshly released movies to our TVs, and now, that day has arrived... but with a steep price! PRIMA Cinema gave us some hands-on time with their product, and it's an amazing service for anyone who can't make it to their local cineplex on opening weekend to see the latest, greatest releases. The cost? A cool $35,000 for the primary unit and remote fingerprint reader, plus an additional $500 per viewing, or a TBD annual fee for an unlimited subscription. Now, that seems astronomical, we know. However, it's chump change next to the cost of installing professional projection equipment (which can run well over $100K). In addition to those equipment costs, you also have to be on a super secret screener list called the "Bel-Air Circuit" that gives access to first-run theatrical releases. Oh, and that circuit is per studio, and even if you make one studio's list, it doesn't guarantee you'll be placed on any other studio's list. Hollywood heavy hitters like Ari Emanuel, George Clooney, and Les Moonves are all on the list, so if you're expecting an invitation, don't hold your breath.

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I admit it: I'm crazy about Mass Effect 3's voice command potential. I tried it out at CES 2012 this year, and found the feature to be much more than a gimmick. X-Play likes it too, as you can see from the below video in which Jessica Chobot takes a look at Mass Effect 3 for Kinect.

Click the cut for an even more in-depth look at Kinect-powered Mass Effect 3 under the cut.

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As nerds, we are constantly beset by an insatiable technolust; one that can be fed but never satisfied. There’s always a cooler TV, a better console, a crisper speaker; and then the next best thing hits a month later. Nowhere is this lust harder to subdue than on the floor of CES, where I was surrounded on all sides by an unimaginable collection of the coolest new technologies imaginable. So like any good nerd, I began fantasizing about which electronics I would put in my game room at home and before long I had built the perfect gaming room. You know, for a month or two.

Samsung UNES8000 – The Big Picture

I’ve long been a fan of Samsung TVs, and am grateful to see they are committed to constantly improving their design. Their newest TV revealed at CES 2012, the UNES8000 is as sleek and sexy as many of their current lineup but with some major changes. The TV comes with a standard LED screen that will support 3D viewing. The screen is gorgeous and comes almost all the way to the end—with only a paper thin border around the outside.

But by far the most promising feature is the Kinect-esque camera subtly placed on the top of the TV. I was told the camera reads faces and hand motions in order to carry out functions. Essentially it will be a Kinect for every moment you don’t have your Xbox on—and it will allow for one less controller cluttering up your coffee table. As the centerpiece of the perfect living room, the TV is obviously the one thing you can’t screw up. And Samsung apparently knows it.

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There’s no denying that Mad Catz has "second run" reputation to many seasoned gamers. The Mad Catz controller was the one your mom mistakenly bought for you for Christmas and the one you always made you friends use when they came over to play N64. Recently, however, the company has been working hard to turn around their  reputation of making second-class controllers. And with this year’s lineup, they’re on the right path.

The first peripherals I saw were Mad Catz’ latest line of fight sticks for both Street Fighter X Tekken and SoulCalibur V. The fight sticks are both designed to the specifications of Capcom and Namco’s button/stick layouts, and even the buttons are placed at just the right angle to resemble the original arcade machines. Designed for comfort and stability, the sticks offer a nice wrist rest and feature sturdy (and for some smaller gamers, a bit too heavy) construction.

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A lot of the gaming products at CES seem designed to smash your face in with awesomeness, whether it’s garish 3D OEM televisions or never-seen before tablet-devices, but Haptic tech company ViviTouch’s impressive technology is more subtle, but portends huge changes in the way we will play games.

The company behind ViviTouch (Artificial Muscle, a subsidiary of Bayer MaterialScience) is doing something really cool with an aspect of gaming you most likely take for granted: The rumble pack. If you’re a cutting edge gamer, you probably play games on a 1080p television, with sound provided by a 7.1 Dolby stereo system, but the rumble technology on your controller is essentially the same as it was 15 years ago on the PlayStation One – just an on-off switch that shakes your palm. ViviTouch, on the other hand, aims to translate thousands of sensations into a “versatile language of feedback.”

