What do you think?

Now, video games have some competition on the gaming consoles themselves.

The move to movies for both consoles, announced this week, probably isn’t much of a surprise to anyone: Both systems are powerful enough to run whole home entertainment centers. Game Guy guesses that in about two years, with a few more firmware advances, they probably will.

Until then, it will be fun to speculate how much time gamers spend instead watching movies on their systems — and whether home-movie fans switch to traditional game systems for their film-watching. Even better will be the day when you can play movies and games on a console at once (And maybe even watch TV, too).

Give Game Guy your thoughts on this. As always, your input is greatly appreciated.

Today, Electronic Arts’ sports games division unleashes “NCAA Football 09″ on the public, available on PlayStation 3 (with Matt Ryan, formerly of Boston College on the box cover), PlayStation 2 (DeSean Jackson, formerly of California), PlayStation Portable (Owen Schmitt of West Virginia), Xbox 360 (Darren McFadden, formerly of Arkansas) and Wii (Michigan State mascot Sparty).

This is the 12th edition of “NCAA Football,” but the franchise had other names in its first few years in the early 1990s. Since then, it has evolved from just a digital board game into a high-definition extravaganza containing bowl contests, changing weather, screaming fans and remarkable recreations of the players, coaches and stadiums.

Some gamers would argue that a lot of those additions were largely cosmetic, reflecting more what game developers could do with new technology than actually advancing the franchise. But EA seems to think version 09 has enough fine-tuning to make it “the” game to play in this long-running series.

Among the additions this time:

* Gamers can more easily string together combinations of ball-carrier moves, such as jukes, spins and hurdles.

* An improved tackling engine, for better defensive realism and responsiveness.

* Controller rumble (for PS3 and Xbox 360) during critical moments in away games and “pre-play confusion,” with squiggly lines on player routes as performance pressure mounts.

* A “quarterback quiz” following pick-offs, requiring gamers to identify the in-game defensive set that led to the interception. Passing the quiz without help restores the quarterback’s composure to what it was before the pick-off.

* An “ice the kicker” feature, allowing timeouts to be called just before crucial kicks.

* Customized stadium sounds, allowing gamers to download their own music and sound effects to create a special stadium atmosphere.

* Authentic recreations of campus newspapers covering the games in addition to ESPNEWS reports.

* The ability to return missed field goals, design a dynasty during online play, find out instantaneously the real-time information on player prospects, and many other features.

* Not to mention an “All-Play” capability for Wii that scales the intensity and complexity according to a gamer’s skill.

We tried out “NCAA Football 09″ for a few days here at Game Guy HQ, and we’re almost ready to announce our verdict. Check out this space to see the review, coming soon.

You’d think the Sony CEO, or anybody in that job, is deftly perceptive of public interaction with the gaming-hardware market. After all, his company’s PlayStation 3 mostly-for-gaming console has been locked in a consumer appreciation battle with Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Nintendo’s Wii since PS3’s birth two years ago. This is a big, hairy, sweaty battle, with lots of money and corporate prestige involved.

To date, Sony has come out on the short end of both. PS3 has finished third in quarterly sales against the other two consoles almost its whole existence. Only very recently has it begun gaining ground against Xbox 360. But both remain far behind Wii, which retailers constantly have trouble keeping in stock.

According to market researcher NPD Group, the Wii sold 2.8 million consoles through this May, compared to 1.2 million for PS3 and 1.12 million for Xbox 360.

Apparently, Stringer doesn’t see this as a problem. In fact, he doesn’t even consider Wii on the same playing field. And maybe that ought to worry the rest of the people at Sony.

Last week, during a conference in Idaho, Stringer went as far to say that Wii and PS3 aren’t even competitors — that Nintendo’s motion-sensitive system is “more of an expensive niche game device,” while PS3 is “still the best way to buy a Blu-ray player.”

A major reason for PS3’s sales boost came after the high-definition optical storage technology HD DVD was scrapped in February, giving rival technology Blu-ray control of the market. The end of HD DVD quashed consumers’ concerns that they might make the wrong choice too soon and wind up with obsolete technology.