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Every year, the Consumer Electronics Show brings the latest and greatest technical innovations together under one roof. In some cases, the products shown are far-off concept demonstrations, designed to help us invision what our lives might be like using that type of product in the future, and others are things that will be on store shelves in a matter of weeks. Regardless of the timing, CES always gets us excited for what's to come, whether it be right around the corner or tens of years in the making.

While we're still waiting on flying cars and a food replicator that will make you a hamburger out of nothing, there were still a lot of very impressive gadgets showcased at CES 2012. While most of these were aimed at improving the household or enhancing entertainment offerings, it got us thinking about what would happen if they were applied to the world of gaming. Below, we've compiled a list of CES 2012 innovations which, if utilized correctly, could change the gaming industry in the future.

Echo Nest Teams With Twitter 

What It Is: Echo Nest is the company behind the popular music app Spotify. They've teamed up with Twitter in order to integrate tweets into music apps. For example, if you were listening to The Decemberists, you might get tweets from lead signer Colin Meloy.

What it could mean for gaming: Imagine that while you're downloading the latest Gears of War map pack, you're seeing tweets from famed Epic developer Cliff Bleszinski, or even other game devs who are tweeting about Gears. Sony and Microsoft seem keen on cramming Twitter in wherever they can, and this is just about the most useful application of the service we can think of. It's targeted, relevant, and actually helpful, all things that Twitter is generally not known for. See? We're already making strides towards a utopia!

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Alan Wake's American Nightmare is not just a cookie cutter sequel of Remedy Entertainment's cult hit Alan Wake. The direction of the upcoming title takes a drastic shift in tone from the first game and it will now be a downloadable title only available on XBLA. We got to check out American Nightmare at CES 2012, here's a snippet from our latest preview.

Remedy has gotten creative with their shadowy ghouls, and during just these two levels I saw a number of the new monsters sure to spook even the most sound of mind. The Spliter—predictably—splits in two every time it’s hit with your beam of light, forcing you to kill it off quickly or risk being overwhelmed. The Grenadier is the first Alan Wake enemy to actually run away from the player, throwing shadowy grenades behind him. There is also a massive monster of a man carrying a buzz saw while seemingly taking no damage. And as dawn approached in the ghost town, a creature who split into a flock of deadly black birds haunted me restlessly.

Grab your flashlight and read our entire Alan Wake's American Nightmare preview.

CES may provide the chance to look at the latest gadgets, but it also gives us a preview of upcoming videogames, which, let's be honest, is why we're all here.

In this preview, TheFeed's own Stephen A. Johnson takes a look at the upcoming Xbox Live Houseparty title I Am Alive. From Steve's preview:

"The plot of this downloadable, third-person game is bare bones and basic: Some unspecified cataclysm involving earthquakes has struck the planet and killed nearly everyone, and the main character must traverse a dangerous, nightmare-scape in a quest to reunite with his wife and child. Not a terribly original concept, but an affecting one nonetheless.

Now, you might be expecting zombies, or aliens, but nope. I Am Alive is survival-horror without the supernatural. Enemies are simply other people, driven to madness and extremes by a worldwide collapse. It’s not cheery, but it’s a powerful idea. Think Cormac McCarthy’s The Road instead of The Road Warrior."

Check out the rest of Steve's I Am Alive CES 2012 Preview.

I admit that I was extremely skeptical about Razer's Project Fiona PC gaming tablet when I first heard about it, but after seeing it run The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim on ultra high settings I must say that I'm really impressed. Tech blog Destructoid got a video of the tablet playing Skyrim on ultra high settings at 1280x800 resolution and while it did have a few framerate issues, once they turned the game down to high settings it ran perfectly. Just watch this video for confirmation.



I still think that the design of the tablet is a bit whack, but I'm almost speechless to see the device running such a demanding game so flawlessly. I've definitely taken a new stance on Project Fiona after seeing this impressive tech demo.