Blu-ray player prices spiked upward subsequent to HD DVD’s demise — except for PS3, which remained at $400 per device, making it the least expensive Blu-ray player on the market.

Nice try, Mr. Stringer, bringing up the Blu-ray nudge. But that misses the point. It seems that nobody who bought a Wii cares about Blu-ray. These people are not content just sitting around watching movies; they also want to play interactive games that make them get up and stretch, bend, swing their arms and dance. And they like having all this interactivity for a comparatively low price: about $250 per Wii console. (Wii does not contain high-definition playback technology.)

Call any game retailer and they have plenty of “Metal Gear Solid 4″ for PS3 in stock, but only back orders for titles such as as “Wii Fit,” with its touch-sensitive peripheral balance board and wide variety of built-in active mini-games that encourage players to do much more than just work their thumbs.

Game developers certainly see where this trend is going, and that’s why they have reworked many popular Xbox and PS3 titles for use on Wii systems. That means any copy of, say, “Wall-E” bought for Wii instead of PS3 is money out of Sony’s pocket.

Stringer can sit on his hands and hope for time and gravity to work in his favor, but consumers enjoy innovation and tend to reward the companies that do as well with their loyalty — and their cash.

For his and Sony’s sake, Stringer better hope there’s some truth to the rumors that the new motion-sensitive controller Darwin is PS3-compatible. Otherwise, Wii won’t be just some “niche device,” it’ll be the reason he has to open his golden parachute.

This week, gamers everywhere put down their controllers for a few days to see what comes out E3, the annual big show for gaming and software in Los Angeles. The invitation-only convocation starts Monday

In the past, E3 — once known as the Electronic Entertainment Expo — was a huge, sprawling, loud trade show for almost everything tech- and game-related. Out of it spilled some of the biggest announcements in gaming: The first Xbox debuted here in 2001; a year later, Xbox Live followed. In 2005, the public received its first close look at PlayStation 3.

The show’s a bit smaller now, to eliminate noise and confusion, but it is no less influential.

However, don’t expect huge news this time around. There’s no “Halo 3″-level game anticipated; no Wii-like technical innovation likely. Microsoft already spilled the beans on its Xbox 360 price cut, so that’s off the table. Potential newsmakers include “Gears of War 2,” “Rock Band 2″ and its rival “Guitar Hero 4,” which now becomes more like RB by adding a drum set.

And we’ve all heard about Darwin.

But do not fear, Game Guy will keep his ear to the ground, trying to pick out details you might find interesting and valuable, hoping like you that the coming year offers more than just an expensive stack of sequels.

It’s called Darwin, and it’s a motion-sensitive game controller rumored to work with Microsoft’s Xbox 360, and maybe Sony’s PlayStation 3. Manufacturer Motus Games unveiled the two-part device Friday, after months of speculation over what Motus was doing with the thing during product development. Guestimates put Darwin’s market debut at a year from now.

Darwin mimics Nintendo’s Wii motion controller in function but distinguishes itself with a key technical difference: Darwin reportedly relies on sensors that orient it to magnetic north for determining location relative to the game console. (Wii’s controller works with infrared radiation.)

Videos posted at Motus’ website show that Darwin works in one piece as a long wand — good for simulating a golf club, it seems — or in two parts with separate sets of directional and power control buttons.

At first glance, the tube shape might afford better grip than Wii’s plastic rectangle, but Game Guy wonders how easy it will be to adapt to a bunch of extra controls, some of which seem positioned to create confusion. More interesting though is the idea of a wand that takes direction from the Earth’s magnetic field. That suggests you could carry Darwin with you from console to console, anywhere in the world, and it would work just as well without first going through a lengthy setup sequence.

We’ll see what happens at E3, where Darwin is sure to draw a crowd. It might even make a monkey out of Wii’s wand.

WSJ’s report, dated today, follows rampant speculation of the discount throughout the blogosphere in recent weeks. The rumors were fueled by several game blogs publishing images said to prove that major electronics retailers were preparing advertising circulars with the discount mentioned.

Microsoft had cut Xbox 360 Pro’s price before — by almost $50 last August

Now, with E3 approaching, Microsoft needs a public relations boost. Rival Sony’s PlayStation 3 has started selling better in part because Sony’s promoting it as a stand-alone Blu-ray movie player. Demand for Nintendo’s Wii — which does not compare to Xbox 360 or PS3 — continues to outstrip both consoles due to its motion-sensitive technology.

And no new “Halo 3″-level blockbusters are on Microsoft’s calendar this summer.

So, why not offer a price cut? It’s better than nothing.

Now, we have to worry about beating robots at air hockey …

According to Webster’s dictionary, the term “sequel” is defined as “that which follows; a succeeding part; continuation.”

To which Hollywood has added “an attempt to recapture past glory” and more often than not fails to achieve it.

More unfortunate though, now game makers are falling into the same rut, taking successful titles and creating iterations that don’t advance the story so much as show off the latest graphics technology. What results is like adding more frosting to a cake: Slather on too much and the cake, while pretty, can lose appeal.

“Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots” unfortunately gags on its frosting. The game, while a visual tour de force, suffers from too much “watch” and not enough “play,” making Game Guy wonder where the line between movie and game was drawn.

MGS 4, a stealth action first-person shooter, supposedly completes a story arc from director Hideo Kojima dating back nearly 20 years to the first “Metal Gear” game released for the old Nintendo Entertainment System. This latest chapter also stars the character Solid Snake, a mercenary bent on bringing down arch enemy Liquid Snake, Solid’s clone twin. Factoring into the battle is the super-weapon Metal Gear, a walking tank with nuclear launch capabilities.

That simplifies the plot quite a bit. MGS 4 contains a wealth of characters and a winding story line that could be difficult for gamers new to the franchise to follow. It’s set in the near future but incorporates numerous references to past battles in the franchise as well as actual military engagements, so it pays for “Metal Gear” newbies to hit the library and do a little advance reading of history.

MGS 4, despite being a shooter title, also awards points for avoiding conflict through covert activity. Implied, too, is the notion that having a nuclear launch platform walking around freely is somehow, you know, a bad thing. So even though this is a “war” game, there are lessons showing how holding down the trigger isn’t always the best course of action.

But as shooter games go, this one doesn’t have much button-pressing at all. The linear course of the story affords little deviation, and whole blocks of minutes can pass — especially during the initial load sequence — before MGS 4 asks gamers to take action. (Fortunately, the online play demands more action, particularly against trigger-happy opponents.) What ensues then is a long tale filled with beautiful graphics that is more a treat for the eyes than the mind — or the thumbs.

Not that this game won’t have a big audience. The “Metal Gear” franchise has been a best seller over two decades, and devout Gearheads no doubt will embrace MGS 4’s lovingly detailed attempt to tie up plot twists and loose ends strewn back as far as the Reagan administration.

Sequels are like that; they evoke a following regardless of quality. MGS 4 is a beautiful piece of work as games go, but given the price Game Guy kind of wishes he had waited for the movie to come out and paid only $8.50.

Sony has just released firmware upgrade 2.41, a revision of version 2.40 that turned several PS3s into shiny black bricks and forced Sony to withdraw distribution of 2.40 just hours after its release. Version 2.40 initially received good press because Sony promised it would include in-game access to PS3’s system controls and a trophy-award system based on accumulated gaming points.

This latest firmware upgrade merely patches the holes in 2.40 and is not distinctive beyond that. The upgrade to 2.41 is available now through PS3’s “System Update” feature on the start-up menu.

Sony’s not saying what caused the PS3s to crash while running 2.40 or how many were affected. The crashes apparently aren’t fatal though; comatose boxes can be fixed with a call to Sony’s customer support. A fee for repair may be attached though (it might be around three figures), so make your call with wallet in hand.

Or, the repair/replacement might not cost you a thing.