If you want to know more about the PC gaming tablet, check out our own hands-on impressions of Project Fiona from CES 2012.

Source: Destructoid via VG247

I’m going to tell you a story about an impressive, overclocked computer for gamers that I saw at CES 2012, so sit back and enjoy the tale of Origin’s new Genesis PC, a computer so powerful, it bends both space and time. Well, maybe not that powerful, but definitely powerful enough to play Crysis 2 at full settings. 

Boasting 12 Gigs of RAM, an EVGA 3GZB GTX580 graphics card, and running an Intel Core 3960X 3.3 GH Hex-Core processor overclocked to 5.3GHz-5.7GHz, the Genesis is one powerful machine. So powerful, it’s cooled to -40 degrees by Origin’s “Cryogenic Liquid Cooling” system, presumably to prevent it from spontaneously bursting into flames.

• DETAILS: Hands-On Impressions Of The ROCCAT Kone[+] Mouse And Isku Keyboard From CES 2012

In trying to express the power of the PC, Origin COO and co-founder Hector Penton, and CEO and co-founder Kevin Wasielewski quoted stats and benchmark test numbers that were surprisingly impressive.

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We've been hard at work covering CES 2012, but no one has been putting in more hours looking at gadgets than Attack of the Show's Kevin Pereira.

In the video below, he shares some of his favorite products and innovations from CES 2012 including the amazing Samsung Super OLED TVs that stretch from edge-to-edge, the Lytro Light Field Camera that revolutionizes the way we think about photography, and the Aurasma Augmented Reality App that allows you to overlay multimedia onto everyday objects.

Kevin talks about all of these things and more. Check it out!

50 Cent loves high quality audio like a fat kid loves cake. The latest rapper to get into the headphone hardware business (behind Dr. Dre and Ludacris) showed off Sync by 50 Cent, his new line of premium headphones at CES 2012.

Via a partnership with SMS Audio, the rapper has been able to bring to life his vision of wireless headphones that would allow you to link up to four pairs to a single audio device. They're also unbreakable. I'll allow fiddy to explain while I go and enjoy a refreshing Vitamin Water.
 

Ultrabooks are all the rage at CES 2012, and in this video, Attack of the Show's Kevin Pereira looks at the HP Envy 14 Spectre Ultrabook. The Envy is made from real glass front to back, and it's only 20 millimeters thick. As if that wasn't enough, it has Beats by Dre audio built in.

But. . .but that's not all! Kevin also checks out the new iHome iDM5 iPad dock with a built-in keyboard. Watch the video to get all the details.
 

Our intrepid reporter Jessica Chobot is extremely dedicated to her job. We sent her to CES 2012 with one mission: to help us showcase the latest and greatest gadgets the tech industry has to offer. So far, she's done a bang-up job, and in this segment, Jessica takes a look at the new android phone the RAZR MAXX, the Samsung Super OLED HDTV, and an LG refridgerator that has a blast chiller that will cool down a warm soda in only five minutes.

Jessica also gets her hands on the PlayStation Vita, Sony's new handheld console due out in February. She and Sony's portable devices have a torrid past. Will Jessica's love affair continue with the Vita? Watch the video to find out!
 

With so many streaming entertainment options flooding the marketplace, Sony is trying to make its mark with the NSZ-GS7 Media Player with Google TV. Boasting a host of features including web browsing and picture-in-picture, the media player's real strength lies in the impressive Google TV remote. Equipped with a full QWERTY keyboard, a touchpad that supports gestures, and a microphone for voice commands, the Google TV remote may be a streaming accessory to be reckoned with.

Don't believe me? Watch Kevin explain the features in the video below, live from the floor of CES 2012. He also takes a look at the new Toshiba Excite X10 Tablet, which is on the the thinnest and lightest tablet offerings ever, and a steal at under $600.

If you're not impressed with both of these products, I'll eat my shoes.*
 

*I like my shoes very much, but not enough to actually eat them.